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Stuff You Should Know

Short Stuff: Mood Rings

Stuff You Should Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.582.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mood Rings were all the rage in the 1970s. Then they went away, and fast. What's your color today?

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm going to explore

0:06.8

the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions. Like,

0:13.6

can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain

0:20.9

steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman.

0:27.4

On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:37.1

Hey and welcome to the short stuff. Josh and Chuck here. Jerry's there too. Dave's here. Kind of,

0:42.2

and this is short stuff. This I think is sort of why we started short stuff. This is the perfect

0:49.0

little bite-sized topic. And this one, the articles that I used to cobble this together were from

0:56.5

House StuffWorks.com and the Chicago Tribune. And one of our old favorites Atlas Obscura. Ayo.

1:05.5

Let's talk mood rings. Yeah, so if you were alive in the mid 70s and probably over the age of

1:13.0

eight, there's a good chance that you had a mood ring, Chuck. I did not. I believe my sister did,

1:20.4

though. Sure. Of course. Your older sister, right? Yeah, six years older. So that was right in the

1:24.8

wheelhouse. Yeah. And they just kind of came out of nowhere in 1975. There's a couple of theories

1:30.3

of who came up with it as we'll see. But within a few months, 40 million mood rings sold. And then

1:38.1

just like everything else that was a fad in the 70s, Pet Rocks. Well, Pet Rocks, it was just gone

1:46.4

as fast as it came along. Keep parties. Cocaine. Oh, that stuff went away. Sure.

1:53.6

Yeah, it's amazing how fast and how lucrative this flash in the pan was invented. And there's

2:02.0

a couple of stories here about who introduced this thing. Most people point to in 1975,

2:10.2

Maris Ambets and Josh Reynolds as the inventors Reynolds as the story goes at least was a Wall Street

2:18.5

worker and was very stressed out with that high stress job. Said, I'm going to drop out. I'm going to

2:25.2

start getting into biofeedback. I'm going to open a meditation center. It's called the Q Tran LTD

2:32.8

or Q Tran Limited, I guess. Sure. And he said, I got a ring that actually produces mood feedback.

...

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