Laser Pointers
Photo credit: Photo: Netweb01, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The little metal cylinder that shot a tiny red dot across the room — and, briefly, across every classroom, movie screen, and school bus in America. When laser diodes got cheap in the late 90s, the laser pointer became the pet rock of the decade: irresistible, everywhere, and quickly banned.
The first red laser pointers appeared in the early 1980s as large, unwieldy devices that sold for hundreds of dollars — tools for professors and executives, not kids. That changed as red laser diodes got cheaper: by the late 1990s a pointer that once cost $80 to $100 could be had for as little as $9 to $30, and they filled the racks of office-supply and electronics stores. Overnight, a professional presentation tool became a schoolyard craze.
And a menace. The tiny red dot turned up on classroom whiteboards, movie screens, athletes on the field, and — to everyone's alarm — on other people. Cats chased it across living-room floors; kids chased each other with it. Concern grew fast: in October 1998 the American Academy of Ophthalmology issued an advisory warning parents and schools about possible eye damage, and a wave of bans followed, with cities from Philadelphia to New York restricting sales to minors and school after school confiscating them. Police had their own worry — the red dot looked unnervingly like a handgun's laser sight.
Green laser pointers arrived around 2000, brighter and more visible, and by the 2000s the story shifted to far more serious misuse, including beams aimed at aircraft and the strict laws that followed. But the pure 90s artifact is the cheap red keychain pointer — the impulse-buy gadget that every kid had for a season, and that every teacher learned to dread.
Similar items
USB Flash Drives
A stick the size of your thumb that held everything. By the mid-2000s, USB flash drives had killed the floppy disk, and everything moved on a lanyard: your homework, your music, your games. Losing one was a 2000s tragedy — the only copy of your essay, gone with the keychain.
Big Mouth Billy Bass
The rubber largemouth bass on a wooden plaque that swung its head toward you and sang "Take Me to the River" and "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Gemmy Industries' 2000 novelty sold out sporting-goods stores, hung in Balmoral Castle and on The Sopranos, and hit the $5 clearance bin within about a year.
Mighty Beanz
Tiny weighted plastic beans with painted faces that flipped, wobbled, and raced down plastic tracks. "Play 'em, race 'em, collect 'em" — a pocketful of these got traded around every 2003 playground.
Mini Veritech
A self-checking tile puzzle: twelve numbered tiles in a clear plastic case, each with a fragment of a geometric pattern on the back. You worked through a workbook puzzle, placed each numbered tile on its answer, then flipped the case closed — if the pattern matched what was printed in the book, every answer was right. The game told you before the teacher could.