Certain countries just develop a reputation with the rest of the planet.
Sometimes it's earned, but sometimes it's way off base.
So what about Australia?
Are the rest of the Earth's stereotypes about the land down under fact or fiction?
Redditor Phrince_Prillip asked:
"Non-Australians, what's the first thing that comes to your head when you think of Australia?"
Mr. Dundee
"A voice in my head saying 'You call that a knoif?'"
- Flaky-Fellatio
"Love the pronunciation of the word 'Knoife'."
- Phrince_Prillip
"That's not a knoife. THIS is a knoife."
- MadnessPersonified
Giphy"I hate that my answer was kangaroos."
"I know more about Australia but f'king kangaroos pops up first."
- yankiigurl
"AUSTRALIA=KANGAROOS"
- Zgirl333
"Kangaroos, yes. But specifically that kangaroos are just buff donkeys."
- Torshii
GiphyFood?
"Answering honestly, the first word that popped into my head when I read your question was vegemite."
- ReadyTadpole1
"Now I want some Vegemite."
- Fabulous_Parking66
"Please don't make the mistake everyone makes. Remember, it's not chocolate. This has been the Australian Government Department of Vegemite Health and Safety."
"Funded by the Australian Government Canberra."
- ProbablyNotYourMum
"If you are a foreigner, the first time you eat vegemite, it should be spread so thin that it is a light brown smear. Half a pea size might be too much for one piece of bread."
"Now if you are an aussie and still do that amount, you are weird."
- Theosie
GiphyR.I.P. G.B.R.
"The Great Barrier Reef. It’s a dream of mine to see it one day."
- macaronsforeveryone
"Better book yr ticket soon…"
- BandicootPlastic5444
"I guess my dream is dead in the water, literally."
- macaronsforeveryone
"People say it's all dead but there's still an enormous amount of living reef to be seen. It's definitely worth going to."
- philjorrow
GiphySouthern Hemisphere
"Summer during end of the year, December."
- ixhejehdbejeh
"For whatever reason, we still play all the old Christmas songs. even White Christmas, when it's summer and like 40°C (104° F) outside."
- rawker86
"Christmas on the beach is sensational."
GiphyCrikey
"Steve Irwin."
- Ok-Chocolate5893
"When I was a kid it was my life goal to meet Steve Irwin, I was obsessed with the man. When he passed I was absolutely inconsolable for days."
"Also, does anyone remember the episode where he lays with his dog [Sui] before she passes? I've been trying to find the clip and was never able to."
"No idea why I want to make myself cry but it was a really touching moment."
- la-bano
"Bless that wonderful person."
"We miss him, my eyes just watered from thinking about him, he was my first ever celebrity death, and I was devastated as a young boy."
- Sir_Admiral_Chair
GiphyChomp!
"Crocodiles."
- Deana-Marie
"Ooh! Saltwater crocodiles!! I'd forgotten how big they can get."
- pennyraingoose
Giphy🎵 You better run, you better take cover...🎶
"Men at Work’s 'Down Under' automatically started playing in my head when I read the word Australia."
- Jaded195
GiphyChanged Perception
"German here, now living in Australia."
"Before: heavy drinkers, kangaroos and koalas."
"Now: Huntsman spiders, bushfires, flooding and heavy fines for everything."
- drschnaps
"Twas an early morning after a big night with my mates. Everyone was sleeping, and I got up from the couch to go to the toilet or whatever."
"I came back to witness a chunky Huntsman spider walking across the tiled floor, toward my friend's bedroom door."
"I could hear its footsteps."
‐ PHILOSOMATIQA
"The big spiders are fine, it’s the tiny ones that will kill you."
- My-Witty-Username
A lot of animals made the list, but koalas, echidna and wallabies did not.
Did anything else synonymous with Australia get forgotten?
What do you think when you hear Australia?
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"What is the biggest design flaw of the human body?"
Would Make A Lot Of People Less Cautious
"Unable to regenerate body parts."
