History PopularityPolynomial / RealLife

*** In the interest of posterity, it is only fair to note that in the subsequent general election (2019), Labour ended up getting the result that pundits had ''expected'' them to get in 2017, suffering their worst result since the 1930s, with even some constituencies that had only ever had Labour MPs since their inception electing Conservative candidates. One lesson which commentators have remarked upon is that ''policy'' tends to be more appealing than ''ideology'' and while Labour had a large raft of individual policies which were popular by themselves, voters had a hard time figuring out what their ''priorities'' were, while the Conservative campaign linking everything to the very direct "Get Brexit Done" slogan left much less room for doubt.

* Creator/AdamWest. In the late 1960s, he was a primetime TV star and the actor charged with bringing Series/Batman1966 back to life after being crippled by UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode. Head to the '80s and the return of the [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Knight]], and West is a ''persona non grata'', firmly stuck as a reminder of what was then seen as an AudienceAlienatingEra of Batman. This is lampshaded in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', in which a character based on and voiced by West is portrayed as a washed-up has-been matinee idol remembered only by hardcore fans. But toward the end of his life, he was a staple voice actor in comedies such as ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' [[AdamWesting precisely because of his history as Batman]] and trademark [[LargeHam overdramatic voice]]. Adam West's particular incarnation of Batman has enjoyed repopularization via the light-hearted ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' and the comic book ''ComicBook/Batman66'', as well as a general reappraisal of the 60s series itself, with it being appreciated for the AffectionateParody that it is. West's death in 2017 caused much more public sadness than it likely would have a decade previously.

* The Yo-Yo. More like Popularity Sinusoid. It really ''does'' come around that regularly.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Which is fitting, when you think about it]].
** At one point, this was because the Coca Cola Company gave yo-yos a marketing push about every three years or so.
* Ventriloquism was once considered the deadest of all show business horses, since every new act would be [[ToughActToFollow inevitably compared to]] Edgar Bergen (or at least to [[PoorMansSubstitute Paul Winchell]]). Then all of a sudden Creator/JeffDunham came along, and earned his own TV special after several sold-out performances. Terry Fator also has his own Las Vegas show.

* At the dawn of TheNineties, most observers in the computer world had given up UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} for dead, due to the fragmentation among vendors and the GNU Project's [[DevelopmentHell slowness in developing a free replacement]]. Then a Finnish grad student by the name of Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel to the Internet. It was rapidly adopted by GNU and various Linux distributions (though Richard Stallman [[InsistentTerminology prefers you call it "GNU/Linux", thank you very much]]), have provided a viable alternative to Windows and Mac operating systems. Open source systems based on BSD also popped up in the early '90s (Mac OS X is based in part on [=FreeBSD=].) They're most successful as servers and in high-powered applications such as animation rendering and supercomputers.
* The programming language Lisp had been considered dead ever since the "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Winter AI Winter]]" caused all the funds for artificial intelligence research (which was the field most Lisp programmers worked in) to dry up. The language has seen a revival of interest, however, in The TurnOfTheMillennium and TheNewTens largely thanks to Paul Graham.

* Mime. Yes, mime. It was considered a great source of entertainment about a century ago, when it contributed so much of the humor in vaudeville, the circus, and (of course) silent movies. Then "talkies" came along in the late 1920s, and suddenly mime comedy was a joke (as depicted in ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' and elsewhere). There were a few holdouts, of course - Creator/CharlieChaplin, [[Creator/MarxBrothers Harpo Marx]], cartoon characters like WesternAnimation/{{Pluto|ThePup}} who couldn't talk - but they were the exception, as most people in the 1930s and '40s preferred to be entertained by characters who said funny things rather than acting out funny things. Then Marcel Marceau came along in the 1950s and breathed new life into the art form, even elevating it to the level of high culture...which unfortunately ultimately backfired, as Marceau inspired [[FollowTheLeader a glut of amateurish imitators]] in the decades immediately following who once again cheapened the image of mime, even giving us the current EveryoneHatesMimes trope. Yet mime has never truly died: Countless performers who are not even often thought of as mimes, such as Creator/RowanAtkinson (as ''Series/MrBean''), John Belushi, and Creator/JimCarrey, have proudly carried the tradition into the late twentieth century and beyond. Circus companies such as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey and the Big Apple Circus also have given miming and clowning more attention in the following decades (in part a side effect of wild animal-based acts falling out of favor with modern audiences), and Creator/CirqueDuSoleil and other "contemporary circus" companies pivot upon performers who can engage audiences with few or no words at all.
* Art deco was seen as groundbreaking in TheRoaringTwenties as it embraced technology rather than nature, but by TheGreatDepression and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII it became regarded as "expensive nonsense". However, since TheFifties, this style has been practically the most influential over modern architecture.
* "Googie" architecture went out of style soon after the 1950's but discovered a resurgence in the 80's that continues to this day thanks to its nostalgic style emblematic of the decade. The rocket-like tailfins, starbursts, and odd geometric shapes are still a staple of bowling alleys, hamburger restaurants, auto repair shops, and other businesses popular in the 50's, as well as signs for cities that became popular in that decade, most notably Las Vegas. There exist societies dedicated to preserving Googie buildings that escaped the mass demolitions in the 60's and 70's due to their perceived old-fashionedness during then.
* Gentrification is essentially this with regards to both architectural styles and parts of a city. Take Berlin-Kreuzberg for instance: Back when most of the houses there were built (the latter half of the 19th century, aka the ''Gründerzeit'') they were obviously deemed modern and aesthetically pleasing and the area was reasonably popular being close to the city center. After the wall was built and encircled Kreuzberg (which was in West-Berlin) on three sides, it became an undesirable location due to said encirclement. Furthermore the architectural style was seen as bad and most apartments were in dire need of renovation and lacked such conveniences as central heating or warm water. Of course the newly built housing units made of prefabricated slabs (known by the charming word ''Plattenbau'' in German, which roughly means slab building) had those conveniences and thus were widely more popular. The only people who would voluntarily live in old houses in areas like Kreuzberg were immigrants, notorious malcontents and cheapskates like students, leftists and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs leftist students]]. Many of those houses were also planned to be torn down, so there were issues with squatters. Once the wall came down, Kreuzberg suddenly found itself in the center of Berlin's attention once more and the students and "alternative" people had started their own clubs, bars and other venues and suddenly Kreuzberg became ''the'' place to live in. The ''Plattenbauten'' meanwhile have suffered greatly both in perception and in technical state (being forty or fifty years old does not help), but - you guessed it - in some cities even they show signs of being gentrified.
* In Germany, train stations in major cities and the area surrounding them are this. Back in the 19th century when most cities were first connected to rail lines, train stations were impressive and expensive buildings in the center of town or the best neighborhoods. However, with the decline of rail travel, they entered a serious AudienceAlienatingEra and became associated with drug dealers, the homeless, urban blight and just general decay. Part of the reason for that also was that the state-owned railway company did not care enough and/or lacked the resources to do something about that. But eventually, major train stations (e.g. Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg) have once again become places where people spend a lot of time because they ''want'' to, not because they have to. Train stations now contain a lot of shops (which, due to some quirks in the law can open on Sundays which normal stores usually can't) and they are actually a huge money source for UsefulNotes/DeutscheBahn. One of the cities where the neighborhood around the train station is undergoing serious gentrification is Frankfurt. Once upon a time Frankfurt Bahnhofsviertel was synonymous with drugs, prostitution and crime. Now, it is one of the fastest gentrifying places in Germany. The prostitution still isn't gone however. Many young people don't even remember that train stations used to have a negative image. However, the situation for marginal stations in the countryside and minor cities is still dire and many have been replaced by nothing more than shacks.
* Franchise/{{Lego}}, popular plastic building blocks created in 1949. The toys have always been relatively popular, but in the late '90s/early 2000s, the Lego Company decided to start licensing popular franchises such as ''Franchise/StarWars''. Lego suddenly boomed in popularity with video games, fan-made stop motion videos, and in 2014 a [[WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie highly successful movie]].
** The LEGO fandom has a term specifically for individual fans going through their own popularity polynomial; they love the bricks as a kid, but lose interest in their teens in the "dark ages" before eventually rekindling their interest, sometimes more strongly than before.
* {{Pinball}} has seen its ups and downs in popularity. It was the dominant type of arcade game until the 1970's, when video games became inexpensive enough to manufacture for arcade owners, and intensified through the first half of the 80's with hits like ''VideoGame/PacMan'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong''. Pinball then became popular again with ''Pinball/SpaceShuttle'' leading the charge, which featured an accurate scale model of a space shuttle inside, an impression no video game at the time could replicate. With nothing like it to follow up, however, pinball soon lost ground to video games again in the late 80's as video game technology became more advanced, allowing for more diverse gameplay and visuals where pinball, by nature, is stuck with a static image. This changed with ''Pinball/TheAddamsFamily'' in 1992, whose many modes and deep theme integration allowed pinball to once again compete on even terms with video games at arcades. By the end of the 90's, however, arcades in North America were becoming unpopular as console and computer video gaming allowed people to play within their homes as much as they wanted, combined with the increasing complexity and length of games as a whole. For nearly the entirety of [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], pinball seemed to be practically dead, with Creator/{{Stern}} being the only major manufacturer left. This changed around 2012, when multiple developments combined to create an upsurge in popularity. Simulator games like ''VideoGame/ThePinballArcade'' helped spark new interest in the medium, prompting people to either find machines in public to play to see how they're like in person (or, if one could afford it, buy them for home use). In addition, Creator/JerseyJackPinball was founded and put out ''Pinball/TheWizardOfOz'' in 2013; its many features and innovations, particularly the use of a screen instead of a dot-matrix display, gave Stern a true competitor and opened the floodgates for several more upstart companies to try their hand in the field over the course of TheNewTens. Pinball has also been riding on the back of the retro gaming craze, with many newer arcades hosting both video games and pinball machines. This renewed popularity can be seen in Stern's sales increasing ''300%'' between 2012 and 2014.

