00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for inventions that probably
00:09should have stayed unmade. These inventions are well known and infamous, but they're not
00:13necessarily dangerous.
00:1410 billion pods were sold in 2014 alone. Almost all ended up in landfill.
00:22Number 10. Venetian Blind Sunglasses
00:25Also known as shutter shades, this style was advertised as early as 1942,
00:29and they rose to mainstream popularity in the 1980s.
00:36Venetian Blind Sunglasses appeared in several music videos from the decade,
00:39and then they thankfully died out for about 20 years. But in 2007,
00:43Kanye West wore them in the music video for his song Stronger and restarted the unsightly trend.
00:52Shutter shades were everywhere in the late 2000s, despite the vision obstruction and lack of UV
00:56defense. Maybe these accessories should stay in the past for good this time.
01:01Number 9. Head-On
01:02Homeopathic medicines don't always work, and Head-On gives us a perfect example of that.
01:07Head-On, applied directly to the forehead. Head-On, applied directly to the forehead.
01:11This as-seen-on-TV product, made by Mirrorless Healthcare, initially claimed to be a topical cure
01:16for headaches. However, the stick of wax actually did nothing. Later ads edited out all mentions of
01:21benefit. Head-On is available without a prescription at retailers nationwide. And let's not forget that
01:26awful commercial that spawned parody videos, memes, and endless jokes. That commercial alone is much more
01:31likely to give you a headache than to cure one. Wait, how am I supposed to apply this again?
01:35Oh, that's great! Number 8. Bump It. If you paid any attention to women's hairstyles back in the 2000s,
01:41chances are you remember Bump It's. Do you go through a can of hairspray trying to get that full
01:46volumized look? Then bump it up with Bump It's! Taking inspiration from 1960s bouffant hairstyles,
01:53the Bump It aimed to add height to hair without the hassle of teasing it. However, it often slipped out
01:58of place and it never looked quite as good as the hair on those 60s glamour icons. The Bump It faded from
02:03view during the worsening Great Recession in 2009. Imagine being able to create today's hottest
02:08hairstyles in seconds. And they're so easy to use. Anyone can be a stylist. But that didn't stop Time
02:15Magazine from calling it one of the 50 worst inventions of all time. Unfortunately, celebrities
02:20are bringing the hairstyle back in the 2020s. You can see Bump It's gaining traction on stars like
02:25Anne Hathaway and Angelina Jolie whether you like them or not. Wear Bump It's anywhere, every day.
02:30They're the easiest, most versatile hair accessory you've ever worn.
02:35Number 7. Juicero. A stunning display of unnecessary technology. Juicero was founded in 2013 with the
02:41goal of squeezing the healthy juice craze for all it was worth. Juicero. The easiest, freshest,
02:48most delicious way to get juice. For several hundred dollars, you could buy a wi-fi connected juicing
02:53machine with an app. But it couldn't even juice anything you wanted. It will take a couple of
02:57minutes for the press to make the juice. It only worked with its own brand of produce packs, which
03:01were later exposed to create the same exact product when opened by hand. No need for a QR code, an app,
03:06or a wi-fi connection. No one was shocked when the company folded just four years later in 2017.
03:12I think that Juicero was killed in the first inning. Right? And, you know, normally a baseball game is
03:19nine innings. This was killed in the first inning. Number 6. Plastic shopping packs. They're very light.
03:24They float around. They get twisted around things. They're one of the most difficult things to recycle.
03:29In the 1950s, paper and cloth bags were the only options for use in grocery stores. But paper bags
03:34in particular were seen as bad for the environment because of deforestation, and cloth bags were
03:39expensive. Swedish engineer Sten Gustav Thulin invented plastic bags as an environmentally friendly
03:45solution. Even though these new bags were sturdier and cheaper than paper, they were still pretty
03:49flimsy. Plastic shopping bags soon took over, and now they're one of the biggest contributors to
03:53landfills and ocean pollution. And when they finally do break down, we get dangerous microplastics.
03:58Plastic bags blowing in the wind have become a litter problem nationwide.
