Some pasts are too shameful to talk about.
Redditor u/JeaniousSpelur asked former Neo-Nazis and hate group members, "what was your "I need to get out of here" moment?" Former members, and their family and friends, share various stories of redemption, and opened up about how they've made amends with their past, misguided hatred.
20. "I was left for dead..."
"The long story short is that it was late September; I'd just gone back to university. It was evening, and I'd started a knife fight with native girls over something that I don't even remember. Street fighting was a thing for me at the time, I was in the best shape of my life, and I was fairly confident that this was a fight that I could win. The fight went well right up until the point that it didn't. Adults in the room, you've probably guessed where this is going...
I was stabbed fourteen times in the back and left for dead on a sidewalk. I can tell you what it feels like to lay there in a puddle of your own blood."
19. "One day a friend of his threw a molotov cocktail..."
"Not my story but my dads
He was a neo-naxi in his youth and teenage years and often would get Into fights with people (he used to be a man made of pure muscle, worked as a bouncer on the weekends) and had a real hate against immigrants and punks
Well one day a friend of his threw a molotov cocktail onto a trailer with people inside and told everyone, my dad quickly left his friends and found better ones"
18. "He fell in love..."
Giphy
"When I was younger I lived next to an ex kkk leader. One day I asked him what made him leave and he said he was online looking for more people to recruit when he met a woman he fell in love with and when he found out that she was a mixed race woman it completely changes his views."17. "I used to justify this hate..."
"I was no where near a nazi but hating others only destroys yourself. I used to justify this hate by saying I hated an 'idea' and not the people who subscribed to this idea but it was just cover for hate and it ruined me all the same."
16. "I realized how real these guys were..."
"Was never part of a group officially but socially I was one of the gang. I was in a bad place mentally and they (the local Nazis) basically were nice to me and I got involved with them. I left when I got worried about where it would end.
I realised how real these guys were. I thought it was just the tattoos and the noise, but the guys I was close with were under investigation for supposed arms trafficking (Extra bad as this was the UK) and heard rumours about MI5 having files. Wasn't sure I bought it, but I wasn't taking the chance. Cut all contact over the space of like a week."
15. "I gradually killed off the conversation..."
"I never actually joined such a movement / mentality but there was a bit of an attempt to 'recruit' me...
I've always been a history enthusiast and WW2 has always especially been a topic I enjoyed researching. I went through a bit of a phase where I was focusing a lot on the German side of the war.
Anyway, I ended up talking to a German lad who seemed nice enough. His grandfather was in the SS and I was getting him to tell me his stories and such (purely for educational reasons on my part).
Gradually over time he started dropping little things in chat and communication which seemed a bit.. 'wow.. uhh..', started to show his views on immigration and all that sort of stuff and as the weeks went by darker and darker little scoops started coming out, at this point he was saying we should meet up and stuff. I gradually killed of the conversation and haven't spoken to him in a few years."
14. "They started buying guns..."
"My friend walked away from the skinheads when they started buying guns.
Or, that's what he told me 25 years ago.
Turns out he walked away after they murdered a random guy. He was probably a witness/accessory to the crime."
13. "I didn't want to be grouped in..."
"I used it to be a Nationalist, and while I was one of the Nationalists who weren't racist, the reputation of hate that came with the ideology alienated me from it. I didn't want to be grouped in with those awful people."
12. "He apologized and left very quickly"
"I had a crazy experience with a former Neo Nazi/KKK member.
For 2 years i worked with a guy who was very shy and timid, i felt i needed to take time with him to make him feel more at ease when at work. So over time he was a little more chatty with me and i could see he was enjoying work way more since i was getting him involved.
But something he always said no too was joining works weekly footy match, but finally after a few months of asking he said yes. So here we are in the changing rooms he comes very late so he is last in to get dressed as we head out to warm up.
I have forgetton my water bottle so i head back, knowing its only him in there. As i open the door he has his shirt off facing the wall and there it was the biggest Swastika symbol tattoo i have ever seen on this mans back. He panicks and throws me up the wall with his hands and my neck, he apologised and left very quickly. Never seen him again, he did not come back to work."
11. "She didn't have the same beliefs..."
