Pogs

Pogs didn t start out as collectibles but rather as the little cardboard discs inside juice caps. (Just like baseball cards started out as a way to promote cigarettes and Pet Rocks started out as a way to slowly get rid of mountains.) Then companies started selling those discs without the cap or even juice. (Just like Frisbees were originally sold as cake pans without the cake and Boomerangs as coat hangers without having to hurl a three piece suit into the air). Then companies started putting little illustrations on them. Then kids everywhere started playing a game in which you stacked pogs into piles and threw a plastic slammer on top of them, keeping whatever pogs landed face up. Unless your opponent caught the golden snitch. Or you thought twice about how you were spending your afternoons. In other words, before the Web you had to make your own fun, and sometimes that fun involved playing with things you normally would have just thrown straight into the trash.