04:03Number 5. Selfie sticks. Even before the rise of the smartphone, selfies taken on other cameras
04:09were popular. The downfall was that your arm could only stretch out so far, so the background will
04:14definitely be cut off. In 1983, after Japanese engineer Hiroshi Ueda had his camera stolen in a museum,
04:20he patented the first selfie stick, called an extender stick. Now he wouldn't have to rely on
04:24strangers to take pictures of the whole family. Ueda's disappointment, the invention didn't catch
04:29on. But you just wait a couple decades and you'll find selfie sticks everywhere,
04:32especially in the hands of tourists.
04:34We're used to selfies, but what about the stick? What do you think of the stick?
04:38The stick is awesome.
04:39They quickly became sources of ridicule and annoyance. They're even banned at many museums,
04:44historical sites, and concert venues.
04:46Number 4. New Coke. Coca-Cola has gone through quite a few changes since it was introduced in
04:501886. The least popular change came in 1985 when senior executives thought the drink needed revamping
04:57for a new audience.
04:58After a century of dominating the world's soft drink market, Coca-Cola is changing.
05:03New Coke was sweeter than Coca-Cola Classic and it performed well in blind taste tests.
05:07But when it launched to replace Classic Coke, the market exploded in a fury.
05:11It's a hit. It's a Coke. Coke is hit.
05:15Consumers thoroughly objected to the change. Angry letters and phone calls flooded the offices.
05:20The backlash was so severe that Classic Coke returned 79 days later.
05:24New Coke hung around a few years but was gone by 2002.
05:28Is Coke nervous? Not at all. We've never had more fun in our life.
05:31Number 3. Pop-Up Ads.
05:33Ethan Zuckerman was a developer at a tech startup in the 1990s when he noticed a problem.
05:38Companies didn't want their online advertisements to be directly associated with every website they
05:42appeared on. The solution? Have the ads appear in a different window.
05:46But as advertising efforts became more aggressive, users grew to hate pop-ups.
05:50By the mid-2000s, most internet browsers had a built-in function for blocking pop-ups.
05:55In 2014, Zuckerman wrote a lengthy article in The Atlantic apologizing for his creation.
06:00Even the very developer who created this nuisance hates them.
06:03Number 2. Single-Use Coffee Pods.
06:05The most popular brand of single-use coffee pods is also the original manufacturer.
06:10Keurig started making K-Cups in 1997. The product immediately took off,
06:14showing consumers just how easy making coffee could be.
06:17But there are drawbacks to the invention. Most pods are not recyclable or biodegradable.
06:22If you want to try to recycle the containers, you need to separate each material.
06:25And then inside you have the organic matter, you have the paper filter, and you have the coffee.
06:30So it's really a challenge to recycle.
06:33And even then, not all pieces can be reused or recycled at home.
06:37Billions of K-Cups end up in landfills every year.
06:39John Sylvan, the inventor of the pods, regrets it.
06:42About 10 billion pods were sold in 2014 alone. Almost all ended up in landfills.
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07:031. Clippy
07:06Sometimes good intentions can have terrible effects.
07:09One example is the Microsoft Office Assistant introduced in Microsoft Office 97.
07:13Would you like some help? I used to help people all day long. Remember how helpful I was?
07:20The most notorious incarnation of the Assistant was Clippy, most commonly known as Clippy.
07:25Most users weren't too familiar with computers when Clippy debuted and offered help.
07:29Developers thought they were driving widespread consumer literacy. But Clippy's advice was
07:34often unrelated to the project, and consumers soon grew to hate the intrusive, annoying,
07:38unwanted, shape-shifting, sentient paperclip.
07:41Is there any way to turn that moronic paperclip off?
07:44Memo to Bill Gates, if that paperclip pops up one more time...
07:49I can't take that thing anymore. I quit.
07:53The feature's last appearance was in Microsoft 2003, or 2004 for the Mac version.
07:58Yet Clippy lives on in our bitter memories forever.
08:01Go away, you paperclip! No one likes you!
08:03What pesky inventions interrupt your day-to-day life? Let us know in the comments.
08:07I said apply a head-on directly to your goddamn forehead!
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