"When I met my (now) wife. She didn't have the same beliefs as me. We started hanging out and talking more and I just stopped being as involved in the movement. Over time my beliefs started to change. I started to meet some of her friends who were not white and after having a fun night out, I realized not everybody in the world is bad.
Fast forward ten years, we're married now with a life of our own. We moved away from where we grew up. And I haven't spoken to any of my old contacts in years."
10. "He was jumped by members..."
"My uncle was part of the kkk. He was very poor and homeless and the kkk supplies you with housing and food and pays for things for you. But he tried quitting and one day as he left a bar, he was jumped by members and had his chest slit open. He had to get around 200 staples but he still quit. Thankfully"
9. "I was shedding my racism..."
"I started to get older and learn more compassion. I was a lonely kid and I didn't have many friends, and I already grew up in a racist household and many of my family members are neo nazis, covered with white supremacy tattoos. I discovered a group of older skin head kids and I fell into it pretty bad.
As I was learning more compassion and slowly was shedding my neo nazi beliefs, my buddies were bragging that they beat up another mutual friend of ours when he said he wasn't a nazi anymore and he was dating a black woman.
I was already thinking about leaving the group. It was basically a little gang.
Once I found out they were beating up people for leaving I realized it really was like a gang and I didn't want anything to do with it. I was shedding my racism and I didn't want to be involved."
8. "He became a born again Christian..."
"Not me, but my grandfather evidently was a member of either the Klan or associated hate group back in the 1960s. He became a born-again Christian and walked away from it. There was little evidence of his history as I grew up...I only found out after my mother told me about it after he passed away."
7. "That interaction completely changed my outlook on LGBTQ+ people..."
Giphy
"I met a gay man.
I was raised in a very homophobic home in a rural area, and I always believed gays were bad people. I thought they were rude, self centered, and bullies. I distanced myself from them until one day I was assigned to work with a flamboyantly gay man. I was horrified.
He proved to be one of the nicest, most caring people I had ever met. He was a fantastic listener and good with melding ideas together. That interaction completely changes my outlook on LGBTQ+ people, much to the horror of my conservative family. They are quite uncomfortable that one of my best friends is a pansexual that uses they/them pronouns. I don't know why I didn't think people were decent humans just because of who they are attracted to, but opening my eyes allowed me to meet so many amazing people."
6. "My niece married a Neo-Nazi... or at least we thought...."
"My niece in Romania married a neo-nazi last year...or at least we thought he was because of his long Facebook history, racist tattoos, prior arrest for hooliganism, etc.
I had a 4 hour car ride with him and had a long chat. He quit because he left the Romania for a little while to work in Amsterdam. His co-workers were from all over the world, including African countries and Israel. He realized everyone was pretty much the same after drinking with them and smoking after work. There was nothing about them worth hating, they were doing the same thing he was.
He basically quit Facebook and started getting his tats modified, and hasn't touched politics at all since 3 or 4 years."
5. "He saved the guy's life..."
"Not a former neo Nazi, but I worked with a guy who's dad was in the Klan.
Brawl breaks out at the bar, and he's getting beat up. One of our few black bouncers jumped in and saved the guys life.
Dude disowned his dad, got his rebel pride flag tatooed over, and had the dude that saved his life as his best man in his wedding.
The feels from that moment were so. Strong"
4. "I was young and stupid..."
"I was a part of a political party with a heavy Anti-Immigrant stand who had a reputation of beating up immigrant workers, I was young and stupid, only later I realized if someone who couldn't even speak the language of the land can easily find a job and work here then something was wrong with me. I felt humbled and became an immigrant myself and emigrated the greatest immigrant country of all."
3. "We're all the same on the inside..."
"My moment was when I realized that the other neo Nazis who 'educated' me were not only exaggerating, but sometimes just straight up lied. I challenged one of them on this one idea and they just straight up insulted me for "having the audacity" to ask such a question. Then I got blocked cause they were afraid that I'd report their posts in retaliation.
After awhile I came to realize that people of all races and ethnicities; we're all the same on the inside. I did more research on the evidence I was shown and I used to justify my hatred and it turned out to be heavily exaggerated and sometimes just completely false."
2. "I got out of there..."
