Baffled Adults Reveal The Weirdest Teen Trends They've Seen
[rebelmouse-image 18346347 is_animated_gif=And sometimes kids today... it's hard to watch. There are so many new developments in society that even those of us who were teenagers less than a decade ago tend to struggle dealing with this new wave of teens.
So when u/HugeTortoise151 asked:
Adults of reddit, what is the strangest teen trend you have seen?
We were all curious to know the answers.
Smiley?
[rebelmouse-image 18346348 is_animated_gif=Getting a "smiley"
Flame up a Bic lighter for a good few minutes until the metal shield is as hot as it's going to get.
Then hold out your arm and someone presses it into your skin.
How long you kept it there, how big the blister then scar was a badge of honour. I didn't move my arm. 15 years later and I can still see the "smiley" face scar, it's faded enough nobody would know.
I came from a very depressed part of the UK.
Hmmm....
[rebelmouse-image 18346350 is_animated_gif=When I was a teen, 90s, coloring your hair with kool-aid. My brother went to school with half tropical berry and half fruit punch or half lime green.
That's Enough
[rebelmouse-image 18346351 is_animated_gif=In middle school we would fold paper into these thick wedges and use rubber bands to shoot that at each other. We called them "hornets". Our folding skills and material choices became so elevated that a kid got hit in the neck and it left a massive welt. Another kit got hit in the eye and had to go to the doctor.
The school banned folding paper and rubber bands....
Sunburn
[rebelmouse-image 18346352 is_animated_gif=When I was in high school (late 90s), there was this trend for people to take the wrappers from Big Red cinnamon flavored gum, soak them with their own saliva and then stick it on their forehead and rub until it gave them a rectangular cinnamon burn on their forehead. It was bizarre.
Why Tho???
[rebelmouse-image 18346353 is_animated_gif=In the 90's when kids at school would knock each other out. Not by fighting, but by squeezing someone's chest until they passed out. Kids would volunteer themselves. I seen a girl have a seizure and another one fall and hit her head, only to wake up giggling.
The Powder
[rebelmouse-image 18346354 is_animated_gif=Smoking smarties was popular back in my middle school.
Fight Club Lite
[rebelmouse-image 18346355 is_animated_gif=When I was in high school (2002-2006ish) I had multiple friends take some salt. Lick part of their arm, sprinkle the salt and then hold an ice cube to that for as long as they could. Had a friend practically give herself frost bite and ended up with a giant "burn mark".
Baby Borne
[rebelmouse-image 18346357 is_animated_gif=There were a lot of teens in the 90's that thought wearing and sucking on pacifiers was really cool.
The Agony Of Defeat
[rebelmouse-image 18346358 is_animated_gif=A game called quarters. A test of pain tolerance I believe. Place your fist, knuckles flat against the surface of the table, while another participant shoots a quarter by force of his thumb as hard and as fast as he can via downward force applied to the quarter.
S Marks The Spot
[rebelmouse-image 18346359 is_animated_gif=I still don't know where the cool S came from...
A Step Too Far
[rebelmouse-image 18346360 is_animated_gif=When I was in 5th grade, back in 06-07 all the girls would walk around and punch each other in the boob. We'd yell "I just gave you breast cancer" as we did it. We had to have a huge meeting a couple weeks later with all the girls in 5th grade where the female teachers were telling us how inappropriate and idiotic it was...
I'm honestly not sure if this happened anywhere else besides my home town..
Sherlock Holmes In The Adventure Of The Dart Game
[rebelmouse-image 18346361 is_animated_gif=We played something called "the dart game" in high school.
You'd say somebody's name and if they looked and made eye contact you pretended like you were shooting them with a blow dart gun. They would then have to fall to the floor motionless until somebody pulled the invisible dart out of their neck.
MC Macarena
[rebelmouse-image 18346367 is_animated_gif=I thought the Macarena was the strangest thing ever as a kid. That or that dance move where you grab your ankle and act like a hammer or something.
