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Comment by theothermkn | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to put my finger on what exactly unsettled me about the fidget spinner craze, but it seems related to this article. All the hype seemed ad hoc. For Beanie Babies, in retrospect, it felt like a coordinated center (the manufacturer/importer and its marketing arm) surrounded by a bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon. Fidget spinners just felt like every click-baiting view-monger jumping in with their hot take. There seemed to be, from the outside, no central brand or centralized messaging. The closest thing to the latter seemed to be the urban legend that these things were good for ADHD, somehow.

Even Baudrillard's hyper-reality seemed to be orchestrated from a center; his assertion that the Europe experience at Disney World was "more real" than Europe itself at least required Disney to have built it.

Spinners just arose out of the background radiation, with no apparent proximal cause.

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The reason I hate the fidget spinner is simply the fact that is a useless item consuming massive amounts of resources which will just end up in the trash - after it has consumed attention and money from people.

The amount of plastics and metal that are just going to be thrown away due to them - not to mention their packaging which gets thrown away....

I wish that we could come up with a reasonable way to require standardized non-polluting packaging for literally all the things...

Today's landfills will be tomorrows mines.

Except that the oceans have become our landfills.

> It's hard to put my finger on what exactly unsettled me about

I blame ...

Take a long hard look at many things you take for granted and realise just how barmey they really are, unless you consider how economics works. Planned obsolescence (washing machine falls apart within legislated years + 1 day) is an obvious consequence of wanting sales to be repeated and profit maximisation. Some firms will aim for a different solution to the formula - eg Miele in that space - by pricing high and generally lasting longer but they really dance to the same tune.

To take perceived value to one ridiculous extreme, a Bugatti Vayron costs in the region of £1M and a modern Ford Fiesta costs say £10K. Is a Veyron really "worth" 100 Fiestas? Reduce them to raw materials and compare value or look at the amount of research time that went into each (my money is on comparable or more on the Fiesta). Both can transport near enough the same number of people but the Fiesta (I think) has a bit more room. The Fiesta almost certainly has more boot (trunk) space.

This seeming nonsense with spinners isn't really incomprehensible and we are all complicit. It is the way of the world and always has been, it's just a bit more complicated these days.

... marketing (and lack of incredulity - I'm guilty too)

Someone, somewhere created the first fidget spinner, named it, and marketed it. The fact that you do t know their name maybe just means they did a better job of staying out of the limelight while still profiting from the craze.

There is also the (perhaps more likely) possibility that all three of Thise things were done by different people.

For example the creator makes it and shows it to a few friends, maybe posts pics/vids on the internet. Someone else sees the object and names it the fidget spinner. A third person markets it and begins selling them

Why do you assume the original inventor profited from it? It seems at least as likely that they got left in the dust when someone else noticed the potential in their idea and grabbed it -- especially if the main driver behind the craze were Chinese manufacturers, who are not exactly known for their scrupulous respect for intellectual property...

She couldn't afford the patent. I don't think she made much money from it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14271914

Her patent doesn't really look like what we think of as a fidget spinner though. It's more like a spinning top.

Even if she could have afforded to renew it back then, it still would have run out before they took off since the article you point to said she invented it 20 years ago.

Actually if you look into it you'll find she didn't profit that much from it.

Marbles. Hula Hoops. Water bottle flipping. Yo yos. These fads have spontaneously manifested since at least the 80s with no central control or in some cases marketing campaign - you can't even sell a product with water bottle flipping.

> It's hard to put my finger on what exactly unsettled me about the fidget spinner craze, but it seems related to this article.

I'm 36, don't have a kid, and as such all the fidget spinner craze has passed me with no impact at all, i.e. I don't really care what a fidget spinner does, if it's popular or not. The same goes for the kendana/kendama thing (not sure of its exact name, too lazy to google). They're just kids' games, not sure why talking about them has become so important.

I don't even get how they're supposed to help with ADHD. They require too much attention to use (or I just suck at using them). I've always managed ADHD by doing things that require practically no attention - twirling a pen, doodling without looking, pacing the meeting room, etc.

How long have you used one? I bought one thinking it'd be a fun toy for the gyroscopic effects, but after using it for less than a day, I was able to spin/fidget with it completely absentmindedly using only my off-hand. Previously my method of fidgeting would be fairly destructive, like breaking pens or picking nails. The spinner has had a very beneficial aspect on that, allowing me to fidget in a way that wont cause my fingers to bleed.

Have you used one? I'm not pushing fidget spinners but I've been a pen-twirler since junior high and the spinner is almost the exact same motion with the same amount of attention involved.

I don't know how you've been using them but I think you're making them far more complicated then they need to be.

The same motion? Really? I hold the middle and spin it. Usually it just hurts my nail lol. Guess I am doing it wrong.

"I don't even get how they're supposed to help with ADHD"

They can become habitual to play with but frankly they are no better than lots of other things that move and be twiddled with. If you find doodling without looking distracting or any other coping mechanism works then stick with that.

If you can't get on with something that is supposed to be a "fix" then I suggest that you avoid it and do things that work for you.

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