How ludicrous can our fads become? What will it take for someone to say, "This is ridiculous!"
In recent years, young Americans have latched onto a few items that have caused me to raise an eyebrow or two. Heelys, Beanie Babies, trading cards from TV shows like "Yu-Gi-Oh!," deodorants like Axe and Tag that supposedly have the power to attract females, Crocs . . . the list goes on.
However, a new craze is slowly rising that resides in a category far removed from even the most "out there" fads of the past. This new craze is stacking up its devotees as we speak. The "tweens" of today and even some parents and young adults - obviously lost souls - have joined the ranks of the "Speed Stackers" of America.
That's right. Speed Stackers.
These warriors of the "Cycle Stack" and other patterned routines devote their efforts to "Sport Stacking," desiring to become among the fastest Speed Stackers in the world. With only a StackMat and twelve professionally engineered cups (known as "speed stacks") as their weapons, Speed Stackers across the nation spend countless hours "upstacking" and "downstacking" to hone their speed-stacking skills. Each hopeful crusader of the cups dreams of one day competing for world-record times at the World Sport Stacking Championships.
OK. Let me try to explain this.
Sport Stacking started in the early 1980s in southern California and first entered the public eye in 1990 on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson." The show caught the attention of Bob Fox, a teacher of elementary education in Colorado. Fox decided to promote Sport Stacking, eventually presenting it as a sport to the state of Texas.
Fox praised the benefits of Sport Stacking, saying that, "When students are stacking, they're using both sides of their bodies and brains to develop skills where using both your left and right hands is important."
Fox soon quit his job as a teacher and devoted his life to sport stacking, developing the company Speed Stacks Inc. and traveling the country to promote stacking in schools. Today, more than 12,000 schools have a Speed Stack program.
These little cups - available in multiple colors and two sizes - are being stacked up and down at great speeds by people all across the country. The most popular routine is called the "cycle stack." The cycle stack consists of three parts: The 3-6-3 stack, the 6-6 stack and the 1-10-1 stack. In each stack, the appropriate number of cups must be upstacked and then quickly downstacked and combined to prepare for the next stack set. A touch-sensor timer is attached to the StackMat upon which all Speed Stacks must be stacked. The world record for the cycle stack is currently held by young Robin Stangenberg (13) at a whopping 7.41 seconds (compared to an average time of around 25 seconds).
Still, although impressive and potentially beneficial in the development of a child's brain, we are talking about stacking cups. And, in truth, this is what an astounding number of kids in the United States do in their free time. Upstack, downstack, over and over again. When I notice kids eating away their hours practicing this new craze, I want to pick them up, shake them and yell, "You are STACKING CUPS!"
There must be something deeper to sport stacking. There has to be some unseen force emanating from the cups that attracts and captures human beings. Perhaps speed-stack scientists have discovered an element unknown to modern man that dulls his senses and requires him to perpetually perform pathetic patterned practices.
I'm stumped.
You want to talk about "dulling senses?" It beats the most common kid activity of watching TV hands down!