Get Your Head In The Game
[rebelmouse-image 18346368 is_animated_gif=In junior high (around 93-94), it was cool for a few months to walk up to your friends and pick them up by their heads. The administration finally stepped in and made an announcement banning it because obviously you could break someone's neck doing that. I have no idea how or why that became cool but it felt like everyone was doing it.
Erasure
[rebelmouse-image 18346369 is_animated_gif=The eraser challenge where you rub an eraser against your arm until it burns your flesh.
Meow Mix
[rebelmouse-image 18346370 is_animated_gif=More among tweens than teens (think 4-6th graders).
Been seeing a lot of Cat Ears. Not just little wire ones, either. Holographic ones, fake fur ones. They're wearing them in public places, like museums, stores, parks, trains. It's not necessarily bad but it is a little weird.
Bratz
[rebelmouse-image 18346371 is_animated_gif=The one where girls tried to make their lips bigger (aka swollen and disfigured) with everything from bottles to vacuum cleaners. Wtf? Honestly, wtf?
Squatz
[rebelmouse-image 18346372 is_animated_gif=The way girls squat in pictures. As if they're making room to not block the face of the non-existent girl standing behind them.
Never Go To ICP
[rebelmouse-image 18346373 is_animated_gif=I'm a high school teacher, so I've seen everything from the parted-down-the-middle penis head haircuts of the mid 90s to the whole emo thing to those fidget spinners that were popular last year, but the weirdest trend I've seen was the Juggalo/ ICP fans of 2006+.
Choking
[rebelmouse-image 18346374 is_animated_gif=Back in 2015-2016, there was this challenge where people would try to make themselves pass out. You'd hold your breath and blow air out with heavy breaths. Someone actually died (not from my school) from it because you can completely deprive your brain of oxygen and my school gave suspensions to some of my friends that tried it and anyone else that tried it
(c) Oh Myyy LLC
- People Break Down The Next Big Trends On The Horizon - George Takei ›
- People Confess Which Fads Lasted Longer Than Anyone Expected - George Takei ›
- People Share The Current Trends They Can't Wait To Fall Out Of Style - George Takei ›
- People Explain Which Fashion Trends They Cannot Stand - George Takei ›
- People Break Down Which Modern Trends They Absolutely Hate - George Takei ›
People Explain Which Things Are Acceptable In 2022 That Weren't When They Were Growing Up
Societal norms gradually change over time, and it's not until a generation looks back and notices just how far they've come.
One of the major differences people from earlier generations find fascinating is how things were much more rigid compared to current times.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor FCFSDeals asked:
"What’s now weirdly acceptable in 2022 that was not acceptable growing up in your generation?"
Prior to cellphones, calling protocol was vastly different once upon a time.
Answering The Call
"Not answering the phone. When we only had landline phones (yes long time ago), there was no ringing phone that went unanswered. Now we screen or just plain ignore calls until we are good and ready to deal with it."
– ekimlive
Respectful Hours
"Also, no one expected to reach you at any time, 24-7. I miss those days."
– techretary
Proper Etiquette
"But there was phone etiquette: no solicitation calls; no polls; and nobody called after 9PM unless someone was in jail or the hospital."
– Positive-Source8205
Appearance guidelines seemed to have shifted between generations.
Body Art
"People have already said tattoos, but body piercings also exploded in popularity. It used to be girls could get their ears pierced, and that was it. When I was in high school, some guys started doing the one earring look and tongue, nose and bellybutton piercings were starting to become popular."
– viderfenrisbane
Comfort Is Priority
"Wearing sneakers to work at a fortune 100 company."
"At the beginning of my career it was suit and tie, then business casual and now I wear stan smiths, jeans and an untucked polo in the most senior position of my working life."
– Big_Requirement_3540
Casual Political
"I worked for the US Senate in 2009 (in a totally non-political job for the Senate Curator). I wore clothes from Hot Topic on the Senate floor. Some days I wore old jeans with holes in the knees if I knew I'd be climbing ladders to clean artworks. One of the women on the team had a full chest tattoo and made zero effort to cover it up because no one cared. The day I met Senator Inouye to discuss what paintings he wanted in his office, I had on trainers."
