Product Code Database
A fad, trend, or craze is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation, or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short time period.
Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short-lived popularity but fade away. Fads are often seen as sudden, quick-spreading, and short-lived events. Fads include fad diet, clothing, hairstyles, toys, and more. Some fads in the last hundred years include toys such as , and , and such as the Macarena, floss and the twist.
Similar to or customs but less durable, fads often result from an activity or behavior being perceived as Popularity or excited state within a peer group, or being deemed "peer pressure" as often promoted by social networks.Kornblum (2007), p. 213. A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase to the point of being noteworthy or going viral. Fads often fade quickly when the perception of novelty is gone.
Though some consider the term trend equivalent to fad, a fad is generally considered a quick and short behavior whereas a trend is one that evolves into a long term or even permanent change.Arena (2001), p. 341.
One way of looking at the spread of fads is through the top-down model, which argues that fashion is created for the elite, and from the elite, fashion spreads to lower classes. Early adopters might not necessarily be those of a high status, but they have sufficient resources that allow them to experiment with new innovations. When looking at the top-down model, sociologists like to highlight the role of selection. The elite might be the ones that introduce certain fads, but other people must choose to adopt those fads.
Others may argue that not all fads begin with their adopters. Social life already provides people with ideas that can help create a basis for new and innovative fads. Companies can look at what people are already interested in and create something from that information. The ideas behind fads are not always original; they might stem from what is already popular at the time. Recreation and style faddists may try out variations of a basic pattern or idea already in existence.
Another way of looking at the spread of fads is through a symbolic interaction view. People learn their behaviors from the people around them. When it comes to collective behavior, the emergence of these shared rules, meanings, and emotions are more dependent on the cues of the situation, rather than physiological arousal. This connection to symbolic interactionism, a theory that explains people's actions as being directed by shared meanings and assumptions, explains that fads are spread because people attach meaning and emotion to objects, and not because the object has practical use, for instance. People might adopt a fad because of the meanings and assumptions they share with the other people who have adopted that fad. People may join other adopters of the fad because they enjoy being a part of a group and what that symbolizes. Some people may join because they want to feel like an insider. When multiple people adopt the same fad, they may feel like they have made the right choice because other people have made that same choice.
A study examined why certain fads die out quicker than others. A marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, Jonah Berger and his colleague, Gael Le Mens, studied baby names in the United States and France to help explore the termination of fads. According to their results, the faster the names became popular, the faster they lost their popularity. They also found that the least successful names overall were those that caught on most quickly.
Robert E. Park, the man who created the term collective behavior, defined it as "the behavior of individuals under the influence of an impulse that is common and collective, an impulse, in other words, that is the result of social interaction". Fads are seen as impulsive, driven by emotions; however, they can bring together groups of people who may not have much in common other than their investment in the fad.
|
|