Giphy
"Wasn't actually a member but when I saw that someone I used to be friends with trying to indoctrinate I got curious and asked for evidence, sources, etc. A lot of their sources for stuff like race = predisposed behaviour and holocaust denial are usually either related to statistics that are really easy to be faked. I got out of there but the psychology of how people get sucked into that type of stuff fascinates me."
1. "They were all ignorant..."
"They were all ignorant. Their entire body of knowledge was little more than passed down excuses and cliches. None of them were actually contributing anything to society. They weren't making the world a better place. They were doing nothing except figuring out how to keep someone under them so they didn't have to be the bottom of society. They were EXACTLY what they said every other race was."
There are a ton of jobs or favors that don't require much skill, experience, or labor, and people who are fortunate enough to get hired walk away with a king's ransom.
Looking for those kinds of "jobs," however, is like finding a teardrop in the ocean.
Few who struck gold, at least temporarily, shared their experiences when Redditor NikTheNerdBoy asked:
"What's the dumbest thing you were paid to do and how much were you paid?"
Good luck finding these well-paying tasks.
Running Errands
"Had a WFH gig working sort of as a personal assistant for a rich guy on the opposite coast from me. I did all kinds of wacky sh*t for him. For example, one time I had to break up with my boss's girlfriend because he was too wimpy to do it himself. That was literally my job."
"One day, I bought him a new pickup truck. Meaning, I negotiated the deal and paid for the truck with his credit card. All in all, I'd say the process probably took about two weeks, for which I was paid my usual wage at six hours per day. No big deal."
"Somehow, his dad found out about the new truck and he decided he wanted a new pickup truck too. He called me about a week after I bought the truck for my boss and said he'd pay me $2,000 to buy a truck for him. I called the same dealership back, spoke to the same salesman, told him what was up and basically said give me another truck, same price as before. The salesman was only too happy to comply."
"It took ten minutes to make the phone call and then a day or two to get the title and other paperwork sorted out. So, depending on how you look at it, I made $2,000 for just ten minutes worth of 'work.'"
"Somehow, my boss's rich friend found out about all this. He decided he wanted a new SUV. 'OhYeahThrowItAway, you have to buy it for me!' I told him the last time I bought someone a vehicle, I got paid $2,000. The friend was basically like F'k it, I'll pay you $3,000, just get it for me' and then he emailed me his wish list."
"That deal took a little longer, maybe two weeks."
"I made $5k extra in just two months buying vehicles for lazy (or dumb) rich people."
Staying Out Of The Picture
"I was paid $300 to move my car for a movie that was filming by my apartment."
– dragoblaster666
Pack It Up
"Got paid 10k to leave an apartment because it was sold and new owner wanted to move in. I was tenant (renter) under previous owner. I had 4 months left in my rental contract. This was in Spain (Barcelona)."
European Vacation
"I was flown to Paris to do a compliance audit, the systems weren't set up for the audit, couldn't get access so spent the week being taken to restaurants and shopping. On 1 of the days and at the last minute the company decided to send me to London for a meeting, literally just to meet people. I missed the Eurostar because I forgot my passport (totally blanked that I was entering another country), they had to rebook the Eurostar. Nothing was achieved out of this trip. No audit was completed. Nothing came of the meeting. The cost to the company 25k+ for me to do nothing for a week. Corporate money is ridiculous money."
– _Justag1rl_
Not much labor was required for these so-called "jobs."
Ten-Minutes Of "Work"
"I used to work for a PR agency. Every month one of our clients wanted a handful of photos re-sized for their website; nothing fancy, just setting the width to 500px in Windows Photo Manager."
"It was maybe ten minutes of work every month, but the contract said the minimum amount of time we would charge them for was one day - and this was for the full team too, not just me. It must have cost them several hundred pounds every month."
"I showed the client how to do it several times, and explained that they could save a lot of money doing it themselves. They didn't seem to mind."
"In the end I made sure I got it in writing that I'd informed them of their options and let them get on with it."
– TheRainyDaze
Thank You, Goodbye
"$175 to do some kind of user study at Netflix, I show up in the lobby and then they go, 'actually we got the data we needed from the studies earlier today, you're free to go!'. Still got paid!"
– Lycid
Hush Money
"I did an event for a national association for deaf people at which they did every presentation in ASL. I am an audio engineer, who specializes in live sound and concerts. I did nothing for 5 days of show, $450 a day."
