Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems that with the exception of a few errant booties that remain shaking, everyone has stopped livin' la vida loca. The dancers wearing the matching hot pants have gone home, the band has packed up its marimbas and the other members of Menudo have quietly given up hopes of a comeback.

Despite the countless news stories and thousands of glowing profiles of Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias et al., the Latin music craze ended up having a life span that wouldn't even make a CBS sitcom jealous. Even the Pokémon phenomenon has outlived Latin music and, although Pikachu may be cute, I challenge anyone over four to explain the premise of that show.

Martin and his pals might have a few more minutes in the sun before the mainstream media catches on (these are the same people who still consider Cyndi Lauper a huge star).Ultimately though, these lightweight, hype-heavy artists will join Vanilla Ice, the guy who sang "Butterfly Kisses" and Ginger Spice on the "Behind the Music" circuit. Of course, this entire nation-sweeping madness had nothing to do with the quality of the music-which was indistinguishable from any of the other pop crap constantly pumped out by the major record labels. The songs involved here had as much resemblance to the work of legitimate Latin artists as the rapping in a "Kentucky Fried Chicken" commercial does to a Tupac Shakur album.

The idea of combining Gloria Estefan's watered-down rhythms with Lorenzo Lamas' looks and the Backstreet Boys' songwriters screamed marketing genius from the moment Martin first appeared. But like any musical phenomenon created in a board room instead of a band room (or at least someone's parents' garage), Rickymania only attracted the fickle pop audience. The crowd buying this hooey consists almost entirely of people who base their likes and dislikes on the opinion of-depending on their age-either MTV or People magazine. These are the same adults who used their kids' college funds to buy Beanie Babies and the same kids who thought that was a perfectly acceptable tradeoff.

The disposable nature of a star like Martin does have one positive benefit-it make things easier for the people over at VH1. Rather than bracing for the arrival of "Still Livin' la Vida Loca," the channel can immediately turn its attention to gathering material for a future "Where are they now?" segment on the artists from the Latin music craze.

In fact, these musical trends come and go so quickly now that VH1 need only conduct one interview-by the time it airs, the subject will be well on his way to being a has-been. Perhaps the station could hand out a questionnaire asking the "star" whether he plans to develop a drug dependency. Throw in some check-off boxes covering the reasons the star will be arrested, not to mention the year he plans to stage an embarrassing "comeback" tour of high school gyms, and you have your whole show.