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According to some reports, the movie Joker (2019) cost $70 million to produce but had a marketing budget of around $120 million. If there was an argument to be made for the prevalence of hype culture, that was it! But for every "next big thing" that changed our lives, there were a bunch that didn't. So, we decided to comb through the internet and put together a list of the ones that disappointed people the most. Continue scrolling to check it out!
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#1
NFT’s.
RELATED:
#2
Microsoft held a literal funeral procession for the iPhone when they introduced the Windows Phone.
Fat Harry (Oi / You) 7 months ago
To be fair, the Windows phone was actually excellent (I owned two) but it came to market too late, so that no one wanted to develop apps for it.
#5
3D tv. i remember those being sold somewhere when we had to buy a couch, and accidentally renting the 3d version of a movie, but it never took off.
David 7 months ago
1. They are very expensive. 2. 3D video gives a lot of viewers motion sickness. If you watch a 3D show and look at parts of it without the glasses you will see that not everything is 3D. They do that to minimize the motion sickness. Also, 4 - as it relates to movie theaters, I'm sure the glasses were extra hassle and expense for the theaters.
#7
Betamax. Superior in video quality but lacked hardware support, thus making it more expensive.
#8
Hoverboards. Most users actually physically flopped and tanked onto their butts!
#9
Those weird 4D movie with the smell? Does anyone even remember those? They felt like fever dreams.
#10
The Tata Nano. The company set out to build the lowest price new car in the world, and it succeeded.
Unfortunately, newly middle class Indian families didn’t want the stigma of owning the world’s cheapest new car, so sales never came anywhere close to expectations.
Ron Man 7 months ago
This had nothing to do with middle class Indian families not wanting a stigma of the world's cheapest car. Tata made this car cheap by getting rid of most safety features. This is also why it never came to US or Europe markets. It couldn't meet any of the import safety regulations. This is like driving around in folding chairs. You don't want one.
#11
I will defend it until my dying breath but Minidisks were supposed to revolutionise music. CD quality, basically indestructible, rewritable, massive storage. I _loved_ my MD player but MP3 players just killed them dead.
Carl Roberts 7 months ago
The MP3 player wasn't what led to the downfall of the MIni-Disc. It was due to Sony not learning from past mistakes and using a proprietary format that they refused to license to anyone else. The MD was introduced in 1993, and lost out to cheap , mass produced CD-R's, which cost a fraction of the price and could be played in any portable CD player (many of which cost under $50, while the Sony MD Walkman cost $400
#12
Bio-hacking. It was supposed to be this big thing and I read an article about a dude that had a bunch of sensors on him, some nifty glasses that displayed the data and he used all this data to adjust his daily things, like eating and drinking. He claimed that "in two years, everyone will be bio-hackers". That was four years ago and the closest we've got are activity monitor watches that people use and ignore. Dumbest next big thing ever.
#13
Universal Picture's 'Dark Universe.'
The Mummy with Tom Cruise was supposed to start a whole line of movies, but when that one died it took the rest with it.
#14
Esperanto.
Smeghead Tribble Down Under 7 months ago
''Rimmer: Holly, as the Esperantinos would say, "Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston, laushajne estas rano en mia bideo." I think we all know what that means. Holly: Yeah, it means, "Could you send for the hall porter? There appears to be a frog in my bidet." ''
#15
Fetch.
#17
More recently: Threads. Twitter was supposed to be dead by now.
#18
Beanie babies.
Little bean bag plush stuffed animals from the 90's. People thought they were going to become incredibly valuable collectors items like the original Star Wars toys. Some people went nuts and spent all their money on the things. I remember hearing about a divorcing couple fighting viciously over the collection they'd amassed.
Michael Largey 7 months ago
My wife had a large collection, acquired for a price I still don't like to think about. When the craze was over and she had recovered, she wondered what to do with them. She ended up donating them to the police department to give to small children when they were separated from their parents at the police station by some legal process. So I figure we got our money's worth in the end.
#19
Submarine Tourism.
ॐBoyGanesh 7 months ago (edited)
Define submarine tourism. Nearly every beach resort I’ve been to in North America has an Atlantis sub tour.
#22
Pepsi Blue. I tried it once and really liked it, but no one bought it so it vanished overnight.
geezeronthehill 7 months ago
Not gonna drink anything that looks like windshield washer antifreeze
#23
Juicero. Was going to be the keurig of fresh squeezed juice but the "pods" were proprietary bags with a full glass' worth of specially diced fruit amd the machine would squeeze them.
The Dollop podcast has a great episode for all the details.
Michael Melfa 7 months ago
It failed because people discovered you could just cut the pods yourself and squeeze the juice in a glass and get the same result without needing an expensive machine that only worked off wifi and phone app. Even got to the point that the company owner was telling people on Twitter to stop hand squeezing the pods.
#24
Quibi
It’s like they forgot that we already all had YouTube….
#25
Are Dippin Dots still the ice cream of the future?
ॐBoyGanesh 7 months ago
Our area amusement park has a water park where every 100 yards is a Dippin Dots kiosk. It’s a family tradition that once we settle into a little cabana by the wave pool, we go grab our Dippin Dots.
#26
Laserdisc.
Rinso The Red 7 months ago
Great uncle had one of these. The quality was great, but only as good as the CRT TV's of the time. And they were HUGE and you needed to swap/flip them to get through an entire movie. So a bit ahead of their time I would say, to their detriment.
#28
Shia LaBeouf's set up to be the next Indiana Jones.
#30
Lytro. It was a light-field camera that allowed you to change a picture's point of focus after taking the image. It had a cool design and neat features capturing an Apple like aesthetic of form and function.
Huge failure but I was obsessed with them for a while.
#31
Most of google projects, google+, google glasses and the list go on.
