Silly Bandz Gone Wild
My son’s shirt is stuck on his arm, and he wiggling like crazy. “Take off the bracelets, so I can get your shirt on!” I say in frustration.
“I can not take them off, they are in the right order,” he answers in equal frustration.
Ugh. Silly Bandz. They are piled up to my son’s elbow, they are littered all over the couch and I find them in every nook and cranny of his room. We started with one pack of 10 and now there are hundreds. Do they spawn in the dark?
He seems to hand them out with abandon and yet return with even more. There is even a groove in his neck from wearing the silicone bracelet as a necklace. Whenever I look at them I am seized with a form of envy that someone is making millions, maybe billions, off of the shaped bracelets that must cost pennies to make.
How big are Silly Bandz? Big enough to be in the Guinness Book of World Records, big enough to be a world-wide phenomenon, big enough to drive schools and parents crazy. When will this trend end??
One of the local school has already banned the bracelets. They sent home this note in the newsletter:
Silly Bands Update: At our school staff meeting this week it was unanimously agreed to ban Silly Bands in the classroom. Silly Bands will be allowed at school on Fridays only and will be expected to stay in the backpack except at recess and lunch times. Thank you for supporting us with this new policy.
Obviously Silly Bandz, and all of the dollar store knock offs, are causing an uproar in class. I’m not sure if it is the trading, or the fiddling or the jealousy of non-bandz wearers. But it’s obviously an issue.
The fad had already burned through the States before it hit Canada. When we were in New York this summer a teacher on the subway told my son that his school had been one of the first in the city to ban them, and it was a huge relief. (Aside: I love how people talk to you on the NY subway but it freaked the kids out.) My son was stunned and just stared at his brand new purchase.
We’ve seen some crazes happen before: there was the Pokémon cards and the Gogos. But this one crosses gender lines and can morph and incorporate new themes. My son was very popular when he got some Justin Bieber ones and can discuss the trends regarding tie-die, glow-in-the-dark and Hello Kitty. Now the inevitable Nintendo DS game is coming to a home near you. I assume that one will be in the sale bin soon enough.
But when will it end? And what is next?
Does your child go silly for Silly Bands?
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photo courtesy of istock
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