Let’s face it: Summer is a time when testosterone and schmaltz dominate the pop culture landscape. A few movies managed to be both critical darlings and mainstream successes (“Inception,” “The Kids Are All Right”), and a few bands that have been playing great music for years were finally rewarded with commercial success (The National, Arcade Fire). Yet, for the most part, this summer was just another day at the box office. After meeting this season’s quota for bad action movies, forgettable auto-tuned pop stars and those ever annoying, bronzed human shells on MTV, the entertainment industry can pat itself on the back once again. However, there was one trend that defined the lazy days of summer. You’re going to need glasses for this one.

The onslaught of “3-D” as the new buzzword in every medium of visual entertainment was a trend that finally came to fruition over the last few months. While 3-D glasses used to be found only in places like the Aquarium’s IMAX screen, the warmer months saw a vast increase in the number of movies using the format.

While a few of these films could conceivably benefit from three dimensions—”Toy Story 3″ comes to mind—many of them jumped on the bandwagon simply for the sake of charging people a few extra dollars and salvaging empty concepts. The conflict in “Piranha 3-D” could have been resolved in two minutes. Stay out of the lake, get in your car and enjoy your city’s municipal pool. Wearing dorky glasses while watching people in easily avoidable situations is cool, right? It made James Cameron almost $3 billion, and he’s about to milk his blue creatures again in a theatrical re-release of “Avatar.” And don’t try to justify the trend with “Step-Up 3-D.” In case you didn’t think we needed another sappy romance movie with a bit of dancing thrown in, this time there’s added pizzazz because you can see the dancers leap right off the screen!

When I saw companies touting 3-D televisions as the hot new item, I had several reasons to roll my eyes. First, it completely removes the communal aspect of watching TV. Your friends aren’t going to come over and watch the game if you subject them to a blurry screen while you and another friend enjoy the two pairs of glasses that actually came with it. Secondly, the game is all that’s on, because the vast majority of 3-D programming is restricted to live-action sports events. People aren’t going to be itching to see “The Office” in 3-D anytime soon, especially given the fact that most just catch it on Hulu later anyway. Television should be about the quality of the programming, not the spectacular sheen of Dwight’s stapler as it jumps at you from across the room. Finally, when everyone recognizes 3-D for the gimmick it is, providers will inevitably bow out and leave the dozen or so people who actually invested in 3-D TVs with expensive sets and nothing to watch.

While 3-D was once seen as something for big screens and nature documentaries, it has been injected into our collective consciousness as “the next big thing” in entertainment. Sadly, it faces challenges as thick as the glasses needed to enjoy it. The summer of 2010 will likely serve as a reminder that Americans can’t get enough of those eye-popping graphics and that, when something looks good, it sells—no matter its substance or lack thereof.