last big thing

plural last big things · alternative Last Big Thing

1. A recent fad or trend that has lost its popularity.

   We always, it seems, are provided with a glut of material on the next big thing and not enough on how to make the last big thing actually work.

   2009, Alec Sharp, Patrick McDermott, Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Applications Development, →ISBN, page 4

   3 more examples

   My nightstand, desktop, TiVo menu and mental to-do list are still full of last big things I never got around to— The Hulk, Friendster, hot yoga (or, for that matter, cold yoga)— and I'm paid to keep up with this stuff.

   2003, Time - Volume 162, page v

   My colleagues and I are searching for the next big thing in the field. The last big thing came about 15 years ago and we're currently in a “been there, done that” mode.

   2005, Eric Dolin, The Ph. D Survival Guide, →ISBN, page 19

   And, besides, appearances to the contrary, the fashion business was not really in the habit of changing bandwagons when the cutting-edgers started looking for the next big thing. They were usually still responding to the last big thing.

   2011, Stephen Fried, Thing of Beauty, →ISBN, page 102

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see last, big, thing.

plural Last Big Things

1. alternativeAlternative form of last big thing.

   You might call Web services the Last Big Thing. The surprise is that today, in the midst of an IT downturn that has become a way of life, Web services really is changing everything.

   2003 September 15, Eric Knorr, “A Bargain So Far”, in CIO, volume 16, number 23, page 118

   2 more examples

   Now, nobody knows what IT is exactly, but as dot-com companies, purveyors of the Last Big Thing, bite the dust, we're ready to grasp at anything — even if we don't know what it is.

   2001 April, John R. Quain, “What Is IT?”, in Popular Science, volume 258, number 4, page 74

   The world of nightlife is arguably one of the most forward-thinking businesses there is; impresarios and denizens alike are moving constantly, like sharks, on the unending quest for the Next Big Thing, and the Next Next Big Thing, and the So Much The Next Big Thing That Only Fifteen People In Glasgow Know About It Thing, leaving the rest of us behind at the Last Big Thing, as redundant and forgotten as rejected bits of forlorn knitwear on the last day of a Barneys warehouse sale.

   2007, 2033: Future of Misbehavior, →ISBN, page 12