* Netbooks, small low-powered laptops designed for web surfing, were popular in the late '00s, but died off after Apple introduced the [=iPad=]. Chromebooks, powered by Google's Chrome OS, have become popular, particularly in schools, for their ease of use and low maintenance.

* [[TheMall Shopping malls]], of all things, have been going through this since about TheEighties. Overly optimistic development resulted in a massive surplus of retail space across the US, causing older generations of malls to start dying off as newer, larger complexes replaced them. This, combined with rampant demographic shifts in urban areas, helped create the first generations of "dead malls" in the US (the UrExample being Dixie Square Mall in the Chicago suburb of Harvey, which closed in 1978 and, after being repurposed for a famous scene in ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', was left to decay until it was finally torn down in the mid 2010s.) Malls continued to decline throughout TheNineties as rampant competition in the retail market did a number on a large number of clothing stores and department stores, causing many to severely retrench or go out of business entirely (including older department stores such as Montgomery Ward and Woolworth). The large number of youths hanging out there gave shoppers the impression that malls were {{Teenage Wasteland}}s and made many women, who did most of the shopping, feel unsafe, believing these teens to be "gang-affiliated," and go elsewhere. And then by the end of the decade, the rise of "big box" stores and e-commerce took further pieces out of the retail pie, as did a myriad of department store mergers. It was in this climate that a huge number of malls began to die off entirely, most commonly aging and unremodeled centers that had failed to keep up with the times. What few malls were being built by the TurnOfTheMillennium were typically "lifestyle centers" in more affluent areas, boasting upscale shops and restaurants in a streetscape setting, or "power centers", largely composed of the aforementioned big-box stores -- both of which were also starting to become common redevelopment tactics for struggling indoor malls. Not a single enclosed mall was built in the US between 2006 and 2014. The mid 2000s-early 2010s economic crisis certainly didn't help, as seen by General Growth Properties, one of the largest mall companies in the U.S., filing for bankruptcy...\\\
Then came TheNewTens, when many malls began to go on [[http://commercialconstructionblog.com/retail-construction-trends-shopping-center-construction-enters-renaissance-with-renovation-work/ massive renovation sprees]] that are bringing in plenty of new stores. Also, two new malls finally opened in the U.S. in 2014 (one in Sarasota, Florida, the other in The Bronx), and a struggling mall in suburban Washington, D.C. was gutted and rebuilt... as a new ''enclosed'' mall. While "dead malls" are still prominent, the suburban malls that are not dying are keeping themselves relevant by adopting the more main street-like style of the "lifestyle centers" (a driving force in the trend to put the "urban" in "suburban"), luring in new and noteworthy tenants to make up for retrenching retailers (particularly "fast fashion" clothing stores such as [=H&M=] and Forever 21, trendy restaurants, fitness centers, etc.) and undergoing eye-catching renovations to keep the concept of "going to the mall" relevant to a newer generation...\\\
Then came the "retail apocalypse" since 2016 and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, where a disproportionately large number of popular mall stores went through large amounts of closings or gone out of business entirely, including major department store chain The Bon-Ton. Combined with frequent store closings from the three major department store chains (J.C. Penney, Macy's, and Sears), creating further holes to be filled in malls countrywide (although discount-oriented department stores, such as Kohl's, Burlington, and Marshalls/TJ Maxx, have thrived). At the same time, social media became the place to hang out rather than the local decaying mall, especially for younger people. Despite these closures, many malls have worked around this by introducing more big-box stores; entertainment complexes (high-end theaters, bowling alleys, large-format arcades such as Dave & Buster's); unconventional tenants such as libraries, storefront churches, playplaces, or secondhand shops; or even non-retail use (one notable example being Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan, which replaced a long-vacant department store with Ford offices). Indoor shopping malls remain popular in areas where extreme weather conditions prevail, [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff particuarly in the Middle East]], mainly due to the fact that they're, well, indoors and thus provide climate-controlled places to walk around no matter what's going on outside. Even as the retail scene shifts, it appears that the American mall still has some life left in it.
* The DriveInTheater has seen a resurgence as of the 21st century. Throughout TheFifties and into TheSeventies, the concept flourished, giving that generation a venue to view popular movies in a more intimate, semi-private environment than offered by a regular theater. However, the concept was dealt massive blows in the end of TheSeventies and TheEighties, with many of the culprits being the oil crisis, hikes in property taxes that made such spacious properties hard to maintain (particularly as formerly rural areas became encroached by suburbia), and the emergence of home video, cable television, and larger multiplexes with wider varieties. There was also the fact that, unlike regular theaters, drive-ins were at the mercy of weather; those in the northern states typically closed in the winter, thus giving them much less time to generate profits, while many others saw costly damage due to high winds or tornadoes. By this point, many had come to mainly showing exploitation movies and/or porn to draw wider audiences, which worked in the short-term but often drew the ire of MoralGuardians and especially irked neighbors. The number of drive-ins nationwide plummeted in these decades, with countless ones being taken for other purposes (many became flea markets or golf driving ranges; others were demolished for new development; and still others have been left completely abandoned for upwards of 20-30 years). However, a brave few drive-ins soldiered on, trading mainly on Baby Boomer nostalgia. But it was that same nostalgia that led not only to interest in patronizing and preserving the few that were still open, but also even opening a few new ones. The concept has also been modernized for contemporary moviegoers, as many drive-ins now feature digital projection, stereo sound, and multiple screens. The drive-in theater got another boost during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as moviegoers could enjoy films outside of the home while staying relatively safe in their cars.
* Bill Gates became famous for the BASIC programming language, and Microsoft's [[UsefulNotes/{{MSX}} operating]] [[UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows systems]]. Then he became the world's richest man, and Microsoft was a MegaCorp with questionable business practices and unreliable software such as certain UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows versions, and thus the general public thought of Gates as a CorruptCorporateExecutive. Then in 2000 two things happened that along the years improved Gates' reputation, his NumberTwo [[LargeHam Steve Ballmer]] become Microsoft CEO and thus face of the company, and the establishment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's wealthiest charity organization. The high profile philanthropy ended the {{Demonization}}, and perception of Gates changed from an UpperClassTwit and cutthroat businessman to a someone who [[UnclePennybags wanted to make the world better.]] However, his popularity would take a major blow in 2021 when he announced that he and Melinda were getting divorced, with reports coming out shortly after that cited his potential relationship with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein as a major reason why. This, along with [[EatTheRich growing distrust of the mega-rich]] throughout UsefulNotes/TheNewTens and The New Twenties, led to further scrutiny of Gates, which revealed that many of his charitable activities were more self-serving than they appeared at first, and were seen by many as attempts to wrest control of issues such as public health and education from public hands into private ones. In particular, his opposition to waiving patents on vaccines for the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic also drew a lot of criticism, since many parts of the world, especially poorer countries, were struggling to obtain enough vaccines to inoculate their populations in time to curb the rapid spread of the virus.

* Watches are an odd case of this--originally they were vanity items that most people couldn't afford, but over time they became cheaper to produce until they became ubiquitous, and uninteresting. When smartphones became equally universal, watches disappeared due to the redundancy of carrying an additional device that only tells time... or so you would think, but instead their status as a hot vanity item returned, with well-off people wearing glitzed-up old-fashioned watches, or "smart watches" to go with their smartphones.
* Back in the 1990s and 2000s Nokia were the leading manufacturer of cellphones, chances are that if you owned a cellphone back then there's a high chance that it would have been a Nokia. But in 2007, Apple launched the iPhone which triggered the smartphone revolution. Nokia were late to the smartphone game and decided to use Windows Mobile as opposed to Android which decimated their reputation. In 2014 their mobile division was sold to Microsoft and was pretty much dead. But in 2016 HMD Global (publicly trading as Nokia Mobile) was founded after several former Nokia employees bought out Microsoft Mobile, this time Nokias would run on Android. Sales grew rather quickly, with many praising its price-quality scale, they even repopularised the "dumb phone" which has sold well with the growing wave of 1990s-2000s nostalgia.
* Likewise, the traditional cellphone, also known as the "dumbphone" or the feature phone, has made a comeback recently. They fell out of fashion after the rise of the smartphone but as of late they're now making quite the comeback due to the backlash against smartphones and social media as well as nostalgia for the 1990s and 2000s.

* The original UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} movement of 1916 - which was based on violating conventions and depended on [[{{Troll}} confusing and upsetting audiences]] - [[ItsPopularNowItSucks died]] when [[MisaimedFandom people began enjoying it]], thus [[SpringtimeForHitler defeating its purpose]]. However, its influence can still be seen to this day: it contributed to the rise of {{postmodernism}}, and {{Spiritual Successor}}s such as YouTubePoop follow Dadaist ideology to a T.
* Back in the 18th century, the ballet was a very popular form of court entertainment, particularly in France, where royalty codified it through such standards as the five positions of the arms and feet, around which the whole art form revolves, and it was also used as a measure of human strength, itself still true to an extent today. Then the French Revolution happened, and suddenly ballet found itself out of fashion to the point where it was a common subject of mockery directed towards the excesses of the then-recently-deposed ruling class. Only in the Romantic period did ballet experience a GenreRelaunch, and only after the [[{{Pun}} rise]] of pointework, spearheaded by the great Marie Camargo, and the creation of ballets with fantasy elements such as ''Theatre/LaSylphide'' and ''Theatre/{{Giselle}}''.
* Typewriters were mostly replaced by word processing software on personal computers starting in the 1980s, but some writers have rediscovered typewriters, citing the distraction-free writing environment and claiming the need to think about what they're typing improves their writing. Creator/TomHanks is a notable typewriter fan, collecting old machines and even writing a book of short stories that involves a typewriter in some way.

* Skateboarding has similarly fluctuated in and out of popularity so much that nobody seems to care whether or not it's "in", least of all the skaters themselves. Skateboarding was big in the mid-to-late Seventies, largely on the back of the popularity of surfing at that time. It died away in the early Eighties, until, of all things, ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' mainstreamed it again.

