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Labubu is having its moment. And in case you've been living under a rock, you should know that le booboo is not Gen Z slang for a lobotomy. It's actually French for an injury. Le booboo. I'm kidding. No hablo francaise. Did you know in France they don't kiss boo boos, they French kiss. Le boo boos dad joke. There's nothing funny about that. I'm talking about the vinyl and plush dolls from popmart that look like the Abominable Snowman Monster had a baby with the Teletubby and maybe he's demon possessed. It's the latest trend people are jumping on. Or more like hanging on their Gucci bag. And it got me thinking. Fads come and go, but people keep spending their money on them. Why? We'll get into that and explain the pattern. These fads keep repeating so you can avoid falling for an expensive trend that will leave you broke and slightly embarrassed by your collection of pog slammers. Talking mostly to myself there, that's embarrassing. Okay, let's take a walk down memory lane and look at a list of the biggest hype bubble crash trends of the past 30 years. Or at least a history lesson for those of you who are not born yet. Just a glimmer in your parents eye. We're gonna start with the 1990s up to the early 2000s. The biggest, hottest one was Beanie Babies. At the height of the craze for these plastic pellet filled plush animals, people were shelling out as much as 300 bucks to get their hands on certain ones. And now piles of them are sold on eBay for three bucks each. So if you bought Beanie Babies as an investment, you might be a millennial and your parents still have them in the attic hoping that you might want them one day. And the Thai company wanted it that way. They even released a Beanie Baby value guide. This thick ban scale. This guide was meant to project future values so you could invest wisely. One Redditor shared the memory of their parents winning the Beanie Baby Princess Diana Bear raffle. Ah, memories of my parents going to an event where they won the Beanie Baby Princess Diana Bear raffle. Winning meant they had the chance to buy the bear for $500. And they did. At the time, we were eating boiled ketchup and cut up hot dogs. So clearly it was a wise financial choice. So many questions. Number one, color me stupid. I didn't know you could boil ketchup. Does that just turn it into Sweet tomato sauce. It was like a Beanie weenie situation, like in the crock pot. Is that what's happening here? Either way, boiled ketchup. Two of my least favorite words put together. It's like eating a hot circle of garbage. In the year 2000, the beanie bubble popped for everyone except one Etsy seller who still thinks they can get $10,783.50 for their used Princess Die bear. $10,873. Fine. The extra 50 cents. Price gouging. It's greed. Corporate greed at its finest. Next up, we've got Tickle Me Elmo, the hottest holiday Toy back in 1996, with insane demand in resale markups. Elmo was released in the summer, and sales were steady through the fall until Black Friday. Sales caused the toy to vanish from shelves. And then celebrities featured the toy on shows and demands skyrocke. This was like the original influencer toy. Some classified ads had Tickle Me elmo's priced at $1,000. Supply caught up and the hype vanished, and it became a cultural icon for the 1996 holiday frenzy, appearing on South Park, Futurama, MADtv, and other shows. Now you can find these plush toys on ebay for about 25 bucks or about 1000 bucks from one Poshmark seller still hoping to make it out unscathed. Next up, a personal favorite from 1998, Furbies. Now, who would want a creature that looks like something from Star Trek mated with a fat bird that also talks to you in a creepy voice? Apparently all of us in the year 1999. Now, again, I owned a Furby at one point, likely against my will. And super creepy when it talks to you when you weren't expecting it. Like in the middle of the night, you're trying to get some shut eye, and it's all eye. Very creepy. How creepy were these things? Well, in 1999, the US government decided Furby was a national security threat because they feared it might record sensitive conversations. So they banned it from places like the NSA headquarters and a naval shipyard. Not all of them, just this particular one. And you gotta wonder, who was the guy at the NSA bringing Furby to work? And the HR was like, hey, man, you know you can't have that here. And he was like, but I gotta have my Furby. Strange times we live in. Also simpler times. Back that was the national security. That's all we had to worry about. Now we all carry smartphones where TikTok is apparently indoctrinating our brains. All right, we are officially in the aughts now. Mid 2000s to the 2010s. We gotta kick it off with Sillyband silicone animal shaped bracelets that kids traded like currency. They collapsed almost overnight. And I remember seeing kids covered in these up to their elbows. And I don't think anyone thought of these as an investment, but they sure dropped some money on them. Enough to give Silly Band's creator, Robert Kroke, a