#fads

The modern avatar of overconsumption is clearly Funko Pops.

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Am I physically restraining you from buying plastic crap that ends up in a landfill? Are you walking around naked, because I'm stopping you from buying 100 pieces of clothes per day and wearing them once?? Is my criticism of the cosmetic industry making you feel bad about how you look???

Life magazine - June 1939.

It's not a Kellogg reference - not directly anyway. Kellogg is remembered because it was one of the few lasting things that emerged from an otherwise sprawling wellness fad. There were mineral spring, hot spring, and medicinal spring resorts, spas, retreats, and hotels all over the US in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some were small and are all but forgotten to time. Some ended up with whole towns built up around them. Ultimately, the trend dried up as trends do, making way for the next thing. Its end may have been hastened somewhat by the government cracking down more forcefully on snake oil medicine starting in the 1900s, though. No doubt some people gained some easily explained benefit from vacationing away from city air thick with coal dust to relax in a naturally occurring pool, but some facilities were also doing things like bottling and selling such waters without proper sanitization, and claiming it had vague yet miraculous curative properties. Here are the ruins at Welch Spring - one such example in the Ozarks. It's an off-the-beaten-path place I went to check out while the pandemic was at its peak.

A Tamagotchi only leaves you with wistful nostalgia – and a teeny, tiny bit of trauma from when it died – rather than missing body parts and lifelong medical issues.