* Eyewear (both CoolShades and NerdGlasses) has varied greatly through the years: Beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, and thanks to Creator/HaroldLloyd, glasses became a fashionable element[[note]]Prior to that, if you wore glasses, it was because you were an intellectual, a clergyman, an older person or UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt[[/note]]. These were initially made of tortoiseshell, which by TheGreatDepression and through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII had been displaced by the more cost-efficient metal rims. Sunglasses also originated during the Jazz Age, first used by movie stars around 1922 and publicly introduced in 1929.
** Post-WWII spectacles were made of tortoiseshell, and later plastic[[note]]Shuron Ronsirs/Ray-Ban Browlines were introduced in 1947, Ray-Ban Wayfarers appeared in 1952[[/note]], which by the end of TheSixties were seen as too conformist. Then metallic frames took over[[note]]While first made in 1937, it wasn't until about '68 when Ray-Ban Aviators were used outside military circles[[/note]] during TheSeventies, but by the end of the decade, plastics returned big time[[note]]Wayfarers were boosted primarily by the film ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'' and by the NewWaveMusic movement[[/note]] to dominate TheEighties. TheNineties and UsefulNotes/The2000s brought back metals[[note]]''Series/{{Jackass}}'' contributed to the Aviators' newborn popularity[[/note]] aside from sporty wraparounds, while TheNewTens did the same with plastic[[note]]80s nostalgia, {{Hipster}}s and ''Series/MadMen'' were instrumental for a return to Wayframes[[/note]].

* Men's underpants seem to go through this cycle. The Coopers (now “Jockey”) underwear company introduced briefs for men in the 1930s -- which caused a sensation, as they were skimpier than most women's underpants at the time. This gradually brought about a change in men's intimate and leisurely fashions, with shorter underpants replacing the boxer shorts and long johns previously popular and male swimmers, bodybuilders, and surfers wearing skimpy trunks instead of the one-piece swimsuits from the 1920s. By the 1970s and the early '80s, wearing midthigh-length shorts as underwear was thought to be hopelessly old-fashioned, with only older men daring to be caught in them. Then the pendulum swung back: in the late 1980s and TheNineties, [[WildMassGuessing perhaps as a backlash against the burgeoning gay culture or maybe due to inspiration from the ultra-manly, proletarian fashion sense of Seattle grunge rock]], boxer shorts (especially plaid ones) became cool again, and during the 90s and 2000s, wearing briefs ([[MaliciousMisnaming given the notorious cognomen “tighty-whiteys” during this period]]) was often thought of as effeminate or immature. Eventually, though, with the rise of "slim-fit" in the 2010s, the two sides met in the middle, so that now in most department stores you can easily find [[FusionDance boxer briefs]], [[NonindicativeName which have leg bands and are form-fitting just like briefs but have leg sections]] (of varying lengths) like boxer shorts. Additionally, men wearing the classic brief is on the increase again as well. When it comes to ProfessionalWrestling, however, [[UnderwearOfPower this trope has always been inoperative]].
* Two-piece swimsuits have balanced between conservative high-waisted models and skimpy bikinis: The former ones were the predominant ones between TheRoaringTwenties and TheFifties (thus being retroactively known as "pin-ups"). Bikinis took over during TheSixties and TheSeventies[[note]]They have been around since the 40s, but in the English-speaking world it only became prominent in the mid-to-late 60s[[/note]], showing more and more skin as time passed. "Pin-ups" returned with a vengeance in TheEighties, while the pendulum swung back towards bikinis and thongs in TheNineties and UsefulNotes/The2000s. TheNewTens' "conservative revolution" however, brought a trend of showing as little skin as possible, leading to a resurgence of the high-waisted "pin-up". One-pieced swimsuits tend to vary their front cleavage influenced by how much skin two-piece suits show.

