Battle of the Bandz

Today I'm excited about: elastic bands.

I am so baffled to learn that the newest craze trickling west from New York doesn't rely on touch sensitivity and all day batteries. It doesn't allow for removable covers that express the way I feel or dress, nor does its longevity rely on how many times a day I've logged online to feed it cyber-food. What is it? An elastic band. That's right! And I've already bought a box of 12. "Bands" (or Bandz, or Silly Bandz, or Zanybandz, or, the list of knock offs go on...) remind of old-school pogs and slap bracelets, and are definitely a reaction of the late 80's / early 90's splash of neon colour that has found its way into todays skinny jeans and jansport backpacks. They are colourful, collectable and wearable, and so they successfully work as a fad: colourful so that everyone can clearly see the ones you have, collectable so everyone wants the exact ones you have, and wearable so that everyone who doesn't know what they are, will enquire, and ... during my mere two days of wearing, they have.

But what do these coloured silicone bracelets do? Not all that much really. Lets be honest. They don't smack on my wrist and make me look tough for however many slaps I can do in a minute. No, but when not worn (which just kills me by the way), these bandz do magically re-shape into the sillouette of an object in a huge variety of different categories: dinosaurs, animals, rock band, fairytale or my personal favourite - mystery - which is just a loose mixture of random shapes that I feel makes the game a little more interesting. The categories are really quite numerous, and although they haven't gone risque (just yet), they have become controversial. This blog lists some bandz-y's top ten list of silliest looking shapes which include a bikini top, a bone, and a cat - all of which (the blog claims) fail to look realistic. Some of the people on this blog are quite angry about it too. Yup.

You can get alphabet bandz to spell out your name illegibly on your arm, you can get religious iconography bandz in order to show the world how you feel about god, or you can get the peace, love and harmony bandz just so you can wear your "heart" on your sleeve. (puke.) BUT!!! Where can you get a set of these bent up bandz that, when worn, look like someone's chewed up hair elastics? Walgreens of course. For the $2.99 experience, I'd say it's worth telling your future kids the story of bandz. If you have kids, I'm not so sure it's important.