Fad foods come and go, and once they go, they leave you wondering why they came in the first place. I experienced this very phenomenon during my Junior year of high school when a popsicle shop opened in my town. We were fresh off the heels of the frozen yogurt boom, so this seemed like it was the next big non-ice cream dessert shop, at least in my town. That spring, everyone in town was going to the popsicle shop and taking aesthetic Instagram pictures with their popsicles. I will admit they were delicious popsicles, but I have to ask…how? How could a business selling pops the size of grocery store popsicles for $5 a pop survive? And the answer to that is it doesn’t. After some cursory googling, I’ve discovered that this artisanal popsicle shop has closed its doors permanently and only has two remaining locations. Take that, novelty food profiteers. Unfortunately, not all gimmicks die so quickly. Some foods live on forever, reveling in their unmitigated mediocrity, and all we can do is complain about how mediocre they are.