Hot or not? Throughout the years, CHS students have lived through fads that come and go. Next year will probably be no different—so let’s enjoy this year’s fads while they’re still hot. Here is a look back to the top 12 fads of 2012:
The Walking Dead: The AMC TV show, based on the Walking Dead comic book, tells the story of a police officer and a small group of survivors in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Although, the hit show premiered October 2010, this year, more and more people have been tuning to the show which airs Sundays at 9 p.m.According to a Hollywood Reporter article, the show’s October 2012 season premiere collected 10.9 million total viewers—the highest-rated episode in the series’ history. This made the episode the “biggest” broadcast for any drama series in basic cable history.
11. Ombré: “Ombré” means colors or shades that fade into each other, especially from light to dark. This past year, ombré has been used to refer to a popular hairstyle in which someone’s hair fades from one color to another, usually from dark at the top to light at the bottom. Ombré was originally flaunted by several celebrities, including Jessica Alba and Lea Michele, and has since been worn by many teenage girls.
10. Epic Superhero Movies: This past decade, superhero movies, films usually based on comic books about humans with supernatural abilities, made its revival. The popularity of these movies led to the creation of new superhero movies as well as several remakes. In particular, this year, movie fans have flooded the theaters to watch hit movies such as The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider Man.
According to eonline.com, The Avengers is the first movie to make $200 million in three days, destroying the “mark held by the previous record holder, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”
9. Memes: These random pictures contain funny, and at times pointless, phrases or jokes written across them. With free meme generators online, they are easily created and posted throughout the web. Memes have become an Internet phenomenon, spreading from one person to another, and then subjected to alterations. Popular memes like “Condescending Wonka” and “Annoying Facebook Girl,” have gone “viral.” The popular hsmemes.com is a site in which memes are generated by students about inside jokes and experiences of their own schools. One can simply go to hsmemes.com and find CHS-related m
8. Hipster: According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a hipster is “a person who is unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns.” At CHS, it has developed to be a synonym for anti-mainstream, even “cool,” and at times is even used as an adjective. The word has become part of students’ daily vocabulary. Listening to indie music, shopping at vintage stores or wearing oversized “nerd” glasses is often considered “hipster.”
7. Snapchat: This free app allows users to take pictures of themselves to send to their friends for one-time viewing. Users decide how long they want the pictures to be visible, and once the time limit is exceeded, the pictures cannot be re-viewed. Teenagers use this app as a new way to quickly connect with friends by sending funny, sometimes unattractive, “selfies” with humorous captions and drawings on top of the picture.
According to a November 2012 forbes.com article, the Snapchat app is used 30 million times a day.
6. Y.O.L.O: Y.O.L.O. is a common phrase among teenagers that stands for “You Only Live Once.” This acronym was first used in Drake’s October 2011 song, “The Motto,” and has since often been used by kids to justify a crazy or reckless action. For example:
“Should I jump from the roof into the pool?”
“Y.O.L.O.”
5. One Direction: One Direction is an English-Irish boy band formed on the British Version on The X Factor by guest judge Nicole Scherzinger and judge Simon Cowell. Although they placed third on the show, One Direction, nicknamed 1D, quickly soared to the top of the charts and to the top of every girl’s heart. One Direction’s popular songs include “What Makes You Beautiful,” “One Thing” and “Live While We’re Young.”
According to a May 2012 New York Daily News article, One Direction’s first U.S. single, “What Makes You Beautiful,” had the highest charting start for a U.K. band in 14 years, making them Britain’s only hit “teen-scream act” in the United States since the Spice Girls.
According to a celebrity news site, hollywoodlife.com, 1D surpassed teen-heartthrob Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” as the video with the greatest number of views in 24 hours with their video for “Live While We’re Young.”
4. Hashtags (#): Hashtags (words or phrases preceded by a number sign) originated from Twitter in order to group common Twitter posts, called tweets, together. However, notably this year, hashtags can be found almost anywhere one can type. Popular hashtags contain a “#” followed by humorous words or phrases about an idea or topic. Students like to apply these funny hashtags in cyberspace: To Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, but also to situations in real life. For example:
“I broke my new phone and my parents won’t buy me a new one! #richpeopleproblems.”
3. The Hunger Games: Although The Hunger Games trilogy, written by Suzanne Collins, was released September 2008, the novels gained a huge amount of popularity in 2012 in anticipation of the movie, which was released in March. The thrilling trilogy and movie tells the story of a 16-year-old girl, Katniss Everdeen, who voluntarily takes her sister’s place in a fight to the death, and struggles with love as well as staying alive. The movie was a hit and was extremely popular among teenagers.
According to a March 2012 USA Today article, the Hunger Games movie grossed $152.5 million opening night—the third-largest movie debut on record.
2. Instagram: The new Twitter? Perhaps not, but this year, this social network has acquired an enormous amount of enthusiastic users, especially teens.
According to a September 2012 Globalpost article, 7.3 million users logged on to Instagram in the United States in one day in August 2012.
This photo-sharing app allows a person to take photos, alter them and share them. CHS students definitely embraced the growing trend; Instagram photos can easily be found not only on Instagram but also on CHS students’ Facebook and Twitter accounts.
1. “Call Me Maybe”: The smash hit song “Call Me Maybe,” sang by Canadian idol contestant Carly Rae Jepson, debuted March 2012. The song’s popularity has gone worldwide since its debut this year