* American cars:
** Those from TheFifties are beloved today, with their huge tailfins and large amounts of chrome. However, when they went out of style in TheSixties, they went out ''hard''. Back then, few people who could afford it would be caught dead driving around in a '57 Bel Air. It didn't help that a lot of that stylish chrome decoration had a tendency to fall off after a few years due to rust. It was only with the rise of 50s-era nostalgia in general in TheSeventies and especially TheEighties that cars from that decade started to be more appreciated.
** The 1980s themselves have been considered to be the last era of "true car design" in both the US and Europe as oil was no longer a concern and automakers now focused on innovative designs, leading to the spacecraft-like cars of the late 80s such as the Ford Taurus and the Citroen XM. However, TheNineties brought a focus on environmentalism and [[PoliticalOvercorrectness "blander" designs]] (as a result of the consolidation between American and European companies) that in the long run stripped cars from their personality. These claims became really popular by the second half of the 2000s (with the oil crisis and the car industry downturn) as these became relics of a better time for automobiles..
** The lifecycle of a car design has stretched considerably since the 1990s as well: Until 1990-92, companies changed their ''entire'' lineup every 2 or 3 years (overhauling everything every 4 or 5 years) before the First Gulf War and the 1989-93 depression shook things up. Today, a new car can be exhibited at major shows almost a year before it hits the market; then comes a 5-7 year production cycle and upwards of a 20-year period before examples of a discontinued model that was popular when new are rare enough not to be an everyday sight. Expect at least another ten or even 15 years after ''that'' for them to start showing up at classic-car events.
* The trend towards environmentalism and energy efficiency in the cultural consciousness has done this for a lot of seemingly "outdated" technologies and vehicles:
** The post-war American car market has constantly cycled between demand for larger, roomier, more powerful automobiles and smaller, more efficient ones. In TheFifties and TheSixties, the trend was toward "bigger is better" with land-yachts and muscle cars to show off the newfound wealth of America's middle class. Then, the Arab oil embargo caused demand to shift towards compact and midsize cars and, later, minivans for most of TheSeventies and the first half of TheEighties. As a new generation came of age with little memory of the energy crises, large vehicles came back into style in the late 80s and 90s (except for a brief period around 1991 with the Gulf War) and up to UsefulNotes/The2000s, this time in the form of [[HummerDinger large SUVs]]. Now, thanks to the spikes in gas prices of 2005 (post-Hurricane Katrina) and 2008, compounded with the economic recession in-between, [=SUVs=] were out (With falling oil prices during the mid-2010s, larger cars became popular again), and crossovers, hybrids and compacts were in, as well as...
** Minivans. As mentioned, they were huge in TheEighties as a fuel-efficient alternative to land-yacht station wagons (the fuel crises of TheSeventies still fresh in everyone's mind), but faded away in the late '90s, thanks to [=SUVs=], the perception that the average minivan owner was a boring "soccer mom" suburbanite, and the fact that the styling was getting blander -- compare, say, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1994-1996_Chevrolet_Lumina_APV.jpg Chevy Lumina]] and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1996-2000_Toyota_Tarago_(TCR10R)_GLi_van_02.jpg Toyota Previa]] to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2004-2007_Ford_Freestar.jpg Ford Freestar]]. While they didn't entirely dispose of their uncool reputation, minivans saw a small resurgence after the decline of the [=SUV=] market, due to their similar capacity and greater fuel efficiency.
** Small "econo-box" autos and hatchbacks. During the height of the last "Bigger is Better" craze during late in TheNineties and early in the TurnOfTheMillennium, it seemed as though the only choices for new car owners were [[FateWorseThanDeath four-door sedans and body-on-frame SUVs]]. After 2005, though, vehicles like the new Mini Cooper and various hybrids began selling so fast that it took years before the automakers could meet demand, and older models such as the Geo Metro and Volkswagen Beetle can sell for up to triple their Blue Book value on the used car market on the basis of fuel economy alone. The American automakers even started importing some of their compact European models to meet this new demand, ending decades of NoExportForYou -- to such success that it has been cited as one of the reasons for the revitalization of Detroit's "Big Three" after decades of seemingly interminable decline.
** In the 1970s, the oil crisis led to calls for more efficient cars, as well for alternative fuel sources. This led to the development of the electric car (actually the concept is as old as cars themselves), which by the 1990s attracted public attention as well as federal support. In the 2000s government subsidies were cut, and automakers developed "hybrid" motors that used both electricity and gasoline. Rising oil prices in the late 2000s and early 2010s as well as higher environmental consciousness led to an increased popularity of hybrids and fully electric cars.
** Up until TheSeventies, bicycles were seen primarily as transportation, and were built with full fenders and used either single speed or 3-speed internal gear hubs. Once the health craze launched a cycling boom in the early 80s, many people started switching to racing bikes, which strove to add more gears and lighter materials. Older cruisers, "English" 3-speeds, and even the steel 10-speeds made at the start of the biking boom came to be seen as extremely dorky. But later a shift back to the use of bikes for transportation led to the return of internal gear hubs, single speeds, and even fixed-gear bikes, with specialty makers building custom steel frames instead of aluminum or carbon fiber. The racing bikes, by contrast, are now the ones that are seen as dorky, while the once-cool lycra riding uniforms associated with them are now viewed as symbols of the nadir of [[TheEighties '80s]] fashion.
** Motor scooters: The Vespa was all the rage in TheFifties and TheSixties, becoming a symbol of the "mod" and "beat" subcultures and an emblem of the Swinging London era. After falling off the radar in TheSeventies (the decade when a relatively huge Harley would be considered ''tiny''), there were minor revivals across TheEighties (the "New Wave" era) and, to a lesser extent, in the second half of TheNineties (when metro areas began repopulating with younger people influenced by the "Cool Britannia" spirit). After UsefulNotes/The2000s' fascination with chopper-building realities, TheNewTens came with another scooter craze.
