By things I mean almost everything: movies/tv shows/games/websites/songs/musicians/artists/etc… It doesn’t matter what you pick, as long as you didn’t think that particular thing would become popular. It can be something you didn’t like/care for, or something you liked that you thought was too good to last. It doesn’t matter if that popularity faded away after a while either. As long as it got popular and you just didn’t see that coming.
For me:
-The Dave Chappelle catchphrases of 2003. When I watched both the Rick James and Lil Jon episodes for the first time, I just thought “meh.” They didn’t suck, but they weren’t the funniest (except for Rick’s “5 fingers” joke). But then, whoa. Those phrases were EVERYWHERE.
-Soulja Boy. I think we can all agree on that one, and I’ll leave it there.
-Dane Cook. I liked Dane back in the day (fuck you, some of you did too), but he wasn’t getting any big buzz that I could see before Retaliation. Yes, I was aware of Harmful if Swallowed (his first album, I think). But after H.I.S, the next time I ever even heard anything about Dane was him allegedly breaking comedy sale records with Retaliation.
-Nip/Tuck. I liked that show, and thought it had the potential to be one of the best. But it always seemed like a guilty pleasure people would write off (even though it was genuinely good the first 2 seasons). However, for a brief time, it picked up a shit ton of popularity as people were buzzing in season 3 about who the Carver could be.
-Nikki Minaj. The first time I heard her was on Lil’ Wayne’s “Da Drought 3” mixtape. I deleted that track off my MP3 player with the quickness. Now, I pretty much feel the same way about her (especially with those voices), but her album just went platinum.
-The most obvious example: Twilight. I had no clue what it was until the first movie came out. Ugh.
-The second most obvious (for me): Eminem. Another white boy trying to rap? Eh, he’s decent, but he’ll blow over. That was me in 1999, when Em first came out. Now it’s 2010, and Em is still one of the best in rap and album sales.