– ballerina22
Benefits Of Letting The Hair Down
"They realized that they can't erode wages and expect us to look like we're on Mad Men at the same time. Allowing long haired freaky people has made them sh*tloads of money over the years."
– throwawayqw123456
Hair Coloring & Tattoos
"Any type of hair coloring would result in serious trouble at school. I also remember tatoos being frown upon as being found mostly on people that got out of prison."
– no_cause_munchkin
The advent of the internet was a huge game changer, and rules were made up as we went along.
The Bandwidth Situation
"2 people using the internet at the same time."
– ProfessorPanga
Phones In The Classroom
"Middle/high school students being allowed to have their cell phones in class. Being caught with our cell phone when I was a high schooler was an automatic detention etc."
– TrumpHairedHarambe
Consequences Of Having A Phone On Campus
"I graduated in the late 90's, and the president of my class got expelled one week before graduation for having a phone on campus. It was in his car, and this was after hours. It rang and a teacher heard it. They made an example out of him. He lost his admission to West Point."
"Now my 8th grader finds it super unjust that her science teacher makes all the kids put their phones in a box at the front of the room during tests, and feels super justified in never ever giving up her airpods to that sort of thing."
"Different world."
– electrolytesaregood
When I was a cast member at Disneyland in the early 2000s, we had to abide by the strict, clean-cut appearance guidelines required of all cast members–with different rules applying to each respective gender.
Men, for example, were not allowed to wear jewelry or have visible tattoos. We also had to maintain the length of our hair to not exceed past a certain length, and sporting facial hair was a major no-no.
Now, the "Disney Look" has changed, allowing all cast members to reflect their personalities through “gender-inclusive hairstyles, jewelry, nail styles and costume choices; and allowing appropriate visible tattoos," according to the Disney Parks Blog.
To the Mouse, I tip my hat for these awesome changes.
As a kid, I remember being obsessed (like obsessed) with David the Gnome and his fox Swift. I was tuned in daily to watch the adventures, get all misty eyed for the hurt animals the gnomes saved, and sobbed in abject wonder when the gnomes finally lived all 400 years of their gnome life and transitioned into the trees that make up the woods they live in.
The trees are their ancestors, y'all! The treeees! They protect the trees because they're family. Trees grow intertwined because they were so in love when they were gnomes.
Fam! This show was everything ... except memorable for other people because I was in my 30s talking to someone from another country before I met the first person who remembered this show.
Which, honestly, is kind of insulting to gnomes and trees.
Reddit user itchellFamily1045 asked:
"Which show do you think you're the only person who remembers it exists?"
It was David the Gnome for me (which I found out originated in Spain and was much more popular in France than it was in the US. Apparently, I was a Euro-trash hipster as a child), but let's take a look at what got Reddit.
Classic Wheel Of Fortune
"It's funny how nobody seems to remember the early seasons of Wheel of Fortune with host Chuck Woolery. You didn't win any cash. You had to choose prizes from a selection of things set up in a room-like fashion."
- opus_4_vp
"They still had the prize room with sajak for a while I believe. Camera would just pan across the room and the winner would try not to pick the stupidest things. Cause the items all had fn price tags on em and you'd only have the $ amount you won. Infuriating"
- Frosty_Shoulder_7825
"A broyhill coffee table!!"
- atlantachicago
"Always ending up with the porcelain dog statue cause it was all you had left after buying expensive items."
- captainvancouver
Eerie
"Eerie, Indiana"
- dammagedone
"I still think about the episode where everyone who stayed young, slept in Tupperware, and when their lids got taken off, aged overnight."
- CatasaurusRox
"Foreverware!"
"One of my favorite moments on the show had Marshall and Simon hanging out in Simon's room, one night. Through the walls you can hear a man and a woman laughing lecherously."
"Marshall: 'It sounds like your mom and dad are having a party'."
"Simon: 'Mom's not home'."
"It was a great weird kids' show, but some of the gags they managed to sneak in were hilarious."
- rick_blatchman
"I work w a dude whose daughter was on that show, We were just randomly chatting and he was telling me how she had done some modelling/acting when she was little"
" 'you probably dont know the show but...'."
" 'like hell i dont that show was great'."