** City centers. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, when the G.I. Bill[[note]]Short version -- a law passed near the end of the war that gave veterans access to higher education, as well as loans to buy homes and to start businesses.[[/note]], cheap gas, cheap land, the new Interstate Highway System, and the postwar baby boom created an enormous demand for housing that couldn't be met by the cities alone. As a result, this led to a massive boom in {{Suburbia}} and cities began to expand outward rather than upward leading to a phenomenon known as "white flight" in which middle-class white families moved out to the suburbs fleeing the late 1960s race riots, taking their tax dollars with them and leaving the cities behind to decay ''hard''. However, since as early as TheNineties, city centers have seen a resurgence in popularity especially among younger folk due to factors such as better public transit and walkability, proximity to work and cultural attractions, and frustration with suburban life and automobile gridlock. The 2005 oil crisis and economic downturn and the 2008 housing collapse left many "Sun Belt" cities almost empty.
** Subverted by the fact many "Sun Belt" towns have re-engineered themselves into more "urban" places akin to European metro areas, leading to a fast recovery of the area, also bolstered by the fact the Northeast ends up facing hurricanes almost every September-October.
** Averted with metropolitan UsefulNotes/LosAngeles. During the '70s and '80s, the city had a relatively peaceful image thanks to its fair balance between the city and suburbs, specially compared with the [[WretchedHive "Rust Belt" Northeast]], where places such as UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} [[TheBigRottenApple had hair-raising crime rates]] while UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC was noted for its screwed-up council (one mayor was caught smoking crack [[ControversyProofImage but got re-elected anyway]]). However, the underlying tension (especially in racial terms) suddenly exploded with the Rodney King riots in 1992, which resulted in LA becoming what it had avoided in the past decades (or, depending on where you sit, revealing that it had always been like that under its clean surface). This helped many ailing Atlantic cities (especially the Giuliani-era New York) as businesses left L.A.
** Streetcars (or Trams for the British). After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, a combination of cheap gas and the growing popularity of buses (and, according to {{conspiracy theorist}}s, some [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal underhanded tactics]] by the auto industry) led to many streetcar lines falling out of use and eventually being dismantled. The few surviving ones in the West (in East Germany and most other Warsaw Pact nations this was not the case for complex reasons, among them the [[TheAllegedCar Trabbi]].), such as those in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco and UsefulNotes/NewOrleans, persisted more for their historical and tourism value than anything else, though UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}'s is retained for its transportation value to complement [[UsefulNotes/TorontoSubway the city's then-new subway system]]. When cities ''did'' invest in mass transit, it would often be in the form of buses and subways that wouldn't threaten the flow of automobile traffic on the streets. In TheNineties and the TurnOfTheMillennium, however, the green movement and later on fears over rising gas prices led several cities to build or expand tram lines or "light rail" systems, which are essentially streetcars with decades worth of new technology, but also their alleged "flaws" have become their biggest assets, including bigger vehicles compared to buses (making for more capacity), their above ground running (eliminating some of the problems of dark muggy subway stations), their stable fixed routes (leading to measurably higher investment along routes/stations than bus service) and their overhead electric traction, more efficient than gas or third rails (all the rage in the era of renewable energy).
** First class rail travel. Yes, you heard that correctly. You see, back in the days when rail travel was invented, there were (at least) three classes. [[ValuesDissonance Just like in society]]. However, beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, rich people started having alternatives to rail travel, namely planes and automobiles. By the 1950s the European railways (now state-owned) decided to gut first class as a cost-saving measure. But of course having a second and third class but no first would not sell well. So in a clever bit of marketing they simply uptitled the existing lower two classes while doing some cosmetic fixes to third class (e.g. getting rid of the wooden seats with no padding in third class). The only exception to this was Britain, where some law said there always had to be third class (though there [[LoopholeAbuse wasn't anything keeping anybody from abolishing ''second'' class]]). In the 1970s, rising prices of gas as well as the introduction of UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail in the 1980s once more expanded the market for rail travel and suddenly new "premium" services for UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail started being offered. The rail market also grew in UsefulNotes/The2000s due to [[OverreactingAirportSecurity post-9/11 airport security hassles]] and the growing awareness of air travel's environmental impacts. Nowadays, you can get "business" class, "club" class, "preferente" or whatever the marketing department comes up with. On the Acela Express (Boston - New York - Washington), you can chose between Business and First -- no Coach Class for you (also something that last happened on a large scale in the 1950s).[[note]]You can however travel in coach on the "Northeast Regional" which travels the same route at lower speeds and with more intermediate stops[[/note]] So in essence, First Class rail travel was abolished and second class was retitled first class, only for "real" first class to make a comeback half a century later. There has even been a move to discourage taking flights in favor of rail, particularly in Europe, due to air travel's greenhouse gas emissions. France, who developed the TGV, banned short-haul flights within the country and a number of companies, including Creator/TheBBC, prohibit employees on official business from flying if an equivalent train journey takes less than six hours.
** In the 2000s "carpooling" was seen to be an attitude of the 90s that no one wanted to remember (and something only gen-Xers would admit to do). However, the increasing difficulty of driving downtown has led to the rise of "share-ride" services like Uber and Cabify, now touted as the new face of public transportation. This has also led to fewer 20- and 30-somethings (even 40-somethings) looking for cars of their own.