"You lose an arm or a leg, you can't grow a new one."
"We can grow hair and nails forever, but not body parts."- drygnfyre
And Maybe The Whole Childbirth Process While We're At It...
"The size of the average baby head vs the size of the average vagina."- Ruggiard
"The Obstetric Dilemma."
"Basically, the human body isn't built for easy birth."- strykazoid
Season 3 Baby GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyIt Isn't Terribly Practical If You Think About It...
"IMO the whole 'we put food into the only air hole we have and can choke and die if we aren’t careful' thing is a pretty big miss."- el_rico_pavo_real
"Throat has a built in flaw - we breath n swallow food through the same area."- coolguy1793B
A More Direct Route Would Be Helpful
"I like the example of the recurrent laryngeal nerve."
"It runs from the brain to the larynx."
"However, to get there it goes from the brain, down the neck, into the chest, around the aorta and then back up the chest, up the neck and then connects to the larynx."
"That's a massive detour."
"It also means a blow to the chest can damage your ability to talk."- The_Thunder_Child
GiphyNever Underestimate The Damage Teeth Can Do
"The fact that I sometimes accidentally eat the inside of my mouth."- -Grey_Area-·
He Does Have A Point
"'Nostalgia is the greatest human weakness. Second only to the neck'... -Dwight Schrute
In Plain Sight...
"In our eyes, the blood vessels supplying our photoreceptors are in front of them and therefore in the way of the incoming light."
"Probably not the biggest and there are some good justifications for it being set up this way."
"But it still must be such a pain for the brain constantly having to edit these out when forming our visual experience."- oliwoggle
Loop Eyes GIF by Doze StudioGiphyMaybe Just Every Illness And Ailment?
"A stroke."
"My aunt had one when she was 31 and the healthiest person in the world."
"Ran an aerobics class at the Y, just perfect perfect health."
"Went to Pizza Hut with her the night before, next day, massive stroke, almost died, critical surgery, twenty years later she still has trouble speaking."
"It sucks."
"There is no reason that should’ve happened."
"Perfectly healthy person damaged for the rest of her life."
"She’s still amazing and lovely and my favorite person but damn is that annoying."- Jibber_Fight
"You can kinda just die at any moment from a brain aneurysm, even if you're perfectly healthy."- mcsteve87
All Our Bones Could Be Stronger...
"For upright walking creatures, why is our head so (relatively) delicate?"
"Trip a single time and you're blinded, have brain damage, bit off your tongue, or lost teeth."- kmn493
Episode 15 Pain GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyThey Arguably Also Weren't Built For Stairs...
"Our knees for sure."
"They just weren't built to last past 40 years."- TopShelfCrazy
A Couple More On/Off Switches Would Be Helpful As Well...
"That we cannot delete or sort unwanted/not needed info and memories from our brains."- PickAName616
As the saying goes, "nobody's perfect."
Or rather, "no BODY is perfect."
Otherwise, we'd all stop complaining about aching limbs or worrying about choking or other injuries.
Redditor H5N1BirdFlu wanted to discuss the moments in life that left us haunted and shook, so they asked:
"What is the creepiest or most unexplained event that you have ever experienced?"
I've seen so much creepiness I wouldn't know where to begin.
Deal
Walter White Wink GIF by Breaking BadGiphy"One car from one direction, and another car from the other direction stopped in front of my house. Both drivers got out and one gave the other a briefcase. Now that I am older I am guessing it was some kind of drug deal or something but at the time I found it very weird."
yapastaocho
'The Entertainer'
"We had a little copper music box that would start playing on its own. It was a man sitting at a player-piano and it would play 'The Entertainer' song. Now, I know that music boxes and such can spring (for lack of a better word) forward and play a few notes, but this thing would act like someone had wound it up and would play for a minute or two completely at random."
MercuryCrest
He?
"Me and and someone I used to know in high school way back when met to catch up. We were talking about our views on religion at some park. When we were walking back to our cars some guy said he had overheard us. We interacted a little and then went to our cars. I told her how awkward I felt knowing he overheard everything. She looked at me and said, 'He?'”