- cyzad4
Early Edition
"Early edition- get tomorrow's newspaper today"
- cmoney1142
"I loved that show! What a concept!"
- MortLightstone
"Omg omg omg"
- TumorYaelle
"Quality 90s tv, right there. A warm-fuzzy show."
- DustBunnicula
Herman's Head
"Anyone remember Herman’s Head?"
- ClemofNazareth
"It had the woman that does the voice for Lisa Simpson and the woman that went on to play Ross' exwife on friends was one of the characters in his head."
- rhett342
" It has 2 Simpsons voice actors- Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria. I seem to remember that they were offered the roles- and maybe the whole show existed? - because they didn’t want to be ‘just’ VA’s, and FOX wanted to placate them."
- mr_oof
"That’s a real show?? They reference it on 'only murders in the building'.”
- Bebosherry
"I came for this one too!"
- whitemest
The Garry Shandling Show
"The Gary Shandling Show. No, not the Larry Sanders Show - Gary Shandling Show. Even the theme song breaks the fourth wall."
- MrNegativity78
"This is the theme to Gary's show, the opening theme to Gary's show. This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits. We're almost to the part of where I start to whistle, then we'll watch It's Gary Shandling's Show."
- OGREtheTroll
"Yeah, Garry Shandling and Tracey Ullman are pretty much tied up in my memory."
- Handleton
"Best theme song EVER!"
- 2WheelFotog
"My partner LOVES the theme to that show! Plays it in the background every now and then, it's a riot!"
- FuzzyChrysalis
Wonderfalls
"Wonderfalls"
"Mid-2000s show on Fox that was apparently too weird even for Fox. I think they canceled it halfway through the 1st season."
- l8apex
"I have the DVD. Excellent show that I still toss in every once in a while."
"The producers had planned out some storylines all the way to S3. The S2 cliffhanger was supposed to be Jaye being sent to the mental hospital where she had helped put away some guest stars, including the woman who tried to kill the therapist with gift store items, and the boy who bought the russian mail order bride."
- DonnieJuniorsEmails
"Bryan Fuller's early work."
- bottledgoose
Mary Hartman Square
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
- Phuni44
"I remember watching this with my dad and my sister after the 11:00 pm news. I was in like 6th grade. That's what happens when there's no mom around. 😂"
- PJKPJT7915
"Her husband fell into a vat of paint thinner at work, and he needed to have plastic surgery over every inch of his body, so he requested to look like Tab Hunter."
- GuncleShark
"I thought her husband drowned in a bowl of soup. Maybe her first husband? That show was trippy af"
- Phuni44
"Her neighbor's husband. The clip is on YouTube."
- bitb
"Spin off of a spin off or Mary Tyler Moore as I recall, right? Wasn't Rhonda the first spinoff?"
- [Reddit]
"Not a spin-off. Mary Hartman was a very bizarre show for its time, a parody of a soap opera. Louise Lasser played Mary, and she was this weirdly detached character surrounded by crazy drama and violence. I think it might have been the first place I saw Martin Mull."
- rickpo
Terranova
"Terranova, ran for like a single season then disappeared"
- codyl0611
"I loved that show! So annoying they didn’t get a second season."
- LizHylton
"I was a young kid when it aired on TV so i dont remember much of it, but I recall it being a recurring topic with my mom every now and then"
- codyl0611
"oh god I’m old. I thought it was only a few years ago. I just looked it up and it was 11. Excuse me while I go get an AARP application."
- LizHylton
"It’s that old?! Holy sh*t, grab me an application too, please. It seriously felt like just a couple of years ago."
- KhaleesiXev
Room 222
"Room 222"
- HealthyTruck5691
"Karen Valentine was probably the cutest girl ever on a tv show. I used to love when she would be on the original Hollywood Squares."
"I'm old."
- Bartlett3313
"She was the only reason anyone watched that show."
- 7decadesofhistory
"I loved that show! My mom, my sisters and I would watch that show every Friday night. The cast was really good — Karen Valentine was a really cute and bubbly teacher, and Michael Constantine was great as the high school principal"
- CelticDaisy
Eureka’s Castle
"Eureka’s Castle"
- ofmiceandmodems
"Yes! I swear this was the first one I thought of! And Under the Umbrella Tree!"