* Throughout the last decade of the 20th century and especially after the start of the 21st, over-the-air (OTA) television and the traditional TV antennas used to receive it fell out of fashion in favor of cable and satellite TV, which offered a larger variety of programming, were less encumbered by content restrictions, and could produce shows with larger budgets thanks to the increased revenue from carriage and/or subscription fees. It got to the point where the most popular and talked-about TV shows were on cable stations, not major networks, and many newly built or renovated homes forwent the installation of TV antennas. In TheNewTens, however, public opinion, especially that of younger audiences, began to sour on cable and satellite, seeing them as obsolete and cumbersome services that force you to pay exorbitant amounts of money for hundreds or thousands of channels that you will only ever watch a handful of, comparing them unfavorably to newer Internet streaming services such as Creator/{{Netflix}} and Creator/HBOMax that are becoming the main source for "premium" programming. Many of these people, or cord-cutters as they came to be known, supplement online streaming services with OTA TV in order to watch programming that can't be found easily online, such as local news and sports, sparking a revival of interest in the service, especially after the transition to digital TV. This is because digital OTA stations offered "digital subchannels" and greater clarity due to the lack of signal compression on cable or satellite, as well as a lack of snow that you'd see on analog channels. In large markets, due to the proliferation of digital subchannels, available OTA channels can rival basic cable. While OTA TV may never return to being the dominant way of watching television like it was in the early days of TV, it is far from going extinct as many predicted.
* Television in general. Beginning in the 1950s, it was ''the'' form of entertainment for families everywhere, but by the 1990s it fell into a rut due to two main factors: one being the internet and newer media such as video games becoming popular, especially among the youth, but most importantly, many networks began turning towards the lowest common denominator and forced "hipness", leading to serious cases of NetworkDecay--which more often than not, meant flooding channels with RealityTelevision by the early 2000s, while the better-regarded shows generally [[ScrewedByTheNetwork got mediocre ratings and often were axed before long]]... unless the show was on premium cable, which gave viewers movie-quality production values for the first time on the "tube" in a weekly basis. However, during the mid/late-00s these shows ended without any worthy replacements, and as a result, people all over were cancelling their cable ''en masse'' and the phrase "who watches TV anymore?" was practically ubiquitous as internet became the medium of choice for audiovisual entertainment. Ironically, it was the web which allowed a renaissance for television in the 2010s, with streaming services, namely Creator/{{Netflix}}, providing a chance for watching whatever one wants anytime they like. The opportunities brought upon by stable revenue and a lack of ''enforced'' censorship led to the making of shows featuring themes and production values that would be unfeasible on traditional TV, often resulting in massive hits. Even shows that were unceremoniously booted by the networks [[VindicatedByCable gained a second life on streaming services]]. By the mid/late-2010s, roughly ''one-third'' of all Internet traffic in the US during certain hours was streaming. The success of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video not only led about everyone else to try their hand themselves, creating original content in some cases, but also contributed to the popular appreciation of high-concept series which have contributed to a resurgence of premium cable.
* TV's predecessor, radio, has also gotten a boost in the digital era due to the growth of podcasting, smart speakers and internet/satellite radio. Podcasting has made audio content for news, comedy and dramas popular again after they were overtaken by TV in the '50s. Internet radio, satellite radio, and streaming music have also allowed for greater variety in music programming and lack of censorship instead of the narrow formats of terrestrial radio. Listeners have embraced public radio as an alternative to the sensationalism of cable news. A major reason is that audio offers a relief from the visual overload from the revival of TV mentioned above. The medium had already gotten a boost due to new technology in TheFifties as dramatic programming was moving over to TV with the invention of the transistor radio and Top 40 programming. The former made radio portable in a way that TV wasn't and music programming appealed to a young audience eager to hear the new rock and roll music. Young people were catered to in a way they hadn't been before. Transistor radios were cheap enough that everyone in a household could have one of their own, in contrast to the expense of a TV in the '50s and '60s. The relative cheapness of radio broadcasting meant that stations could also experiment with new genres, such as talk radio or all-news radio.

** The afro.uh

* {{Revolvers|AreJustBetter}} experienced this in TheNineties, at least in the American civilian market. TheEighties saw the rise of so-called "[[CoolGuns Wonder Nines]]," 9 millimeter handguns that held [[MoreDakka 15 rounds or more]], vastly outstripping the six-round capacity of most revolvers. Police forces switched over immediately, and civilians took to the new guns almost as quickly. In 1994, however, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics the Assault Weapons Ban]] was passed, heavily restricting, among other things, the sale of guns with magazines that held more than ten rounds. This stripped the Wonder Nines of [[MoreDakka their chief advantage]], allowing revolvers to retake market share. Even after the ban expired in 2004, this remained in effect in those states that still had their own laws on the books -- revolvers are noticeably more popular in, say, New York than they are in Florida. Note that this doesn't apply to police departments -- their weapons choices weren't affected by the ban, and [[EagleLand the greater magazine capacity is incredibly useful for their work.]]