"After some comparing notes we realized we’d seen and heard entirely different people. She’d seen an elderly woman. I’d seen a middle aged man. Only problem is we only talked to the one person."
AccomplishedAuthor53
Overnight
"I usually go hiking and stay in the forest overnight, sleeping in a bivy and sometimes under a tarp. Now it's important to say I'm based in Europe. So no wild animals to be afraid of because usually they just boot it as soon as they notice you."
"So one winter night I'm sleeping under my tarp which connects to the ground on one side. It's in an area where there were fierce battles in the forrest on the border between Germany and Belgium in WWII."
"I hear something walking in the leaves, which is normal. There are always deer and ferral pigs on and about. But this time it comes closer and closer until I hear it right on the other side of my tarp and it starts growling. Its a noise I gad never heard and for a moment I was frozen trying to figure out what it might be and what to do."
"But I just decided to yell back and that did the trick. The animal walked a few steps and then turned back to growl once more before finally retreating."
"Let's put it this way, I didn't sleep for a while after that. I looked up the noise and think it was a badger."
Forest_Walkin
Devoured
Episode 4 Abc GIF by The BachelorGiphy"My family used to raise cattle. One morning I came out to check on them and I found one of the heifers had been more or less completely devoured."
"This same cow was perfectly fine the day before. There was nothing left but some hide, bones, and intestines. Thing is none of the predators that are in my area would be able to kill and eat an entire cow within the course of one night. Much less leave so little behind."
Aussieshepman
Poor cows. They live a rough life.
The Night Before
Get Out Omg GIF by Get Out MovieGiphy"When I was a kid, we lived in a kinda rural area. One night we came home late from an Uncle's house and there was a car parked up the road from our house with the headlights on."
"My mom suggested to my dad that we go see if they need help, he said no, so we went inside. Next morning police knocked on the door, a cyclist had spotted a body in the ditch exactly where the car was parked the night before."
Tpeest
Documents
"I have had a strange thing happen recently. I was waiting for my tax documents to come in so I could do my taxes. I had three documents that I put on my bedside table until I had the time."
"I decided to do it the other day and I couldn't find one of them. I tore the house apart, quizzed my husband (who swore he never touched it), checked the garbage, etc. I had resigned myself to the fact I would have to request another one, when it arrived in the mail."
"It was the same one, exact same information. I was really confused but grateful. I checked into it, it was not sent twice as far as the office could tell me."
"I don't know what to think. I KNOW I had that document because I had done some calculations with it. It's been itching at me like crazy."
monitormonkey
About 30 Feet
"A few months ago I was sitting in my living room on the couch, watching tv with a family member late at night. We have a high ceiling with a couple of rectangular windows at the very top of the wall just under where it meets the ceiling. The windows are so high (about 30 feet) we really only have them for natural lighting."
"So on the night in question, a green laser beam suddenly shown down through one of the windows, seemingly scanned the entire living room before stopping and pointing the beam right next to my family member for about 10 seconds and then disappearing entirely. It had to be either a drone or from some sort of flying aircraft. I live in a relatively secluded place which made the situation all the more unsettling."
0friday
Find Her
"Pretty sure I witnessed a kidnapping once and it still lives rent free in my head (the woman lost her slipper when she was trying to get away and i took a picture of it that i still have for some reason). I did indeed report it to police right after I saw it occur but they were pretty blasé about it and I never ended up being able to determine what they did to investigate."
ergaster8213
From Behind
the exorcist shadow GIFGiphy"I was in Jr High and had really long hair. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and almost tripped on a shoe on the floor. I bent down to move it and it felt like someone grabbed my entire pony tail and yanked it. I also could not sleep facing the wall for the longest time because it always felt like someone or something was right there behind me."
cheeseburgerphone182
Never face the wall. Life lesson.
These were some harrowing experiences, and we're glad these Redditors made it out to tell the story.
Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.