- highmaintenancemama
"If you have the Paramount streaming app, it's on there!"
- vk2786
"Spicy, salty, sour, sweet, bring us something good to eat!"
- RoseyDove323
"I’m in my late thirties and still vividly remember the Christmas special episode where Magellan gets lost in the woods."
- doopcat
"Eureka’s Castle was the jam!"
- Vernon1031
"Euuu-reeekaas castleeee"
"*Worms going err errrr ER err ere rrr*"
- Ertuu1985
Let's talk about the shows nobody remembers but you.
Are they those early childhood favorites? Or maybe a teen-drama that only got one season before Netflix pulled it, crushing your hopes and dreams of resolved plotlines about a teenage ghost band who died of poisoned hot dogs and the incredibly talented, but heartbroken, young singer who gives them a new lease on life, love, and music?
No that is not a joke and YES I am still angry about Netflix not giving Julie and the Phantoms a second season.
Maybe it's a soap opera you think you remember watching with your mom, but maybe it was a fever dream?
Whatever it is, we want to hear about it.
Working in entertainment production is one of those things that sounds awesome - and make no mistake, it is.
It's just that it's also one of those jobs that means when your partner calls you at 1 in the morning to ask where you are, and you tell them you're out measuring lemons for Beyoncé... it's not a euphemism and it's not that weird.
Queen Bey wants a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room, Queen Bey gets a bowl of 15 evenly sized lemons for her dressing room.
And because catering runners care about doing their jobs well and usually have a multi-tool on them anyway, Beyoncé is getting the sexiest, most uniformly sized, lemons we can find.
Reddit user Tacoma__Crowasked:
"What was the oddest job you’ve had and why?"
Lemons for the Queen doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, honestly.
Weight Ballast
"In small rural town, I (15M) close to 200lbs got a job as a farm Hand expecting to work planting and harvesting. I was quite a large athletic lad at the time. And I show up for my first day of work and the planting equipment on the back of the tractor was missing some parts. So my boss told me to climb atop the planting equipment to make sure it would plant deep enough"
"FML I got hired to be a heavy object, weight, ballast."
"I will never forget my first job as weight"
- Logical-Tomato-215
"Heavy Weight Champion! Literally!"
- AK--03
"I didn't know that was a whole job, I've only worked as ballast in addition to my other duties"
"(theme park ride operator, and would need/get to ride the rides sometimes when they needed more weight on them for one reason or another)"
- Lowbacca1977
"that's nothing I'm so fat that people pay me to sit in the back of their car when it snows"
- HairyNutsackNumber9
"My dad used me for ballast when I was a kid. Growing up in upstate NY where we would get 12-24" of snow a day, he made a homemade plow for his lawn tractor."
"He had weights for the back drive wheels, but he needed weight on the front for the steer tires. a 50lb 5 year old who could sit on the hood of the tractor was perfect."
- SafetyMan35
A Google-izer Or Is It Googlee ?
"Googling stuff for people."
"I used to work for kgbkgb, which was this text messaging service where you could text a number, ask any question, and get an answer for $.99. This was before smartphones became super huge, so it was a bit of a helpful gimmick back then."
"However, for everyone that we got asking normal questions like movie times, or what restaurants were open near them, or stuff like that, we got A LOT more people asking very stupid things that I would have to Google. I have this album of a bunch of weird questions that people sent to us."
"It was an interesting job that helped cover some things when I was in college, but it also had me using Google for a lot of weird sh*t."
- -eDgAR-
"Oh my god, my friends and I used to send so many weird questions to services like that (never used that one though). It never occurred to me that an actual person was answering them, I always thought it was a chatbot."
- NightOnFu*kMountain
"Dude I totally remember that service! I'm so sorry I definitely asked stupid questions 😅"
- CptBarba
One Day
"I was employed by JC Penney for literally one day. I didn't quit, and I wasn't fired. That was the term of my employment."
