Toy Blog

Everest Leo

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

4 October 2020

 Rainbow Loom

     Naturally, when it came to toys, my sister and I shared them, so it comes as no surprise that I also had some experience with this toy that was marketed for girls. The toy is pretty much what it sounds like, its an easy to use loom where you can put multicolored rubber bands together into (usually) bracelets. It was marketed as "friendship bracelets", so it was much more likely for more people to get them once others did. It was also mainly marketed towards girls, as all of these colors and things like bracelets are viewed from society as girl things, this way they would make more profit. Now, plenty of ads did include boys but that didn't mean that boys used it or wore the bracelets, this is because they were all colorful and making something using a loom is (for some reason) seen as a girly thing. In this case societal pressure played a role in the boys not using Rainbow Loom as much as the girls, as well as the fact that naturally girls are more interactive with their friends.

    It was the most popular with kids transitioning into tweens as this is the time where most are starting to become more self-conscious and more social. This means that something like a "friendship bracelet" would spread like a virus. once at least one person in the friend group (usually multiple) got a rainbow loom, their friends would also end up getting it because it was almost the sole way to be a part of said friend group. And you would think this would happen with boys as well, but I think that the reason it didn't catch on with boys is also the reason it caught on with girls. The boys at that time were also transitioning into tweens, and becoming more self-aware/conscious, but unlike the girls society had already put their norms into the heads of these impressionable children, and those norms include that accessories like bracelets and necklaces are mainly a girl thing. And so it worked in the opposite way, if one boy was wearing them but all of his friends weren't, (for the reason I just stated) then he would eventually stop wearing them. 

    In general, the rainbow loom fad didn't last longer than few months, although it was much shorter for boys. The way I see it a major reason for this is because school started up again and the teachers always have more vigorous goals and more energy at the start of the school year. This allows them to be stricter and more vigilant when enforcing rules, rules that might restrict misuse of the bracelets (such as shooting someone).

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