These Insane Viral Trends and Fads Overtook History Long Before the Internet

1. A Viral Crime Wave of Wig Snatching

Nowadays, wigs are so cheap that you can get a realistic looking one for under ten bucks. There was a time, however, when wigs were necessities for the upper crust – and quite expensive necessities at that. In the eighteenth century, for example, to make a decent wig usually took “six men working six days from sunup to sundown“. As a result, a good wig could cost as much as an average workman earned in a year. Such a small fortune propped atop rich people’s heads made wigs an attractive target for crooks. The result was a viral crime wave of wig robberies.

Aristocrats with elaborate wigs became particularly attractive targets for highwaymen. Since only the wealthy could afford big wigs, wealthy nobles were nicknamed “bigwigs”, after the lucrative target atop their heads. Not all wig thieves used force. One account tells of a wig bandit so bold and skilled, that he was able to replace his target’s expensive wig with a cheap rug when the mark was distracted. The nobleman, oblivious to the switch that had taken place, would then walk away, unaware that he had just lost a fortune. Unfortunately for the wig snatchers, their gravy train came to a halt when wigs went out of fashion.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

America Comes Alive – “Kilroy Was Here”: A Story From WWII

Churchill, David, History and Societies, 18(1) 131-152 – Rethinking the State Monopolisation Thesis: the Historiography of Policing and Criminal Justice in Nineteenth Century England

Churchill, David, Social History, 392:2, 248-266 – ‘I Am Just the Man For Upsetting You Bloody Bobbies’: Popular Animosity Towards the Police in Late Nineteenth Century Leeds

Davis, Susan G., American Quarterly, Volume 34.2 (Summer 1982) – Making the Night Hideous: Christmas Revelry and Public Order in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia

Digital History – Holidays and the Invention of Tradition

Encyclopedia Britannica – Dancing Plague of 1518

Gizmodo – In the 18^th Century, Wig-Stealing Bandits Roamed England’s Countryside

Guardian, The, July 5^th, 2018 – Keep on Moving: The Bizarre Dance Epidemic of Summer 1518

Hacking, Ian – Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses (1998)

History Collection – Birds, Entrails, and Newborn Babies: 20 of the Strangest Fortune Telling Methods From History