Silly Bandz are just a silly trend to ignore

Silly Bandz. Perhaps your siblings have them. Perhaps your friends have them. Maybe even you have them. Everywhere you look, you seem to see them. Are Silly Bandz taking over the world?

For those who don’t know about this overwhelming trend, Silly Bandz are colored rubber bands that collectors wear around their wrists.

They come in all sorts of shapes: animals, words, letters. Some look like dinosaurs, Marvel comic super heroes, or guitars. There is even (most frighteningly) a pack of Silly Bandz with the theme “Justin Bieber.”

As innocent as these colored rubber bands may seem, they are becoming a growing problem in schools. Silly Bandz are highly popular among young kids, and in school, can serve as a huge distraction. Kids trade them, fling them, and snap them at other students during class.

Although it’s concerning enough that they are distracting, what bothers me the most is that they have become such a huge trend. In fact, it seems to me as though Silly Bandz are turning America’s youth into conformists.

Kids as young as kindergarten-age are seeing their friends wearing Silly Bandz, and they want to wear them too. I feel like overnight, half the population is suddenly doing exactly the same thing.

Surprisingly, some people argue that Silly Bandz promote individuality. If you are a musical person, there are music notes, guitars, and microphones. If you like baseball, there’s a baseball pack with a cap, a glove, a bat, and more.

However, when a Silly Band is around a person’s wrist, the shape is no longer seen – it just looks like any other Silly Band, destroying the individuality argument the second the collector slips it on.

It’s impossible for a person to be an individual when every person around them is wearing exactly the same thing. Rather than Silly Bandz showing off individuality, it causes people to blend into the crowd.

It can also be argued that there have been dozens of trends just like Silly Bandz. What about friendship necklaces, snap bracelets, American Idol, vampires? The fact is, there have always been trends, and right now, Silly Bandz are one of the biggest and most obvious.

Perhaps what is most disturbing to me about Silly Bandz is how they are so prominent among young people. It is very important for kids to grow up learning how to be their own person, rather than following the crowd.

It is my hope that trends such as Silly Bandz fall into the past. I hope to see that kids, and even my fellow college students who have fallen into the trap that is Silly Bandz, learn to break free of the mold.