Uggly Boots

Today in class we discussed preferential attachment. When thinking about it, I realized how much it applied to the things I buy. Once something becomes a trend, everybody wants to have it and that item becomes particularly popular.

In middle school preferential attachment was especially important to girls. If a certain girl who was considered popular had a specific item, every girl had to get it too. This was definitely the case when Ugg boots became a fad. To be honest, Ugg boots aren’t particularly attractive.  It doesn’t make sense that they became such a hot item.

I remember in 7^th grade for Christmas I had to get a pair of Uggs because all of my friends were getting them. Since they were so popular, they were selling out everywhere. As soon as one person had them everyone was trying to get them. They became really hard to find. I never even really liked what they looked like, actually I thought they were rather ugly, but I begged my mom to find me some so that I could be just like everyone else.  I felt like having Uggs was just something I needed to do because that was the norm among girls my age.

Just because everybody had Uggs they became even more popular. They went from being something very little people wanted or even knew about, to being a must in every girls wardrobe. Well at least it seemed that way in middle school. It didn’t matter if you had boots that were actually practical snow boots, or boots that kind of looked like Uggs, if you didn’t have Uggs you felt left out because that’s what everyone else was wearing.