Stupid Trend That Just Won’t Die: Cartoon Backpacks

I first noticed it about three years ago: teenagers… high school kids wearing backpacks covered in cartoon characters, made for little kids. It was dumb… boy, was it dumb. But obviously, it was a trend; one that I hoped would die, not a slow and painful death, but the quick and merciful kind. I was wrong.

The next fall I started seeing the phenomena on the SJSU campus. That’s how I could tell they were freshman. Walking around campus with these little cheap-o plastic backpacks on. Fast-forward to present day and they are still.freaking.here.

I’m thinking it’s just a trend in California, and more specifically, the Bay Area because the only place I’ve gone out of town lately is to Columbus. I haven’t been to LA recently and when I Googled the trend, I couldn’t find ANYTHING except for this little blog mention here and I know how to boolean search the mess out of Google.

I know it probably has a lot to do with wanting to feel like a kid again, when times were less stressful and you didn’t have any resposibilities… I mean, who doesn’t want to feel like that every once in awhile, that’s what Disneyland is for, but when you get to college, congratulations, it’s time to grow up!

Walking into class with a plastic backpack on sends a message to your professor that you’re not really serious about your higher education. That backpack can’t hold your books and papers and all that stuff you’re supposed to carry in a backpack. It makes you look like you’re not ready for college.

Also, you end up looking like a total jerk because to everyone else on campus it says that you think you’re extremely cool because you’re up on the latest trends, yet no one past their first year is wearing them.

I just think it’s really dumb and for it to last 3 solid years (and I’ve seen new freshmen wear them for 3 solid years), is just insane. This trend should die. If any cartoon-backpack-wearin kid is reading this: put the backpack down. In fact, burn it as a remembrance of the carefree life you will never have back. Just stop looking like an idiot.