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Things That Were Anticipated To Be 'The Next Big Thing' That Actually Tanked

A hand holds a camera/flying drone
Photo by Tyler Casey

"Reddit user Reeceqld asked: 'What was supposed to be 'The Next Big Thing,' but totally flopped and tanked?'"

We've all succumbed to the hype surrounding something, be it a phone, show, or even a new-fangled drink.

Product rollout is so over the top these days.

The "next big thing" is usually promised to change EVERYTHING.


Then the release happens, and... the hype fizzles.

It happens to the best of everything.

From video games to weight loss products, nothing is a guaranteed hit.


Redditor Reeceqld wanted to discuss some of life's biggest flops, so they asked:

"What was supposed to be 'The Next Big Thing,' but totally flopped and tanked?"

Farewell

iphone GIF by Product HuntGiphy

"Microsoft held a literal funeral procession for the iPhone when they introduced the Windows Phone."

KaityKat117

"As someone who's worked as a software engineer since the mid-1980s, an industry where rapid change is the norm, one thing has remained the same: Apple is doomed. Any minute now."

UlrichZauber

Movie Fail

"Universal Picture's 'Dark Universe.'"

"The Mummy with Tom Cruise was supposed to start a whole line of movies, but when that one died it took the rest with it."

doowgad1

"The real tragedy is that a Dark Universe is not a bad idea. Various Universal monsters exist in the same universe? Sign me up! However, it played more like an action film than horror, because Tom Cruise cannot be in anything other than an action movie. We might have gotten Javier Bardem Frankenstein’s Monster, that is a perfect casting right there."

ChiefsHat

Negative

"Google+ was supposed to topple Facebook."

Regnes

"This was one of the worst product launches of all time. They had like one week where everyone was super excited about it and wanted to try it and they limited it to invite-only. Very few people could get in. By the time they opened it up to everyone, nobody cared anymore."

PMMeUrHopesNDreams

Never taken off...

"3D TV. I remember those being sold somewhere when we had to buy a couch, and accidentally renting the 3D version of a movie, but it never took off."

Stupid-ForYou

"This isn't anything new. The major issue seems to be that it gives a certain amount of people a headache or they find it otherwise uncomfortable. Add to that the need for the glasses even in the current iteration and you can start to see where there's an accessibility issue too."

NativeMasshole

Get Turkey

"About 25 years ago, they thought ostrich meat would be as popular as chicken."

momobeth

Chicken Nuggets Loop GIFGiphy

Not sure anyone wanted that kind of chicken nuggets!

Scooped Away

ice cream GIFGiphy

"Are Dippin' Dots still the ice cream of the future?"

The4StringSamurai

"Well, they're definitely not the ice cream of the present."

teh_maxh

Hot Wheels

"Segway."

No_Firefighter9295

"They completely underestimated how much we design cities for cars (especially in America) and how unwilling anyone is to change this."

"Look at the 15-minute cities concept. All these people are claiming isn't about population control. Can't even get pedestrians, bicycles, and cars to play nice with each other, let alone something like a Segway. Which is a shame, because if we designed cities for bikes, and segways, we might end up with something quite interesting and useful."

cobarbob

Redundant

"Quibi. It’s like they forgot that we already all had YouTube…"

Dubz1781

"I got the 3-month trial, and it was really weak. I like the idea of 10-minute shows with a new episode a day, I often watch movies I've seen before that way. But it's impossible to deny nobody was asking for it. And the dramas didn't feel like serials, it felt like awkwardly short full episodes, complete with characters standing around reminding the audience of what happened last time, which I'd just watched."

"The reality shows felt like 2 minutes stretched painfully to 10. So yeah, weird concept, the shows didn't really meet the concept anyway, and oh yeah all of the ideas were really half-baked. Here's a horror show set in different states, with legends we just kind of made up. Idris Elba competes with a NASCAR driver to do stunts basically invented for NASCAR drivers. Anna Kendrick made friends with her ex-boyfriend's sentient sex doll."

Maninhartsford

Get a Honda

"The Tata Nano. The company set out to build the lowest price new car in the world, and it succeeded. Unfortunately, newly middle-class Indian families didn’t want the stigma of owning the world’s cheapest new car, so sales never came anywhere close to expectations."

JournalofFailure

"Not a complete failure. It failed because the new chairman of the Tata group didn't see its potential and cash revenue. This led to a boardroom coup with an earlier chairman which led to disclosure that the car was not doing that great. This led to people not wanting nano car and subsequently, it stopped manufacturing in a few years."

jeetendraprasad

Big Fail

New York Yankees Reaction GIF by MLBGiphy

"Lytro. It was a light-field camera that allowed you to change a picture's point of focus after taking the image. It had a cool design and neat features capturing an Apple-like aesthetic of form and function. Huge failure but I was obsessed with them for a while."

SchnifTheseFingers

I can't remember half of these things.

So that should tell you everything.

Do you have any to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

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