The 2000s design-patterns-mania is another case. Design patterns should be thought of less as things you have to memorize and apply in a textbook fashion, and more like tropes: things you'll see over and over in code, and once you know their names you can start talking about them and their interactions in meaningful ways. Just as writers like tropes because they make the job of writing easier, overuse of them is a sign of laziness; and so it is with design patterns.