* Nuclear energy seems to have undergone several cycles of popularity and lack thereof. In the 1950s, people were - by and large - excited about the "atomic age" but it took into the 1970s that commercial nuclear power really took off (and it took a ''lot'' of state or quasistate involvement of one kind or another) - aided in no small part by a certain 1973 war making clear to the entire western world that fossil fuels - and petroleum chief among them - were not infinite. However, come the mid 1980s and a certain incident on the Ukrainian / Byelorussian border ({{UsefulNotes/Chernobyl}}) and the anti-nuclear movement had an enormous surge in popularity. While this led to some decisions to phase out nuclear energy or never enter it to begin with (of note Australia, one of the world's biggest Uranium suppliers never built a commercial nuclear reactor for electricity generation - they do have research and isotope production reactors whose thermal output is incidental, rather than a power-source), by TheNewTens nuclear energy seemed to have recovered popularity - only for Fukushima to throw yet another wrench into all the high-flying plans, culminating perhaps with the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, a major supplier of "Generation III+" reactors. However, with some DevelopmentHell stuck projects ''finally'' getting completed and China becoming the second biggest nuclear energy producer (having overtaken France by some measures tho not by others) in the 2020s and with Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 leading to yet another fossil fuel price shock - and a fundamental re-evaluation of the "cheap natural gas" paradigm - numerous countries announced ambitious new building projects for nuclear power and/or the reversal of their prior abandonment of nuclear power - buoyed, in many cases, by rising support for nuclear power in the polls. It thus ''might'' appear that - especially in light of the whole climate issue becoming more and more pressing - nuclear is on the upswing once more, but it should be obvious by now that there have been ''many'' false springs for nuclear in the past.

* The sinking of the UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic was one of the biggest and most well-known disasters of the early 20th century and was the source of multiple book and film adaptations about passengers on board. By the 70's and 80's people had more than enough of those stories (in the issue 4 of ''Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec'', part of the excitement is seeing whether or not she would get on board of the Titanic -- and die due to being unable to escape). No one would have expected that [[Film/Titanic1997 a movie adaptation in 1997]] would end up becoming the, at the time, number one highest grossing film of all time, later going down to a still strong number three(not adjusted for inflation).

* Television in general. Beginning in the 1950s, it was ''the'' form of entertainment for families everywhere, but by the 1990s it fell into a rut due to two main factors: one being the internet and newer media such as video games becoming popular, especially among the youth, but most importantly, many networks began turning towards the lowest common denominator and forced "hipness", leading to serious cases of NetworkDecay--which more often than not, meant flooding channels with RealityTelevision by the early 2000s, while the better-regarded shows generally [[ScrewedByTheNetwork got mediocre ratings and often were axed before long]]... unless the show was on premium cable, which gave viewers movie-quality production values for the first time on the "tube" in a weekly basis. However, during the mid/late-00s these shows ended without any worthy replacements, and as a result, people all over were cancelling their cable ''en masse'' and the phrase "who watches TV anymore?" was practically ubiquitous as internet became the medium of choice for audiovisual entertainment. Ironically, it was the web which allowed a renaissance for television in the 2010s, with streaming services, namely Creator/{{Netflix}}, providing a chance for watching whatever one wants anytime they like. The opportunities brought upon by stable revenue and a lack of ''enforced'' censorship led to the making of shows featuring themes and production values that would be unfeasible on traditional TV, often resulting in massive hits. Even shows that were unceremoniously booted by the networks gained a second life on streaming services. By the mid/late-2010s, roughly ''one-third'' of all Internet traffic in the US during certain hours was streaming. The success of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video not only led about everyone else to try their hand themselves, creating original content in some cases, but also contributed to the popular appreciation of high-concept series which have contributed to a resurgence of premium cable.

* TV's predecessor, radio, has also gotten a boost in the digital era due to the growth of podcasting, smart speakers and internet/satellite radio. Podcasting has made audio content for news, comedy and dramas popular again after they were overtaken by TV in the '50s. Internet radio, satellite radio, and streaming music have also allowed for greater variety in music programming and lack of censorship instead of the narrow formats of terrestrial radio. Listeners have embraced public radio as an alternative to the sensationalism of cable news. A major reason is that audio offers a relief from the visual overload from the revival of TV mentioned above. The medium had already gotten a boost due to new technology in TheFifties as dramatic programming was moving over to TV with the invention of the transistor radio and Top 40 programming. The former made radio portable in a way that TV wasn't and music programming appealed to a young audience eager to hear the new rock and roll music. Young people were catered to in a way they hadn't been before.

* TheSeventies. Throughout the '80s and '90s, this decade was seen as America and the UK's AudienceAlienatingEra. Since the late '90s, it's seen as a more innocent time. Elements from the '70s which have made comebacks since then include:

** The afro.

* Skateboarding has similarly fluctuated in and out of popularity so much that nobody seems to care whether or not it's "in", least of all the skaters themselves. Skateboarding was big in the mid-to-late Seventies, largely on the back of the popularity of surfing at that time. It died away in the early Eighties, until, of all things, ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' mainstreamed it again.

** First class rail travel. Yes, you heard that correctly. You see, back in the days when rail travel was invented, there were (at least) three classes. [[ValuesDissonance Just like in society]]. However, beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, rich people started having alternatives to rail travel, namely planes and automobiles. By the 1950s the European railways (now state-owned) decided to gut first class as a cost-saving measure. But of course having a second and third class but no first would not sell well. So in a clever bit of marketing they simply uptitled the existing lower two classes while doing some cosmetic fixes to third class (e.g. getting rid of the wooden seats with no padding in third class). The only exception to this was Britain, where some law said there always had to be third class (though there [[LoopholeAbuse wasn't anything keeping anybody from abolishing ''second'' class]]). In the 1970s, rising prices of gas as well as the introduction of UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail in the 1980s once more expanded the market for rail travel and suddenly new "premium" services for UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail started being offered. The rail market also grew in UsefulNotes/The2000s due to [[OverreactingAirportSecurity post-9/11 airport security hassles]] and the growing awareness of air travel's environmental impacts. Nowadays, you can get "business" class, "club" class, "preferente" or whatever the marketing department comes up with. On the Acela Express (Boston - New York - Washington), you can chose between Business and First -- no Coach Class for you (also something that last happened on a large scale in the 1950s).[[note]]You can however travel in coach on the "Northeast Regional" which travels the same route at lower speeds and with more intermediate stops[[/note]] So in essence, First Class rail travel was abolished and second class was retitled first class, only for "real" first class to make a comeback half a century later. There has even been a move to discourage taking flights in favor of rail, particularly in Europe, due to air travel's greenhouse gas emissions. France, who developed the TGV, banned short-haul flights and a number of companies, including Creator/TheBBC, prohibit employees on official business from flying if an equivalent train journey takes less than six hours.

