History FollowTheLeader / RealLife

* Many common practices of [[UsefulNotes/ThePresidentsOfTheUnitedStates Presidents]] in the UsefulNotes/{{American political system}}, which are simply taken for granted today, can ultimately be traced back to the example set by UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington when the office was still new. The President of the United States is still always addressed as "Mister President" (or "Madame President"), a term of address that Washington devised for himself in order to avoid a more aristocratic title like "Your Excellency". Likewise, the two-term limit for American Presidents became standard because Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms in office; it wasn't until UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt unexpectedly won ''four'' terms (almost 150 years after Washington's tenure) that it occurred to anyone to finally make the term limit a law.

* The Hard Rock Cafe restaurant chain was established in TheSeventies but took off in tourist towns worldwide in TheEighties with its combination of hearty, familiar food and fun, authentic music memorabilia as wall decor. In TheNineties, a theme restaurant boom arrived as a slew of rivals applied the Hard Rock formula to other concepts. While [[Film/ForrestGump Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.]], Music/JimmyBuffett's Margaritaville, and Rainforest Cafe have proved thriving chains, most of the highly-hyped Planet Hollywood locations have long since closed, and the business is littered with outright flops: Fashion Cafe, Official All-Star Cafe, ESPN Zone, etc.

* When UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken pioneered fast-food chicken in TheSixties, many other chains began pursuing fried chicken as well. Many burger chains such as Hardee's and Red Barn began selling it, and flash-in-the-pan chains such as Minnie Pearl's Fried Chicken sprang to life. Perhaps the most notable competitor to spring out of the fried chicken boom is Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, which is still the second largest chicken chain after KFC by number of locations, and was also second-largest in revenue until the meteoric rise of Chick-fil-A in the current century.

** The "streamliner" craze of the 1920s-1940s. After UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, people in TheRoaringTwenties became fascinated by airplanes and their speed. The railroads developed new ArtDeco trains, initially steam and later diesel, with streamlined bodies to not only go fast but also look fast, and keep the passenger train competitive against the airplane and the highway. Some streamliner designs, such as the Super Chief, the Mallard, the Hiawatha, the Daylight, and the Dreyfuss Hudson, are legendary. But other designs such as the Alco P/F-series diesels, the Union Pacific steam streamliners, or the streamliners of the minor railroads were seen as FollowTheLeader and are not so well celebrated.[[note]]Although the Alco PA/FA are often considered some of the most beautiful streamliners ever built.[[/note]]
** After streamliners, Alco made some diesel locomotive models in TheSixties that are similar to competitor GM's Electro Motor Division (EMD) General Purpose (GP#) and Special Duty (SD#) engines.

* In 1982, the handgun industry was changed forever when Gaston Glock created the Glock 17. While it took a while for the shooting public to move away from the standard of metal-framed, hammer-fired handguns, the Glock series pistols eventually became the most widely used personal sidearm for civilians, law enforcement, and many militaries around the world. Competition for the Glock was slow to materialize; in the 1990s, Smith & Wesson had its Sigma series, but the Sigma got killed by a lawsuit filed by Glock because it was ''too'' similar. In the 2000s, the Springfield XD series, the Ruger SR series, and the Smith & Wesson M&P series were the chief competitors (along with the Sigma's successor, the SW VE and later the SD VE lineup, which are essentially economy versions of the M&P). But it wasn't until [[TheNewTens the late 2010s]] when the rest of the gun industry finally entered the market for polymer-framed striker-fired handguns. Spurred on by the conclusion of the U.S. military's Modular Handgun System competition, SHOT Show 2017 featured many, ''many'' major manufacturers rolling out their versions of black polymer guns, all aiming to dethrone Glock's dominant position in the industry. These include the CZ P10 C, the Beretta APX, the Remington [=RP9=], the Ruger American, the Fabrique Nationale 509, new iterations of the Walther PPQ and H&K VP series, and more.

* The iPhone can be considered the first smartphone as we know them today (with pre-iPhone smartphones having physical keypads), and the one from which inspired most other smartphones. However, in recent years, Apple's actually fallen behind the times of its competitors. It wasn't until 2016's iPhone 7 that they delivered an iPhone with [=IP67=] dust/water resistance certification, and it wasn't until 2017's iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, that iPhones began to have wireless charging. Water resistance and wireless charging are things that Samsung had been doing since the Galaxy S5 in 2014. USB-C charging, though introduced in 2015 by Chinese company [-LeTV=], started going mainstream with the 2016 introduction of the Galaxy Note 7, and was ubiquitous in non-Apple smartphones by 2020. Apple, however, didn't migrate the iPhone to USB-C until the iPhone 15 in 2023—and that move was mainly due to a coming EU mandate. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R59TevgzN3k Lampshaded in one Galaxy S8 / Note 8 ad]].

* The iPhone can be considered the first smartphone as we know them today (with pre-iPhone smartphones having physical keypads), and the one from which inspired most other smartphones. However, in recent years, Apple's actually fallen behind the times of its competitors. It wasn't until 2016's iPhone 7 that they delivered an iPhone with [=IP67=] dust/water resistance certification, and it wasn't until 2017's iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, that iPhones began to have wireless charging. Water resistance and wireless charging are things that Samsung had been doing since the Galaxy S5 in 2014. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R59TevgzN3k Lampshaded in one Galaxy S8 / Note 8 ad]].