Could some kindly American person please tell me what Hackey Sack is. It is always getting mentioned on US shows. Thanks kindly.

Also, what is a Kardashian and is it catching?

A hacky sack is a small bean bag ball that you kick with your foot and keep it off the ground as long as possible.

Wikipedia article

A Kardashian is group of socialites that, while not contagious, are, to me, annoying. Kim is the one who married, then divorced after 72 days.

Apart from presumably being multi millionaires, what was it about the Kardashians which got them chosen to be followed going about their daily activities with a camera? I'd never heard of them till a month ago and now even the British papers seem to be following their activities even though no one here has probably seen them.

I think it may have all started with Robert Kardashian and the OJ Simpson trial. Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe are his kids. His widow married Bruce Jenner and they have two more kids, both names starting with "K."

No, it had nothing to do with Robert and the OJ trial. That was a decade before anybody cared about what a Kardashian was or is.

Kim was friends with Paris Hilton. She started to get noticed. A XXX tape then came out starring Kim, and that gave her more notoriety. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, etc. Kim started to become bigger and bigger in the public eye. This all resulted in giving them their own show.

The sad thing is that is the perfect formula to become famous, at least in the states. No talent required to be considered a celebrity in America. Hopefully the Kardashian craze might go away since many of Kim's fans, yes they do exist, are boycotting all things Kardashian because her marriage to someone she knew for only a few months didn't work out and that it was all a publicity stunt. Hopefully our international friends won't think less of us if the Kardashian craze keeps spreading worldwide. I was surprised Italy didn't declare war on us after we brought in the "Jersey Shore" cast to their homeland.

The really sad thing is that there are kids now whose aim in life is "to be famous". Ask them why and they don't care.. they just want to be famous. They don't have an achievement in mind such as playing sport for their country, going into space, being a musician, or ending world hunger etc. They just want to be famous. I long for the day the cult of celebrity goes away and becomes a vague memory.

Wow, I put in the Kardashian thing as a throw away laugh and you guys picked it up an ran with it. Gotta love this site lol.

I would just like to be famous for hackey sacking...

You asked, and we answered.

Thanks for telling me what it is dave I can now sleep at nights and look forward to seeing Hackey Sack in the Olympics.

I'm glad you all did, I was at a loss about them as well. I must try and find a producer now...

For a good explanation on the Kardashians and people like them, I recommend Brad Paisley's song "Celebrity".

I'm writing a letter to Sebastian Coe about the Hackey Sack Finals in next year's Olympics - try as I might I can't get tickets!

Hacky Sack is a game that involves kicking, heading, or bouncing a small, colorful woven ball, off any part of the body (other than the hands or arms, much as in association football aka soccer) in such a way as to keep it continuously airborne. The game was originally invented in the early 1970's by Deadheads, followers of the rock band The Grateful Dead. Many Deadheads of that era were in the habit of following the band from show to show for extended periods of time (in some cases for years or even decades). Because there was quite a lot of slack time involved in this nomadic lifestyle, they needed something to do to fill their days, thus Hacky Sack came into existence. Legend has it that the game was born in the parking lot of a stadium show on a hot summer afternoon in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Someone had broght a large inflatable beach ball with them to the show and inevitably it started getting bounced around. Soon the participants realized that using their hands was just too easy, so they decided to use their feet instead. This proved to be quite a lot of fun, but there was a problem; the beach ball was large and heavy enough that if it happened to get out of control, it could easily tip over bottles of alchoholic beverages, hookahs, and bongs, spilling their contents on the ground and in some cases making said contents borderline inconsumable, even for Deadheads. This bummed everyone's high. So in true democratic Deadhead fashion it was decided that a new, more approprite ball must be found, one that wouldn't roll away, wouldn't hurt to kick, would be cool to look at, and most importantly would be unlikely to knock over bongs. The parking lot of most Grateful Dead shows of the day, featured an ad hoc crafts fair, where Deadheads and straights sold all manner of strange and wonderful things that they made themselves. For some Deadheads this provided their only source of income, as they were nomadic, were generally very hairy, didn't bathe very often, and as such were otherwise hardcore unemployable. Among the crafts vendors that were there that day was a hippie weaver named Bakersfield Bob. Someone among the ball players approached him, and in effect, commissioned the first Hacky Sack ball from him. He completed it the next day, filled with dry lentils fron his road larder. Everyone loved it, it worked perfectly for their needs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Of course everyone is entitled to like what they like, but personally, I couldn't care less about the Kardashians or their ilk.

Went to school in England with the British Hackey Sack Champion. It was absolutely amazing what he could do with the little thing. His British World Record was crazy long. I think now (30 years later) it has doubled......

I wonder what the collective noun is for Kardashians...a pose? a limelight? hmm...

A bore?

A "pestilence" ?

I think this is a game like Sipa which is played in Malaysia etc. I have had this ball for ages, you see people playing it here in parks in the lunch time.
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g152/rensara/home%20stuff/DSC01965.jpg
If it is, it has been around in Asia for hundreds , maybe thousands, of years.