8. The See-Through Craze
Many trends swept over the 1990s, and among them one that we could most surely support was the obvious frenzy. Something about the children of this age made them yearn to see through whatever they owned in their homes, including their phone. Indeed, we had one of these in our rooms long before cell phones and 90s children couldn’t get enough of viewing the inside components.
The open trend was a design revolution that embodied the core of the 1990s, not only a passing fancy. From Game Boys to landlines, from watches to computers, if it wasn’t see-through it wasn’t cool. Beyond simple beauty, this obsession with transparency was a window into the future, a means of demystifying technology by really rendering it transparent. We wanted to know our devices, not only use them; we wanted to examine the complex circuitry and components driving them to work.
Children that used this phone thought they were the hippest child around. That was fantastic as they seemed to be talking to their friends in the most futuristic phone available. The clear phone was a status symbol, a conversation starter, and a tiny science lesson all combined into one rather than only a means of communication. We would spend hours looking inside, following wire paths, and acting as though we knew what each component did. It made us feel as though we were tech-savvy covert operatives working from our bedrooms. One clear fad at a time, one transparent device at a time, reflected the curiosity and need to comprehend the world around us of our generation, not only a trend.
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