Little rubber bracelets

What is it with these rubber "themed" bracelets. Why are these such the fad these days? I mean, let's face it, they are not exactly Saks 5th avenue. What I don't get is this: When I want to wear my bright red painter's pants with my orange "I cut the cheese in Wisconsin" shirt with my lime helmut green high tops, my GF shakes her head, tells me no way and reminds me of how I have no fashion sense whatsoever. Yet, everytime we pass a machine or a bin with the colored rubber bracelets we are running each other over to get to them. They are like wearing a bag of skittles on your arm. Pink, Green, Blue, Purple, Yellow, Multi-colored, none of them match each other and none of them match anything that I am wearing, but it's okay to wear these. If my orange shirt said "hope" and my red pants said "support the troops" and my green shoes said "pride" would I then be able to wear them all together?
*shrug* I really don't get it.