Terry Sarten: Catch a passing fad and put it in your pocket

Remember when "Kilroy was here"?

If you did, you would know it was a fad for American troops in World War II to daub this on walls all over Europe. Nobody knows who the original Kilroy was or where it was first noted but it often seemed to be already on the walls of towns when Allied troops rolled in.

The same era saw the fad and fade of swallowing goldfish and the Zoot suit. In the '50s the rotation of fads included pet rocks and spud guns, then in the '60s it was lava lamps and tie-dyed T-shirts.

Since then the speed and turnover of fads has gathered momentum and they seem to come and go in a flash with little time to absorb the fun. The digital age provides us with a dizzying parade of fads that are welcomed with the clarion call of "is this a thing?"

It certainly seems to be a First World "thing" that comes with moving beyond the demands of day-to-day survival. Once Maslow's hierarchy of needs has been met then people have time to consider the creation of fads, whether it be in music, art, fashion, film, furniture or gadgetry.

Some fads grow and mature into actual movements. Some return, reborn as recycled ideas shaped by nostalgia into retro fashions but most have a short lifespan and die of natural causes.

The pet rock lasted as long as it took people to grasp that silly could be fun till it was exposed as ridiculous and a new fun idea grabbed attention. Once capitalism discovered the selling power of counterculture, the Che Guevara icon was on everything from T-shirts to tea towels. The recent attempt by the fashion industry to con people into believing that bell-bottoms are back has failed because they looked silly then and time has not diminished our grasp of this fact. (Full disclosure: I had a pair when I was 17 and thought they were very cool which shows how delusional a passing fad can make us.)

Now the term "fad" seems to stand for Fleeting Attention Disorder as so many of them compete for our participation with all their whirling, swirling dance through the media - here one minute and gone the next - exhausted by the expenditure of so much energy. In the time it takes for something to be considered "a thing" it can be relegated to the scrap heap of redundant ideas as we move relentlessly on in search of the next one.

Fads can be harmless fun. Remember sideburns. Daft but relatively harmless.

There was time to scrutinise, enjoy and move on at our leisure but now fads gather momentum at incredible speed as they compete for our attention and this can be misleading, even dangerous. Chasing and trying to keep up with the passing parade of diets and fitness crazes requires considerable energy as they appear, often touted by enthusiastic celebrities, and then suddenly vanish at the first hint of scientific scrutiny. Fads for stupid drinking games last as long as it takes for someone to be seriously hurt.

Fads go through boom and bust cycles faster than Auckland house prices. One minute it is a thing and everyone wants one and then, kaboom, it's all over and people are realising the wisdom of buying a villa in Whanganui.

-Terry Sarten is a Whanganui-based writer, musician, social worker and satirista fadinista. Feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz.