Stuff you were sure would never catch on

[Mersadeon]

tl;dr


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no.
if you venture the internet you should be able to read long text or we might as well turn every page on it into retarded top 10 lists no one gives a shit about or videos with top ten lists.

[...]

NO PEOPLE SHOULDN'T DO THINGS I DON'T LIKE AND SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING I DON'T CARE ABOUT IT'S STUPID


Except, you know, a lot of people still read huge walls of text. Liking Twitter and long texts isn't mutually exclusive.

Seriously, don't say this kind of stuff. You can enjoy your stuff, but don't tell people they SHOULDN'T enjoy their stuff just because you don't like it.

While I don't personally use Twitter, I do read quite a few tweets when I am on people's sites (because they often have a little bar showing tweets of the site), and I do enjoy them. You CAN write meaningful stuff - and anyway, not every piece of conversation has to be ripe with highly useful and profound information.
Just take the Twitter of Shamus Young, for example - it's funny and interesting at times. And often, Shamus starts with complaining in a tweet and then goes on to write a column about it because the tweet "sparked" that particular train of thought.


So, things I thought would never catch on? The Wii. I was so cynical about it at first and just didn't expect it to become anything. I mean, NORMAL people don't play videogames anyway, and gamers only care for "hardcore" games, right? So, I was pleasantly surprised by this.

 

[Mersadeon]

[...]

come on.

most tweets are about what the tweeter eats, wants to eat or how it affects their bowel movements.

and considering that most of the 150 characters you can use are already used by words like "like" and "oh my god" you dont have much time to say something interesting.

of all the messages someone writes on twitter, the majority is senseless venting and status updates like " i just drank a liquid! and it rehydrated me OMGWTFBBQAIRPLANESAUSE!"

[...]

thats the quality of 80% of all "meaningful" tweets.
OF ALL TWEETS!

That can be said for ANYTHING. 80% of Youtube videos is bad. 80% of television is bad. 80% of everything is bad. It's about finding the good stuff. Regarding twitter, the biggest tip I can give: Don't follow normal people. Of course a typical teen isn't normally gonna post something good. Follow the people you already like - for me it's certain videogame journalists and programmers, for others it might be the stars they like.


Another thing I never thought would catch on: Customized cellphone tones. Seriously, I thought that was STUPID. Nowadays, with the advent of phones that are essentially running a smaller version of a PC OS, everyone uses them - and why not? It has become so easy!

 

[Littaly]

My goto answer for this question will always be Guitar Hero. I remember walking into a gamestore backe when the first Guitar Hero came out (because back then, I used to go to game stores... seems like forever ago) and they had it for people to try in the store. I remember thinking out loud to myself "what a terrible idea, do they really expect people to buy an extra, expensive, cumbersome controller that looks like it was made for ten-year-olds in order to play what looks like some kind of lame reflex game. This has never worked in the past and it will be a huge flop".

I'm just glad I never said it out loud to anyone because they would have made me eat those words until the world forgot about Guitar Hero, which come to think of it, didn't take that long.

 

[kurokotetsu]

Smartphones and tablets.

SMartphones seem uselss to me. Most people under utilize theirs. THey have some games, which are usually as entretaing as my Snake in my orginal Nokia (there are good outings, but they are limited and not that widespread). Second, what else do you need a smartphone for? Social media? Internet? For almost everyone the lack of those things would have little to no impact in their lives and contributes nothing. Accesing Internet form everywhere is usually not something that you need. ANd I find social media close to the levels of toxicity comperable to an oil spill. Being constantly connected is not a thing we needed in general. So people are paying fortunes for a pretty stupid thing. Clssic mobiles still work perfectly fine.

ANd Tablets more or less the same reasons. At least you can read e-books, but the Kindle is a better alternative.

Although I own an iPad, I still thing I just have a high tech toy that isn't being taken much profti of.

 

[Brainpaint]

I tend to give everything a chance but I didn't expect Youtube to be the one and only video site for everyone. I thought the market would've stayed a lot more competitive like it was in the mid Deezies (00's) with Google Video (which was crap but at the time, new and finding it's feet) and Vimeo and even Myspace competing against each other to provide the best service.

How I wish that was true...

Also, I wasn't surprised about the rise of tablets. What does bother me, though, is when people say "The PC is dead."
Just because they're blind consumers that want everything straight away and won't try to produce anything worthwhile on their own, doesn't mean the rest of us are.
Tablets are a terrible interface for a lot of creative processes better done on PCs and Laptops. The former especially since their main components are easier to swap out for higher performing versions.

The PC isn't dead and I doubt tablets will last once a more portable, engaging and less "finger-crampy" device shows up. Then tablets will go the way of the button-input phone. Still there, but not many will want or use them.

One especially bad call I've made is thinking nobody would use Facebook more than Myspace because it wasn't as modifiable.
Facebook still sucks for me and even though I use it, I only go on it because other people want or need me to. Which is a terrible reason for joining, but not everybody has a 200 mile distance between them and their family and friends and hate using e-mail.

I used to keep in contact with everybody separately via MSN. That was great. I miss that... Skype sucks, too!

 

[lacktheknack]

"Techno"

Techno's been around since the 80s, man.

OT: Around the time of Call of Duty 3, I thought the franchise was done.

Aha. Ahahaha. Hah.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Tablets.

"£500 for an oversized iPod? who would be dumb enough to pay for one of those?"

lots of people apparently.

Same here, I really thought the ipad was going to fail when it was first announced. I still can't believe there are so many people with an iphone and an ipad. Talk about overkill.

OT: I didn't expect Tumblr to really go anywhere. I figured if someone wanted to share things, they had the likes of Facebook and Twitter to do so already.

 

[EyeReaper]

The first thing that pops into my head would be the anime "Sword Art Online." Oh, an anime about players getting caught in an mmo virtual reality type thing? Where have I heard that before? cough .hack// cough
Ooh, and how about Telltale's Walking dead? A gameplay barren indie-ish licensed game about Zombies? 10/10 all the gold stars. I was shocked, but in a good way, Telltale is the biggest name point and click adventure game developers now, aren't they?
Finally, League of Legends. I didn't find it fun, and I really can't believe how huge it's gotten

 

[Catfood220]

Coldplay. I saw these guys play Glastonbury 2000, they were playing halfway up the bill on The Other Stage in the middle of the afternoon. It was just after they had released "Yellow" and I thought it wasn't a bad song so would check them out. They opened with that and it was downhill from then on out, I walked away halfway through their set thinking to myself that they would never amount to anything.

So young and naïve, I clearly underestimated peoples tolerance for dull whiney alterna-rock.

I still don't understand why they became one of the biggest bands in the world, despite the fact they've done a couple of songs that don't make me want to rip the radio from my car and throw it out of the window.

On the flip side of the coin, it seems that any band I tip for greatness seems to never go anywhere and split up after a couple of years.

 

[MopBox]

The Internet.

When I was four years old my father woke me up at nearly midnight to show me he's external 14 kilobyte modem in 1989, he tied up the only house line and had to keep logging off in order to call his friend that he was trying to communicate to via the computer. I distinctly remember thinking it was the most useless thing I had ever encountered in my short life before returning to bed.

 

[cdemares]

MMOs with subscriptions. I'm still amazed that people play them. I've played free-trials, betas, and free-to-play ones and always get bored incredibly fast. They're made to take forever. They're not even good games. When asked, people always say, "I had some friends, blah blah blah, and now it's been five years." Really? What a massive racket.

 

[soren7550]

Twilight - My English teacher wouldn't stop raving about it, so I borrowed it from her, and a week later I thought it was the most underwhelming 600 some odd pages I had ever read.

Angry Birds - Tried playing the first level, couldn't beat it, and stopped caring.

Harry Potter - I think a neighbor tried to get me to read it when it first came out, but I refused to because no one in their right mind would read something that thick.

Reality TV - Needs no explanation.


There's others I'm sure, but I can't readily think of them because I'm making cookies and hot coco.

 

[breadsammich]

Back around 2003 or 2004, my brother came up to me and said "Hey, you know they're making an MMORPG out of Warcraft?"

I looked up at him from City of Heroes and spoke these words:

"That sounds stupid and would never work."

Funny how stuff works out, huh?

 

[DudeistBelieve]

"Cool Beans". It's such a random collision of words and ideas I never dreamed anyone said it outside my high school. God, I wish that was true.

This phrase became the landmark name for a series of small coffee shops which would also serve ice cream. I use to get a good malted milkshake from such places.

OT: I don't generally predict the general way a thing is going to take-off or flop unless it's fairly obvious. I tend to reserve my energy for wondering why something really stupid and pointless ever got off of the ground once I get a good look at it.

Whhhhatttt??? Seriously theres more than one? I thought that was a local thing in my neck of the woods.

 

[Nathan Josephs]

the wii. didnt factor in the casuals.

 

[FalloutJack]

"Cool Beans". It's such a random collision of words and ideas I never dreamed anyone said it outside my high school. God, I wish that was true.

This phrase became the landmark name for a series of small coffee shops which would also serve ice cream. I use to get a good malted milkshake from such places.

OT: I don't generally predict the general way a thing is going to take-off or flop unless it's fairly obvious. I tend to reserve my energy for wondering why something really stupid and pointless ever got off of the ground once I get a good look at it.

Whhhhatttt??? Seriously theres more than one? I thought that was a local thing in my neck of the woods.

Well, considering I live in Pittsburgh, your neck and my neck aren't far removed. Could be an East Coast thing.

 

[ATRAYA]

MLP. I thought it was some stupid thing the kids were into ironically, just to be different or something. In fact, I grew to despise the show because of it (and because ponies started showing up on all my favorite sites)!

Well, we can all see how wrong I was just by looking at my avatar... :/

Everyone else has already said it but... TWITTER! I still don't get the purpose, and I still don't have an account.

Dubstep was another one, but as I was exposed to it more and more I realized it is strictly an acquired taste. I hated dubstep at first, now I produce it. Go figure.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Twerking. It?s just shaking your booty, but suddenly, when Miley Cyrus started doing it, it became some kind of social craze.

Angry Birds. I?ve played about a million flash games just like it, some of which being actually better, IMO. That?s not to say it?s not a good game; just that it isn?t an especially original one, or even a ground-breaker like Pac-Man or Tetris were in their day.

The Nintendo Wii. When I first heard the title, and played it for the first time round my friend?s house, I thought the controller and games for it were stupid. I still think that to some extent, but I can appreciate its accessibility and game library seven or so years on.

Justin Bieber. Thought Baby was terrible, and he wouldn?t last more than a couple of months, at most. How wrong I was. Same goes for One Direction.

 

[Veylon]

Let's see...

The Wii.
Facebook / Social Networking in general.
Tablets / Laptops; surely people want a real computer?
Comic books / nerd stuff in general. Now it's almost required that a blockbuster involves SciFi or comic book characters.
The Tea Party / Libertarianism. I always thought a Christian country would mean placing a religious emphasis on caring for the less fortunate. I was wrong. I was very wrong.
Gay Marriage: Another thing that's recently gone from laughably impossible to being nigh-on inevitable. In Utah, even.

 

[DementedSheep]

The Harlem Shake, I remember a friend laughing his ass off watching it and I was told it had a huge following, I doubted it, there really isn't much you can do with it and it wasn't even funny to begin with...

Then I realized people were freaking apeshit over it, I never got it.

It even ended up on the news although reporting unimportant stupid crap and calling it "news" isn't exactly uncommon here. I don't get it either.