net worth of $25 million. And to be totally truthful, I don't even think they're that silly. And I don't trust anything that ends with a Z. Wings with a Z? No, thank you. Bands with a Z, no, thank you. Let's see what they're going for. In today's craz world, you can get. I gotta go. Let me be fair because I know you guys are gonna me completed and sold so that we can be above reproach here. You can get 80 for 31 bucks, 24 for 6 bucks, 60 of them for 10 bucks, 100 for 15 bucks. So clearly not a great investment trend to jump on. But hey, the kids had a good time and it's still way better than the freaking Jibbitz and the Crocs. Speaking of stupid shoes, we gotta move on to Heelys, which were real hot in the 2000s. If you didn't have friends, at least you had Heelys. That might as well have been their tagline. So these are shoes with wheels in the heel and it was a huge status item if you didn't know any better. But then school started banning them for obvious reasons, I assume for the crime of looking too cool. Rizz factor off the charts. And demand, of course, dropped. But imagine the kid who finally wore their parents down with enough begging and got a pair In August of 2006, right as the ban started hitting. That kid's still in therapy today. Let's see what Heelys are going for today. I'm just curious. I think Heelys are coming back because I gotta be truthful, I saw a coworker, two guys both wearing Heelys, and I thought, is this not like a question in the interview process that HR have you or do you currently own a pair of Heelys? We could have avoided that hire. I'm just saying. All right, size 10 went for. That means a grown man. A size 10 is a grown man who's like, let me get them heelys off eBay. 30 bucks. 25 bucks with free delivery. 25? Yeah. Okay, so anywhere from 15 to 40 bucks, I assume all of these People are unwell and or single. But prove me wrong. Maybe there's a couple out there and what they love to do after dinner is just healy down the sidewalk together as they hold hands. I don't know. Moving on back to the gibbitz. We gotta talk about Crocs now. The first wave hit in the mid 2000s, and they were mocked. After their hype wave, they lost value. But later they made a comeback in the 2000s somehow, I guess. Covid and healthcare workers, and it was like the shoe to wear for safety. I don't know. Even though they're back, I strongly advise you not to buy them. And not because they're worthless, but only because they're hideous. And I know. I see them everywhere. I see them in the airports, I see them in this building. If you're a child wearing Crocs, good for you. If you wear them at home, in your garden, in your backyard, you're not hurting anybody. But if you're a grown adult and you wear Crocs in my vicinity, we're gonna have problems. You might as well be holding a Keurig while you're at it. I'm gonna say it once, then I'm gonna say it twice. Crocs are the boiled ketchup of the shoe world. So if you're gonna boil your ketchup, sure, wear some Crocs while you're at it, you heathen. Well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man. Next up on trends that died a slow death. BlackBerry. Now, if you weren't a businessman in the mid 2000s, you still might remember seeing your dad brandishing one of these puppies and a little case on his belt. I'm not sure if it was technically a smartphone, but it was the smartest phone at the time. These pieces of archaic tech cost about 2 to 300 bucks back in the day. And now you can get one on ebay for. Wait for it, my favorite game. 28 bucks, 10 bucks, 24 bucks, $160. Oh, that's like a smartphone. That's a new one. 32 gigs. What are you gonna store on there? Your trauma. It's not gonna fit, bud. They're not going for much, but I didn't know they have legitimate, like, smartphone looking ones now. Like, they have little apps on there. That's pretty wild. Impressive tech for the time, but they're obsolete now. So here's what BlackBerry did. They created hype around their product by doing things like only allowing instant messaging with other BlackBerry users. That's classic elitism. And Apple wasn't having it because they were like, that's our thing. That's what we're gonna do. So iPhone came out, BlackBerry refused to adapt and they crashed in value. Now, before we get to the modern era of feckless fads, there's something you should know. Just because you delete an account on the Internet doesn't mean that your info is also gone. That's right, your name, age, address, phone relative, social media accounts, occupation, marital status, property value, pass address, photos, and your email address could all still be out there because you entered that info on those little boxes. But the good news is, it doesn't have to stay there. Delete me can remove your personal data from hundreds of data broker websites, saving you tons of work and tons of time and tons of stress. Plus, they'll send you an easy to read report so you know exactly what they did. And right now, because you're a George Camel fan, you can protect your data and get 20% off their annual plans by going to JoinDeleteMe.com