Best Fad Toy?

Lowbrow Answer: The Boomerang
Let me get this straight. I throw it, and it comes back. I throw it again, and it comes back again. I throw it a third time and... well, you get the point. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the complete lack thereof. Boomerangs were only fun for those kids who ate a lot of paste and had their name sewn to the outside of every piece of clothing they owned. Poor, dumb bastards.

I hate Australia. With their stupid accents and their shrimp on the barbie and their Crocodile Dundee. And what's the deal with Koalas? They look so cute and then when I try to pet one, it rips my esophagus out through my eye sockets. Mean little prick. No wonder you're endangered. Maybe if you were a little nicer, I'd stop cutting down your Eucalyptus trees to print cheap pornography and X-Men comics.


Middlebrow Answer: Pet Rock
This is some existential shit. Can a rock be your friend? Is there some kind of cosmic connection between nature and humanity? If I imbue an inanimate object with my own set of emotions, does that object become animate? How can light be both a particle and a wave? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does that mean we're still inside the Matrix? Am I the only thing that's real, or is reality real and I'm just a version of myself inside that reality? E.T. phone home?

To be fair, however, punch yourself in the face if you ever bought one of these. It's just a rock. Like, a rock. Ya know, one of those stony things outside on the ground. You've heard of "outside" right? It's that place you go when you aren't strapped to your computer at your trivial job, sipping a double-double whipless half-caf mochachino and updating your Facebook status to: "Sipping a double-double whipless half-caf mochachino!"


Highbrow Answer: The Rubik's Cube
Remember how playing with one of these wasn't any fun? How you'd just spin the sides over and over until the thing feel apart and your dog started using it as a chew toy? Remember how your parents would encourage you to try and figure it out, even though you were much happier eating mud or shoving army men up your nose? Of course you remember all that. You're proletariat filth with no respect for three-dimensional geometry or mathematics.

The cube was created in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and architect Erno Rubik. Those Hungarians. They can do anything. They invented ballpoint pens, noiseless matches, and holography. Their country was founded by direct descendants of Atila the Hun. (Hence, "Hun"gary) They have the highest rates of male cancer and female suicide in Europe. Ah, female suicide. The great trump card in the game of highbrow poker.