** First class rail travel. Yes, you heard that correctly. You see, back in the days when rail travel was invented, there were (at least) three classes. [[ValuesDissonance Just like in society]]. However, beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, rich people started having alternatives to rail travel, namely planes and automobiles. By the 1950s the European railways (now state-owned) decided to gut first class as a cost-saving measure. But of course having a second and third class but no first would not sell well. So in a clever bit of marketing they simply uptitled the existing lower two classes while doing some cosmetic fixes to third class (e.g. getting rid of the wooden seats with no padding in third class). The only exception to this was Britain, where some law said there always had to be third class (though there [[LoopholeAbuse wasn't anything keeping anybody from abolishing ''second'' class]]). In the 1970s, rising prices of gas as well as the introduction of UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail in the 1980s once more expanded the market for rail travel and suddenly new "premium" services for UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail started being offered. The rail market also grew in UsefulNotes/The2000s due to [[OverreactingAirportSecurity post-9/11 airport security hassles]] and the growing awareness of air travel's environmental impacts. Nowadays, you can get "business" class, "club" class, "preferente" or whatever the marketing department comes up with. On the Acela Express (Boston - New York - Washington), you can chose between Business and First -- no Coach Class for you (also something that last happened on a large scale in the 1950s).[[note]]You can however travel in coach on the "Northeast Regional" which travels the same route at lower speeds and with more intermediate stops[[/note]] So in essence, First Class rail travel was abolished and second class was retitled first class, only for "real" first class to make a comeback half a century later. There has even been a move to discourage taking flights in favor of rail, particularly in Europe, due to air travel's greenhouse gas emissions. France, who developed the TGV, banned short-haul flights and a number of companies, including Creator/TheBBC, prohibit employees on official business from flying if a train journey takes less than six hours.

* TV's predecessor, radio, has also gotten a boost in the digital era due to the growth of podcasting, smart speakers and internet/satellite radio. Podcasting has made audio content for news, comedy and dramas popular again after they were overtaken by TV in the '50s. Internet and satellite radio have also allowed for greater variety in music programming and lack of censorship instead of the narrow formats of terrestrial radio. Listeners have embraced public radio as an alternative to the sensationalism of cable news. A major reason is that audio offers a relief from the visual overload from the revival of TV mentioned above. The medium had already gotten a boost due to new technology in TheFifties as dramatic programming was moving over to TV with the invention of the transistor radio and Top 40 programming. The former made radio portable in a way that TV wasn't and music programming appealed to a young audience eager to hear the new rock and roll music. Young people were catered to in a way they hadn't been before.

* Like facial hair, long hair on men cycles in and out of fashion. It was historically very common but it became a taboo in the west during the First World War as the military mandated "short back and sides" to prevent the spread of lice and it extended to civilians after the war as a backlash against Victorian values in the 1920s. Hair length got even shorter during the Great Depression and the Second World War which saw the popularization of buzz cuts, crew cuts and flat tops among civilians. Long hair remained a taboo until the TheSixties, when Music/TheBeatles and the counterculture repopularized it. In TheSeventies, long hair was ''de rigeur''. Even a middle-aged businessman's haircut would frequently [[SeventiesHair extend below the ears]]. The PunkRock and NewWaveMusic subcultures heralded a return to shorter hairstyles through TheEighties, though longer styles remained popular. HairMetal brought long hair back, albeit heavily styled. Unadorned long hair came back into fashion in TheNineties with the rise of {{Grunge}}, but short hairstyles were popular as well. UsefulNotes/The2000s continued the trend, taken to extreme levels by Black and Latino cultures in terms of short hair while the {{Emo}} subculture popularized the much-derided style of the [[PeekABangs bangs covering the eyes]]. Music/JustinBieber and Music/OneDirection popularized slightly longer hairstyles for teenage males into the early 2010s. The pendulum swung back towards shorter, "Teddy Boy"-styled hair afterwards then in the late 2010s longer haircuts became popular again after the undercut gained popularity amongst the alt-right.

** First class rail travel. Yes, you heard that correctly. You see, back in the days when rail travel was invented, there were (at least) three classes. [[ValuesDissonance Just like in society]]. However, beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, rich people started having alternatives to rail travel, namely planes and automobiles. By the 1950s the European railways (now state-owned) decided to gut first class as a cost-saving measure. But of course having a second and third class but no first would not sell well. So in a clever bit of marketing they simply uptitled the existing lower two classes while doing some cosmetic fixes to third class (e.g. getting rid of the wooden seats with no padding in third class). The only exception to this was Britain, where some law said there always had to be third class (though there [[LoopholeAbuse wasn't anything keeping anybody from abolishing ''second'' class]]). In the 1970s, rising prices of gas as well as the introduction of UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail in the 1980s once more expanded the market for rail travel and suddenly new "premium" services for UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail started being offered. The rail market also grew in UsefulNotes/The2000s due to [[OverreactingAirportSecurity post-9/11 airport security hassles]] and the growing awareness of air travel's environmental impacts. Nowadays, you can get "business" class, "club" class, "preferente" or whatever the marketing department comes up with. On the Acela Express (Boston - New York - Washington), you can chose between Business and First -- no Coach Class for you (also something that last happened on a large scale in the 1950s).[[note]]You can however travel in coach on the "Northeast Regional" which travels the same route at lower speeds and with more intermediate stops[[/note]] So in essence, First Class rail travel was abolished and second class was retitled first class, only for "real" first class to make a comeback half a century later.

** First class rail travel. Yes, you heard that correctly. You see, back in the days when rail travel was invented, there were (at least) three classes. [[ValuesDissonance Just like in society]]. However, beginning in TheRoaringTwenties, rich people started having alternatives to rail travel, namely planes and automobiles. By the 1950s the European railways (now state-owned) decided to gut first class as a cost-saving measure. But of course having a second and third class but no first would not sell well. So in a clever bit of marketing they simply uptitled the existing lower two classes while doing some cosmetic fixes to third class (e.g. getting rid of the wooden seats with no padding in third class). The only exception to this was Britain, where some law said there always had to be third class (though there [[LoopholeAbuse wasn't anything keeping anybody from abolishing ''second'' class]]). In the 1970s, rising prices of gas as well as the introduction of UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail in the 1980s once more expanded the market for rail travel and suddenly new "premium" services for UsefulNotes/HighSpeedRail started being offered. The rail market also grew in UsefulNotes/The2000s due to [[OverreactingAirportSecurity post-9/11 airport security hassles]]. Nowadays, you can get "business" class, "club" class, "preferente" or whatever the marketing department comes up with. On the Acela Express (Boston - New York - Washington), you can chose between Business and First -- no Coach Class for you (also something that last happened on a large scale in the 1950s).[[note]]You can however travel in coach on the "Northeast Regional" which travels the same route at lower speeds and with more intermediate stops[[/note]] So in essence, First Class rail travel was abolished and second class was retitled first class, only for "real" first class to make a comeback half a century later.