Two engineers tried making 3D wallpaper in 1957 by heat-sealing plastic shower curtains together. It flopped as wallpaper but IBM bought it to protect computers during shipping, and bubble wrap became the packaging standard by accident.
You know this stuff and you love it, but bubble wrap was supposed to be 3D wallpaper? Well, here's what happened. It all starts in 1957 with these two engineers. They hate the look of the boring old crusty wallpaper your grandma has in her house. Ugh. Any normal person would scrape it off and paint the wall, but not these guys. They think, let's make wallpaper fun. Like, let's make it 3D. So they heat seal two plastic shower curtains together. The results, a sheet of film with air bubbles trapped inside, and it's ugly as hell, but fun to pop, except no one actually wants to decorate with it. So it's a complete flop until IBM creates the first mass-produced computer. The problem with these computers, they're fragile and the folks that are shipping them keep breaking them during shipments until they discover the airy bubble-filled protective film, perfect for cushioning the machines. And just like Post-it notes, sometimes the best inventions are the ones you never planned for.