George, write it down or just click the link in the description below. Stay safe. All right, back to the fallen fads of the 2000s. Let's talk about Funko Pops. These collectibles include a wide range of characters across pop culture. They generally run for 10 to 15 bucks a pop pun intended. But the rarest one, a Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompa set, sold for $210,000 in 2023, to whom I assume was the most single man in history. But as per usual in these scenarios, Funko Pop overproduced, leading to warehouses full of unsold stock, leading to less interest in the last couple of years. So these days you can find them in stores on eBay for 5, 10, 15, 20 bucks. While some that are rare or signed can go for thousands of dollars, but highly unlikely. That'll be you. Next up, we've got every girl's favorite no leak, Leaky big dumb cup Stanley. Stanley Stanners were willing to claw and trample others for limited edition or pay 5 to 10x the retail price in the resale market. And these are really big in the past couple of years with the trend dying down as of late. Now Stanley should range from 35 to 45 bucks. But as recently as September 8th, someone paid $1,000 for the Halloween Web Glow Special Edition. How did this trend all start? Of course, influencers. But as per usual, the influencer trend dies down. They move on to hawking some other product for some affiliate Link money and the trend continues. Which brings us to the namesake le BooBoo in Popmart blind boxes. Now, back in May of 2025, Rihanna was spotted with the Labubu clipped to a luxury handbag. That's right, riri had a Leboo on her louie. And within hours, TikTok erupted. Searches for Leboo surged, and the Popmart app, which is home to the collectible toy line, hit number one on the U.S. app Store. And of course, resellers jacked up prices, fans started unboxing online, and Popmart's CEO Wang Ning saw his net worth rise by $1.6 billion in a single day. Now, Labubus dangle from designer bags all over trendy cities. So how did popmart pull this off? Well, they package them in blind boxes so customers don't know which doll they're getting. And as they try to collect different versions, they have to try over and over again to get the one they actually want. So they basically gamified Furbies that don't talk, which, honestly, is impressive. Some people even say they've become addicted to the rush of opening a blind box, which is similar to gambling. Scarcity is also a factor here. There are news articles all about how to increase your chances of snagging a Labubu when batches are released. And unfortunately, Labubus are still on trend right now for some ungodly reason. But beware of the counterfeits called Le Fufus. I don't want to be in this timeline either, guys, okay? I'm just reporting the facts here. Facts are meaningless. A small blind box can set you back about 20 bucks if you can get it at retail price. But the larger ones can go upwards of 1,000 bucks or even $10,000 on eBay. And one human sized Labubu sold at auction in Beijing for over $150,000. But I fully expect and pray that we can find these at Goodwill within the next six to 12 months and the trend will die. Because I just. I don't like looking at them, all right? I think they're demonic and they know something. They see something. Dead people. But see, they don't know that we know that they know. So have you seen a pattern yet? Here's the formula. These fading fads all follow scarcity. Plus some slick marketing hype equals viral popularity, which leads to resellers jacking up prices to insane levels until oversupply or loss of novelty ends in a big car over the Cliffside crash. So why are people still falling for this? Why are they still buying this stuff? Here's my take. There's a whole lot of FOMO happening here mixed with trying to fit in, trying to be popular, trying to flex, maybe even trying to get rich quick, which leads to impulsive purchases on crap we don't need to impress people we don't like. Or maybe greed. And the smart, frugal people not buying these things, they're too busy building actual wealth instead of trying to prop up their social status or make a quick buck. But the moral is, if you're chasing a trend to stay relevant, you're not a cool kid. Rihanna is already cool. Releasing 14 number one hit songs makes you cool, not owning a Labubu. So if you follow the trends, you will eventually fall for the traps. Wealthy people spend money on things that actually appreciate in value over decades, like stock market investments and real estate. Not the stuff that we talked about today. So let me know in the comments section. Are there fads that you think are ridiculous that people spend money on? Drop it below and I'll try to respond to as many as I can. And if you Want to learn 17 more things Frugal people don't buy, watch this video coming up next. Click here or use the link in the description and if you enjoyed this video, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button and share this video with someone in your life who still is wearing Heelys as an adult. They need an intervention now.