As writers of television, films, and books tend to find out, you can’t control what people do with the stories you create. Once you release them to the general public, fans tend to grab hold of aspects of your work that you least expected, cruising right past the message to embrace, say, the cool gadgets or fashion, or even something that has literally nothing to do with the stories themselves. We imagine, for example, that with Brave, The Hunger Games, and The Avengers all premiering within a few months of each other, there are going to be a whole lot of kids signing up for archery lessons at summer camp this year, and we can bet Suzanne Collins wasn’t thinking about that at all while writing a series of novels about kids murdering each other. We’ve compiled a few weird unintended — and often fairly disastrous — real-life fads inspired by hit pop culture franchises. Let us know if you can think of any more (although, honestly, maybe we don’t want to know). … Read More