"This was back in 1998 and I was entering my senior year of high school. They had a huge sale in the store and they hired dozens of people to cover every department because they were anticipating huge crowds. This was not a Black Friday sale, but they anticipated correctly, nonetheless."
"One of the shift supervisors gave me some busy work to start the day (folding shirts or whatever). After lunch I was basically asked to walk around from time to time and pick up any knocked over merchandise. The last few hours got boring, so one of the other supervisors that I had been chatting with throughout the day invited me to hang out during his break. His words were, 'what are they gonna do, fire you?' Good times."
- ThePreachingDrummer
"One of our local department stores (might have been Penneys) would hire a bunch of people for one day to do inventory. My wife, my MIL, SIL, and my Mom & I always got hired. We did it for 5 years, working one day a year, counting every damn thing in that store."
- Eel_OBrian
"Ha! I got a gig at Filene's over Christmas break one year doing the exact same thing. I think I had maybe 2-3 shifts, just walking around refolding shirts. So weird, but easy money!"
- RowdyGorgonite
Ring
"I was the girl that crawled out of a fake well at a Halloween hay ride once - that was actually pretty fun! Why: I was 14 and after four weeks working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays all evening I got $150! (Under the table of course.)"
- CaseyBoogies
"Damn. Sounds like you got scammed on pay unless this was like the 80s or before."
- McFluff_TheAltCat
"Haha it was shady, but like I said it was fun! It was especially hilarious later in the evening when all the drunk college kids would come through and freak the f*ck out at me - a kid in a ripped up costume wedding dress- practically falling out of a cardboard well with a strobe light blinding me!"
"Most of the people that worked there were teenagers and we'd just have a good time and smoke in between wagons - pay was sh*t but it was definitely an odd job that made some good memories."
- CaseyBoogies
Corpse Uber
"Transporting deceased people who our county declared John/Jill Does to the proper county or city coroner once they were identified."
"Some obscure state law back in the 80's made it illegal to transport that particular type of dead person while the sun was up... Screwed up job, but it paid $15 an hour back in 1985."
"Guess it paid so much because most people were unwilling to do it. That was a hell of a lot for a college student to turn down. Interesting fact. When you hit a bump in the road, with an unprepared corpse, their bodies will gurgle, and sometimes air comes out of their lungs and hits their vocal cords."
- Leftstrat
"Were you warned about the gurgling or learn from terrifying experience?"
- mangokittykisses
"Got to learn about it. I guess it was a break-in-the-new guy kind of moment. The first time that I heard a moan, that about went out of the vehicle window."
- Leftstrat
"Did this show up in nightmares? How long did you do that for?"
- RPA031
3D Pictures
"When i was a teenager i sold those magic eye pictures at a mall kiosk. y'know the ones you have to stare at for a while till your eyes make out a 3d picture? all day i had to try and help frustrated people try and see the f*cking sail boat."
"Ah, you worked in a mall between 1993-1997."
- fiddlenutz
Fancy Title
"My first job was with a temp agency; worked in an accounting office going through boxes of records and making sure there were no staples or fasteners in anything. Then the boxes would go to another dept to be scanned onto microfiche. I had some fancy title (like “Accounting Clerk”) and was making over $11 an hr (back when min wage was still like $5 and change) so I thought I was living large."
"A funny part of the story is that I started on a Friday, and came to work in khakis and a polo-Monday I came dressed the same way and got spoke to about dressing professionally because Friday was casual Friday and not normal dress code. Lol felt dumb having to wear business attire and a tie when I was in the back in a cubicle pulling staples out of documents."
- HalfBeatingHeart
"The entire existence of casual Friday proves dress codes don’t matter. If you can do your job the same on Friday as you can on Monday, what does it matter?"
- dreamqueen9103
"Exactly. I haven’t had to wear a tie to work since 1998. And I’ve worked in some pretty stuffy places since then—two Federal Reserve Banks, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the most uptight law firm in the entire history of the legal system."
- dendiverdown
Cutthroat Cookies
"Worked for the girl scouts and ran the cookie sale for a regional area that included a major American city."
"Craziest and most stressful job I ever had."
