16 Things That Were Made Popular (Or Unpopular) By Movies

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16 Things That Were Made Popular (Or Unpopular) By Movies

We used to think we were perfectly independent minds, floating blissful and free in the waters of pop culture. It turns out many of the most seemingly innocent preferences were actually influenced by the galaxy brains in hollywood. There's a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) number of feature films that have had a massive impact on cultural trends. We didn't even see it coming!

Yes, of course you’re too sophisticated to be influenced by movies, TV, and such stuff. Not everyone has your mental fortitude, though, and many desire what is shown to be good (or shun what is shown to be bad). These are a few examples of trends that originated on the screen.

Did you know Bill Murray's “Lost in Translation” caused a massive boom in Japanese Whiskey?! Kind of makes sense. Who knows how many people have been guzzling white russians ever since the big lewbowski dropped.

Want to learn about more ways movies have brainwashed millions of unsuspecting viewers? Scroll down for more wild examples!

The Avenger's Shawarma

The Avengers made everyone crave shawarma. After the movie came out, many people who had never tried the Arab dish felt like giving it a bite. The owner of a shawarma place in Queens reported that, The first four or five weeks I was running out of shawarma by 3 or 4 o'clock.

Source: MTV

Maverick's Navy Thrills

Top Gun caused U.S. Navy recruitment figures to spike.Perhaps expecting to replicate in real life the movie's sexy, high-energy thrills, many people enlisted as soon as they walked out of the theater. And we mean literally as soon as they walked out - the Navy set up handy recruiting stations to catch psyched up moviegoers.

Source: Screen Rant

Bug Bunny's Meat

Bugs Bunny turned people off eating rabbit. Demand for rabbit meat went down after World War II - and Bugs Bunny is partly to blame for it (at east according to the American Rabbit Breeders Association), as people who had grown up with the sassy rabbit were revolted at the idea of eating him.

Source: The New Yorker

Rachel's Haircut

Everyone wanted to look like Rachel from Friends. During the height of the show's popularity in the '90s, hair salons kept getting requests for Rachel's haircut (which probably annoyed stylists, as the Rachel is hard to pull off). Even more recently, during the 2021 Friends reunion, demand for the haircut went up by 179%.

Source: Glamour

Baby Driver's iPods

Baby Driver brought iPods back. After audiences took a look at Baby's collection of stolen iPods, sales of the vintage player on eBay multiplied almost tenfold.

Source: Gizmodo

The Blair Witch Project's Town

The Blair Witch Project made people invade Burkittsville. The witch was fictional, but the sleepy Maryland village was haunted for real - by tourists, who either didn't know or didn't care that the movie wasn't actually shot there. Many residents were not happy about the rude visitors, or the marketing- driven falsification of their town's history.

Source: Thrillist

Sideways' Wines

Sideways made pinot noir wine a top seller (and damaged merlot). The California wine industry credits Sideways with boosting the popularity of pinot noir, with production nearly doubling since the movie came out. Conversely, this Sideways Effect has been blamed for making merlot a shunned wine, as Paul Giamatti's character refuses to drink it.

Source: NPR

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