Each year when it is time to name the top fads, we come to the same problem: what entails a fad? For example, we've listed Harry Potter as a fad for two years now. But the film series will be around for another seven years, so perhaps the fad-ness of Mr. Potter is a bit overrated. The same goes for Japanese cartoons such as Dragonball.

Therefore, this year we're going to keep the list to the strange, wacky trends that make the Internet so much fun. We are looking for the bizarre hoaxes and websites that drove searchers to look for more. We are looking for stuff that, when we look back ten years from now, screams "2001" in a big, booming voice.

Clearly, the winner of that contest is the Nostradamus Hoax that swept the nation after September 11.

We also hope you will not consider us unpatriotic for suggesting that the rush to find flag decals, flag t-shirts, flags for your car, printable flag, and anything else flag related after September 11 was also a "fad."

Here are the Top 10 fads for 2001:

1. Nostradamus Hoax
2. Big Brother
3. Survivor 2
4. American Flag paraphernalia
5. Ellis Island website
6. XFL
7. Osama bin Laden jokes
8. All Your Base Are Belong To Us
9. Lady Marmalade remake
10. Moon Landing Hoax TV Show

And a few more that we thought were fun:

11. Klingerman Virus Hoax
12. "Q33NY"
13. The Weakest Link
14. The Face in the Smoke
15. Jennifer Lopez Oscar Dress
16. Bert is Evil

THE HOAX TO END ALL HOAXES: As we stated back in September, the Nostradamus hoax received more searches in one week than any other subject since we first began the Lycos 50 two years ago. That week Nostradamus was misspelled in more than 100 ways and received 12.5 times as many searches as Dragonball.

EARLY WARNING: We reviewed the Klingerman Virus hoax in January, only to see it return at an even higher level of search traffic after September 11.

DRESS TO IMPRESS: Yes, this is the second year that one of Jennifer Lopez's dresses has made our Top Fads list. Last year it was her green, open across the sternum Grammy dress. This year it was her see-thru chest Oscar dress.

HE HATE ME: It was ten months ago so everybody has forgotten, but you need to remember how popular the XFL really was. The league peaked at #7 on the Lycos 50, which is higher than the NFL usually gets. The XFL cheerleaders even spent a week by themselves at #42.

This was great for us at the Lycos 50. We had been predicting the XFL's success since November, and the league was bigger than we ever imagined. Then it crashed and burned faster than Enron stock on crack. The football wasn't good enough for NFL fans, and the nudity and violence wasn't naked and violent enough for WWF fans.

After eight weeks the XFL disappeared from the Lycos 50, and by the end of the winter the league had disappeared entirely. But I still wear my Los Angeles Xtreme T-shirt with pride and dream of the day in the playoffs when Kordell Stewart gets injured, Tommy Maddox comes in to lead the Steelers to victory, and Vince McMahon is vindicated.

LAUNCH ALL 'ZIG': All Your Base Are Belong To Us was the most bizarre fad the Internet has ever seen, and that is really saying something.

HOT IN 2000, NOT SO HOT IN 2001: Scooters, the Hamster Dance, the PT Cruiser, and Whussup commercials.

STRANGELY ABSENT: Of all the September 11-spawned hoaxes, the one we didn't get a lot of searches for was Tourist Guy, the faked picture of the guy standing on top of the World Trade Center with a plane in the background about to hit.

Tomorrow we return with a new Lycos 50 for this week -- Segway fever! Then Wednesday it is back to the year-end review with The Web's Top New Stories of 2001. Find out what else happened this year, other than September 11.