Are your kids hooked on Silly Bandz yet?
If you’re not yet familiar with the trendy toy, the ubber popular rubber bracelets come in a wide variety of shapes, from mermaids to dinosaurs to dragons to fruit. They’re cute, they come twenty four to a five dollar pack, and kids everywhere are becoming obsessed with them. They collect them. They trade them. They play with them. They use them to drive their teachers crazy.
That’s why schools in several states including New York, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts have banned the bracelets.
Teachers and Administrators claim that Silly Bandz are distracting in class, and, even more distracting, often cause disputes, hurt feelings and even scuffles when Silly Bandz trades go awry.
Karen White, principal of Snow Rogers Elementary School in Gardendale, Ala., was one of the first administrators to forbid Bandz. She told Time Magazine,”We try not to limit their freedom of expression and what they wear, but when this became a problem, I knew we had to nip it in the bud pretty quickly.” White has tried to appease angry Bandz fans by instituting monthly “Bandz Days” in which the bracelets are allowed.
Silly Bandz are made by a small business in Toledo, Ohio – the company, and it’s owner Robert Croak, never anticipated the current demand for their product. They’ve increased their workforce from 20 employees to 200 in the past year. They sell millions of packs a month and Macy’s has even expressed interest in creating a Silly Bandz float for its Thanksgiving Parade. Croak thinks their popularity is due to a right product, right time stroke of luck and timing. They’re a cheap, fun and easy way to entertain kids in rough economic times when more complicated toys may be out of reach for many families.
The company receives about 500 fan letters a week. One letter, from Logan Librett (10) and a few friends from New Rochelle, N.Y., contained a clever suggestion to get around the school bans. ”Some schools in New York have banned them, but we have ideas that might change that … clear silly bands that teachers can’t see and only glow in the dark.”
