he Hundred Monkey Theory is based on the observation that when the monkeys on a remote island discovered a new way to get bananas down from the tree, the monkeys living on a nearby island somehow acquired that same knowledge, even though there was no physical contact between the two groups of monkeys.

So the theory goes that when enough members of a group (for convenience stated as a hundred monkeys) acquire a certain piece of knowledge, this knowledge passes into the collective consciousness, and all members of the group acquire that knowledge.

I don't know how true any of this all is, but it would account for the irrational popularity of such things as the hula hoop, POGS, and the Macarena.

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