The unexpected (but probably very good) news about fidget spinners

You'd have to be living under a rock, or be living the peaceful, quiet and clean existence of a childfree person, to have missed the fidget spinner craze.

The small, spinning, flashy gadgets were the must-have item of the nation's schoolchildren in early term two.

Yes, were.

Fidget spinners, those small, flashy devices kids are going crazy for... well, at least they were. Image: supplied.

They're over, baby. So over

Despite the fact that they've been so popular they've even spawned a new cookie craze (yes, people are making fidget spinner biscuits and all I can think is, how can you pay that much attention to a cookie without scoffing it?), new analysis by the data journalism outfit, fivethirtyeight.com shows that fidget spinners are over, baby. So over.

Walt Hickey, fivethirtyeight.com's chief culture writer, looked at data from Google trends in three categories - Google news searches, web searches and Youtube searches to draw the conclusion that fidget spinners are so last season.

His analysis shows that internet traffic related to fidget spinners started in late-March 2017, peaked on the 18th of May and has been in decline ever since.

We have whiplash.

Is this normal?

We found ourselves asking, is this normal? A toy that was so immensely and globally popular has come and gone in the space of about three months.

Now, I'm no Walt Hickey, nor is Kidspot about to attempt to do the kind of work done by fivethirtyeight.com, but we have looked at Google Trends data for some recently popular toys to try and work out the answer to our question.

Remember Hatchimals? Perhaps you were one of the parents calling every Target store in the land trying to find one for your child last Christmas.

Well, Google Trends shows that Hatchimals followed a similar pattern to fidget spinners.

A Google Trends graph showing web search traffic for the term 'hatchimals' over the past five years.

The search term 'hatchimals' started getting internet search traffic in October last year, peaked in November and by January was barely rating a mention.

Shopkins, the small, collectible plastic figurines targeted to a similar age group shows a lot more longevity than both fidget spinners and Hatchimals.

This Google Trends graph shows there has been more long-term interest in Shopkins toys, as compared to Hatchimals.

Shopkins has had good interest, in web search terms, for a couple of years now.

Loom bands, on the other hand, also follow a similar trajectory to Hatchimals and fidget spinners.

Web search traffic for 'loom bands' compared to 'hatchimals'.

Loom bands picked up in popularity and in March 2014, peaked in June and July of that year and have been in decline ever since. (This does not explain why the damn things are still all over my house.)

That leaves us with one final question, which has been more popular overall, Hatchimals or fidget spinners?

You might be surprised, especially if your five-year-old has not stopped begging you for a fidget spinner for the past six weeks, that at least as far as search engine traffic, Hatchimals have been far more popular than fidget spinners.