Not Putty - Still Silly

A slight squiggle is the first clue. If you see a rubberband on someone's wrist, and it has kinks in it, you could be looking at SillyBandz. Last time I was in the US, I found out about these trendy rubberbands. Kids are going mad for them. They are collecting them, wearing them all up and down their arms, asking for them for Christmas, even making YouTube videos and rap songs about them.



What differentiates SillyBandz from serious old rubberbands? When these colourful silicone bands are at rest, they are not circular, but rather take on the shape of objects. You can find Silly Bandz forming the silhouette of flowers, birds, chairs, Abraham Lincoln, hamburgers, Christian crosses, words - anything, really.

Kids love them because they are cheap, making them easy to collect and trade. But at the same time, these novel little invetions are becoming an iconic object for a whole generation of children. In the future, SillyBandz will trigger memories of elementary school for these people, much like SillyPutty does for my generation.

SillyPutty and SillyBandz have something else in common - they are weird materials! SillyPutty could provide hours of entertainment thanks to its bizarre behaviour, sometimes acting like a solid and sometimes as a liquid. We loved it, and we'll never forget it. It was so unlike the materials we were used to. SillyBandz has the same magic of novelty. It demonstrates principles of elasticity, so when these kids get to physics class, they will have a concrete example from the real world to think of.

Putty or Bandz, simple Silly materials can be commercially successful in the toy market.