According to them Pokemon is of the 20 biggest toy fads ever:

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/holidayguide/20-toy-fads-we-cant-believe-we-bought-into-2415843/#photoViewer=1

Yeah Sure....

The people who started this "Pet rock" business made quite some cash, from where I heard.

Pokemon WAS a fad for a while. Do you remember how big it actually was? It was everywhere. Its still huge but I guess Yahoo can say it was a fad because it was so big for a short amount of time.

pokemon used to be far far more popular then it is now. Video Games in general are just more popular now then they were when pokemon was first around though, and red/blue are still the best selling by a very wide margain.

Why does it say they cant believe they bought into it?

Pokemon is still pretty awesome. I was happy I got pokemon as a kid

The games are still popular, but the various media (tv, movies, cards, toys etc.) have declined in popularity drastically. 

Screw yahoo, Legos are not a fad! Most of the rest of the list is gimmicky at best, but legos are a timeless classic. When I have kids they'll surely be playing with legos.

Yeah basically this.

But it still lasted longer than any other "fad". They are comparing Pokémon to Silly Bandz after all.

Fad? Honestly, declining isn't quite the same as fading away. Besides, it has leveled out in terms of popularity recently; even the anime and TCG. Now, it's all uphill, :D.

Oh, and *grudge* this makes me glad Yahoo got destroyed by Google. Go out of business already, >.>.

It was definitely a fad back in '99, but the products have built themselves into long-lasting phenomena