Pogs, a game played with small cardboard discs that players would stack and try to flip with a heavier 'slammer,' became a massive and highly profitable fad among children in the early 1990s. The game's simplicity, combined with the appeal of collecting thousands of different designs, led to an estimated 500 million Pogs being sold in the US in a single year before the craze abruptly collapsed. The fad is a classic example of a low-tech childhood obsession that swept through schools and playgrounds across the globe.

The Pogs fad has been referenced in literature and poetry as a symbol of the trivial and fleeting concerns of childhood, often used to evoke a specific time and a specific kind of consumerist nostalgia. Contemporary poets use such references to ground their work in the lived experience of a generation. The ephemeral nature of the fad makes it a poignant symbol for the passage of time and the loss of youthful innocence.