Pa nty Raids
Legend has it that the tradition of the panty raid began the night of March 21, 1952, at the University of Michigan, when 600 or so male students stormed a women's dormitory, confiscating lingerie. Soon male college students across the country began to participate in this custom, making it a staple of fraternity pledges everywhere.

The l eisure suit
L eisure suits first originated in Europe in the 1700s, but the 1970s saw the emergence of the polyester version, sported by lounge lizards across the United States. W hile serving as an informal alternative to sports coats or suits, the leisure suit eventually became a cause of ridicule, with certain restaurants and businesses going so far to ban them from being worn in their establishments.

Goldfish swallowing
G oldfish swallowing started as a fad in the spring of 1939. Harvard freshman Lothrop Withington swallowed one when a classmate wagered that he wouldn't. The event received vast coverage from the local media in Boston, and soon college students throughout the country were trying to top his feat. A t its height, goldfish swallowing was all the rage, with the record allegedly exceeding 300 fish swallowed in one sitting. Unfortunately (fortunately?), the fad quickly passed as the students left their campuses and returned home for summer vacation.

The Nehru jacket
Named after Jawaharial Nehru, the first prime minister of an independent India, the Nehru jacket was well-known for its lack of lapels or a collar, and was the favored apparel of such stars as Johnny Carson, Joe Namath, the Beatles and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. The most well known Nehru connoisseur was Sammy Davis Jr., who claimed to have owned over 200 of the jackets.

Zubaz
I n 1991 , Dan Stock and Bob Truax wanted to develop a pair of shorts that could expand and stretch to accommodate the bulging muscles of bodybuilders. They called the shorts Zubaz, and the trend caught on. The pair received orders from J.C. Penney as well as the National Football League, so they turned to the Minnesota Corrections Institute to have female inmates stitch them together. No one seemed to care about the fact that the shorts were brightly colored, very flashy and tacky as all hell.

Telephone booth stuffing
The fad of cramming as many humans as possible in a small phone booth is often associated with college students from the west coast, but it was, in fact, started in South Africa. Twenty-five students there were able to pack in a booth and announce that they had set a world record in doing so. Soon students in England, Canada and the United States were attempting to top that mark. Some students in England went on diets, and some at MIT attempted to used geometry and calculus to determine a precise method to achieve the highest efficiency for stuffing.

Of all the things you can do to yourself, following a ridiculous trend ranks up there with the decision you made three years ago to tattoo your (now ex-) girlfriend's name on your left bicep. But don't worry, because you're in fine company. Different generations have been working to outdo each other's fads since at least the 18th century.

Bermuda shorts
British military officers originally wore Bermuda shorts, but they soared in popularity in the United States in the mid-1950s. They came to the States when tourists brought them back from Bermuda and were unfortunately worn at home, at play and in the office.

Glassless glasses
In the summer of 1965, kids on the west coast made popular the practice of wearing eyeglass frames without the lenses in an attempt to make fun of the intellectual Clark Kent look that was popular among adults of the day.