Robert T 7 months ago (edited)
Yet some projects are even bigger than we could ever have imagined - Streetview, Gmail, Gooogle Docs, Drive.... not everything they create is going to be a winner, but they do produce a lot of useful stuff and most of it is free to use (selling one's soul aside).
#32
Sega Dreamcast.
#33
Harry and Meghan.
Although an argument could be made that only they thought they were the next big thing.
#34
Does anyone remember when Yahoo tried to do streaming shows?
#35
YouTube premium.
#36
Juicero
By 2017 they raised $120 million dollars from big name VC firms and used it to create a $400 machine that would “fresh squeeze” overpriced and overly complex fruit filled packets.
How do you overly complicate a fruit packet? Instead of printing an expiration date they added a chip or code that would be read by the machine. The machine would then send the expiration date to your phone.
Bloomberg ran an article showing you could squeeze the packets faster, and better, then the machine could.
#37
Carbon Fiber Submersibles.
#38
California Bullet Train.
Michael Largey 7 months ago
In America, people don't get on bullet trains. Bullets get trained on people.
#39
I think the Wii U should be mentioned. That disappeared as soon as it came out.
#40
Drinks with little edible balls suspended in them. Late 90s, I can't remember what they were called, but there were several brands
Edit: it was Orbitz and Skittlebrau as some commenters said. I know about boba tea, but this was nothing like that. It was *definitely* gross and weird, by all accounts.
#42
Truth social.
#43
Recently? VR, NFTs/Crypto, hyperloops, almost any scam from silicon valley that depended on the free money flow of zero interest rates.
Edit 1: when i say VR i meant the meta verse thing Mark Zuckerberg blew 10 billion on. The technology of VR is interesting but I don’t believe we are there yet in a way mass consumers will adopt it, you need to deal with real world space, eye strain (most people can last between 15-30 minutes, there are some outliers but that cannot be good for you), theres your proprioceptive system (balance) that gets thrown out of whack and that’s why you feel nauseous.
I think a mix of VR/AR might work but until you can recreate a plug so that your VR inputs match those you brain is identifying I don’t think you’ll have the matrix or that ready player one world people are dying for.
#44
WOW Chips. "In 1998, Frito-Lay introduced WOW Chips, fat-free chips made with olestra–whose molecules acted like a laxative when people ate too much.".
#45
Google stadia.
Stephen Gross 7 months ago
It was a cool idea, but--IIUC--they never developed a competitive selection of games. Plus, they were entering a crowded market, so it was going to be tough no matter what.
#46
When Garth Brooks tried to re-create himself as a brooding rockstar with a goatee..
Gavin Johnson 7 months ago
Chris Gaines. Created as a character to feature in a film that never got produced. He wanted to explore different genres and styles whilst making a film that documented it and told the story of Chris Gaines. Not an attempt to to recreate Garth Brooks.
#47
The idea that we should learn Chinese because it was supposed to supplant English as the next global language.
#48
Pepsi clear.
Carl Roberts 7 months ago
OP probably means Crystal Pepsi. Pepsi Clear is a different product that was sold in Mexico
#50
Xbox Kinect.
David Morgan 7 months ago
It was a good idea, but the fundamental imprecision of motion-tracking compared to thumbsticks/buttons/mouse and keyboard (yes, on console) meant it was only suitable for a VERY limited selection of games.
#51
Zipdisk.
#54
Streets ahead. It was going to be verbal wildfire.
#56
Neil Youngs Pony music player, and losless music files.
CDV - Kinda like a disc that plays on cd player, or dvd player, I believe.
DAT - required a player more expensive than an entire stereo at that time
space exploration, we were supposed to be colonizing the moon by now
During pandemic, several bands were saying livestreaming shows was thier only live appearances, going forward.
My wife bought a large cricut to make vinyl decals for cars,etc. nevedr happened.
Driverless cars, never happen on a mass scale.
#57
Pickleball is headed that way...
Huddo's sister 7 months ago
It's pretty popular in my area of regional Australia. I don't really get it though- when I was a kid we had a bat tennis court, which seems like the same sort of game, I'm not sure the difference or why pickleball is the one that is popular now.
#58
Clubhouse 😂.
#62
Wasn't there a new cell phone that came out that had massively long battery power, but the downside was the thing was like a freaking brick?
BeesEelsAndPups 7 months ago
My old Nokia 3310 needed to be charged like once every two weeks. Battery lasted forever, and so did the phone. The only issue was if you dropped it off your dining room table, it would crack the hardwood floor.
#63
Therenos.
#64
Disney's Star Wars.
Annik Perrot 7 months ago
To me Star Wars began with... Star Wars ( later re-baptized A New Hope) and ended with "Return of the Jedi" And that's all I have to say about it.
#65
Cyberpunk 2099.
Max Robitzsch 7 months ago
How can you say it flopped when it's still a couple decades away? Mmmmh? Mmmmmh? Didn't think of that, did you?
#66
Nuclear. We were going to have lots of power, nuclear powered airplanes, nuclear space travel and there even were suggestions of widening the Panama canal with nuclear explosions.
What do you think ?
Panda McPandaface 7 months ago
I feel as it I've never actually been part of anything ever LOL. I have never heard of 80% of this stuff. F**k I'm old.
Auntriarch 7 months ago
Me too. But I already knew I was old, so no problem
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axnyslie 7 months ago
and remember when we used to pay subscriptions for everything?
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Panda McPandaface 7 months ago
I feel as it I've never actually been part of anything ever LOL. I have never heard of 80% of this stuff. F**k I'm old.
Auntriarch 7 months ago
Me too. But I already knew I was old, so no problem
Load More Replies... axnyslie 7 months ago
and remember when we used to pay subscriptions for everything?
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