"It seems all cute and charming until you have 30 furious cookie moms screaming at you in your office at 6:30 AM on a Saturday because the truck carrying 5 pallets of thin mints is stuck in a blizzard."
"I had to break up fist fights between parents because someone 'stole' someone's spot outside of a grocery store. It's cutthroat."
"Anyway that job was decades ago and I still have stress nightmares about it!"
- Neither-Copy785
"How is 5 pallets of thin mints stuck in a blizzard really a problem? Advertise those as already frozen and sell at a premium"
- Lowbacca1977
Kitty Sitting
"Not a job exactly but one awesome day. I used to work in the concrete business. We once had a job pouring a slab for residential parking and a neighbour nearby had a kitten just a couple months old."
"It would not stay out of the concrete as you can imagine it thought us picking it up and washing its paws was a game. Eventually the boss told me to grab the kitten and go hold it hostage in the truck."
"So I spent the next six hours sitting in the truck with a super friendly kitten sleeping on my chest. I got paid to babysit a kitten."
- Sectaguy
"Goals"
- Sirenenblut
Kept That Swamp clean
"Swamp Janitor. Official title was "invasive species removal technician" but really I was a swamp janitor. "
"There was this invasive aquatic plant that would completely take over swamps and choke out all the native life, so my job was to go in with a rake and pitchfork and literally just clean up the swamp of this devil plant."
"Some parts were cool, watching eagles fish, seeing turtles come up for air and big fish swimming in the water but a lot of it sucked. The plant had sharp seeds that would pierce your skin and your waders. You'd get leeches, tics and mosquitos on you all day. Physically exhausting with lots of sun."
"You'd have to haul the plant matter to giant compost heaps that were full of snakes (for some reason the snakes liked it). It was a unique but grueling job."
- UniverseBear
"That sounds absolutely horrifying. How much did it pay?"
- Lemerney2
"Pretty sure it was min wage."
- UniverseBear
"What kind of plant was it?"
- borfmat
"European Water Chestnut (but in Canada, so no bueno)"
- UniverseBear
Okay so we've measured lemons for royalty, been a taxi for dead folks, and been an overpaid staple remover with a fancy title.
You're up, readers.
Got anything that competes with that?
In spite of considerable work being, and progress, made to change things, it remains a fact that men have countless advantages in modern society.
In addition to not having to deal with several biological issues all women must endure, men still seem to have the upper hand when applying for positions of power, or being trusted with major responsibilities.
As a result, those who do not identify as men often roll their eyes when men of any age offer even the slightest complaint.
Which doesn't mean that plenty of men still maintain that there are definite downsides to carrying those he/him pronouns.
Redditor jojomecoco was curious to hear what the men of Reddit considered the biggest obstacles and challenges which come with their gender, leading them to ask:
"Boys, what's the downside to being a male?"
What lies between one's legs...
"Getting hit in the nuts."- Phantomtastic
"Balls stick to leg."- BuffGroot
Societal Expectations
"All the expectations."
"'We must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon'."- SparkAxolotl
"Our childhood interests don’t truly change much into adulthood, but we are often seen as childish if we continue to pursue them."
"One of my greatest laments is the magnitude of friends who said, 'when I grow up I’ll be able to afford..,' yet abandoned those dreams due to social conditioning."- nixxy19
Don't let a persona fool you.
:Being called a creep when you call a kid adorable."- OkraFit3987
Men like hugs too...
"I haven't been hugged in 14 years."- Delphii42
It can be hard for everyone...
"Whatever dating is now."- Thompson_S_Sweetback
Ouch
"Almost never get compliments."
"Ever."- Redbeardthe1st
What are your intentions, exactly?
"I can’t be nice to women without them thinking I’m hitting on them or what have you."
"Like yeah you’re pretty but also, I’m just being polite."- pdeagz
When push comes to shove, sometimes we all feel like the world is against us, and we have to face an uphill battle.
But if one were to provide a study, the likely outcome would prove that men, namely white, cisgender, heterosexual men, often have a much less steep hill to climb than anyone else.
And though it might certainly be a different sensation, getting hit really hard between the legs is painful for everyone.