– murter95
Paid To Play
"I got asked to do 2 hours of barrier watch (Guarding a barrier ribbon while a crew did x rays inside a power plant). This was asked last minute after a 12 hour shift so the bonuses of staying happening to be a Sunday, etc I was being paid $110 to stand and play on my phone and make sure sure nobody tried to pass all the DO NOT ENTER DANGER DANGER signs during a time of day with minimal personnel."
– Hotel29
Movie Scene Dance GIF by FandorGiphyGotta Have Wendy's
"I was driving for uber. Picked up a bunch of drunks at like 2 AM. They were like 'Yo we gotta grab some Wendy' I go 'I'm sorry this is my busy period' they go 'Can we bribe you?' I go 'Absolutely you can bribe me.'"
"One the guys said I'll give you $100...I was shocked it was that high, another guy said '$150' and finally his wife said 'F'k it I want Wendy $200 and we buy you Wendy too.'"
"I finally said yes, FYI I hadn't said yes yet because the reality is $20-$40 would have gotten me to stop at Wendy."
"So there I sat at Wendy as those 3 drunks bought me wendy and paid me $200."
– luther_williams
Substitute Chef
"One time I was at this super fancy dinner party. I'm talking servers and everything, I was in a freaking tux! It was outside and catered by a professional bbq company. I mean these guys had won international competitions. Well get this, they were double booked and didn't show. The other servers didn't know how to grill, and this totally smokin server in her 30s is just staring at the grill like a deer in the headlights. Well I don't want to be a hero but I ask if I can help. The entire staff spend the rest of the night bringing me drinks as I make this bbq and NOBODY realizes the award winning chefs didn't show up!"
– Train3rRed88
Where Do We Apply?
"Ok this wasn't a job or anything.... But I got 10$ to eat half a watermelon."
Some opportunities present themselves.
When I was a kid, I hung out at a Japanese summer festival booth where you roll a bowling ball on a track that had two hills. The objective was to push the ball hard enough to get it over the first hill but not too hard to get it over the second hill.
I was fascinated with the challenge and stayed there for a long time as my parents were over by the food booths with their friends.
It was a slow day, and the dude working the booth wanted to peace out for a bit, so he offered to pay me $50 to "hang out" in his stead.
Of course, I said "sure."
No one ever came, and I earned fifty bucks rolling bowling balls for an hour. Was it the dumbest thing I ever did for money? Maybe, but I laughed all the way to the piggy bank that day.
That guy really must have despised his post enough to give a twelve-year-old kid $50.
Food is for survival. That was the plan. But over the years it has become somewhat of a way of life. Some of the most annoying people are foodies. They get so uppity about the preferences of others. Like, let me just enjoy what I enjoy.
Mom No!
Mom Smile GIFGiphy"I don't like my mom's cooking."
"Livestock have refused to eat my mother's cooking. She's a terror in the kitchen."
Take them OUT!!
"I hate walnuts in baked goods. It tastes like wood shavings and completely ruins the flavor."
"I love walnuts but I feel this way about raisins in baked goods, raisins are fine by themselves but not in sweets, I once ordered cinnamon rolls at Hardee's and bit into it and found out there were raisins in it, and I was grossed out and didn't want to eat it. At least freakin' McDonald's serves real cinnamon rolls without freakn' raisins!"
The Fart Ingredient
"I don't like kidney beans except in chili."
"I don't even really like them in chili. I'd rather have pintos in everything."
Oh thew Crunch...
"Pickles and onion make the best sandwich. I make most of my own pickles from stuff I grow or get from local farms in the fall, but I responded to another comment with two different heinous concoctions I enjoy. Crunchy, salty, sour. I really like pickles and onions to begin with."
"I use more than pickled cucumber though. Like the last one I made, I used garlic naan, mayo, red onion, scallions, pickled garlic, green olives, Kalamata olives, garlic dill cucumber, and green beans. Shallot, sour pickled onion, sweet pickled cucumbers, and sushi ginger on sprouted 14 grain bread is also also a favorite of mine."
No Sizzle
bacon GIFGiphy"I do not like bacon."
"I've been learning this over the years. If I'm gonna do bacon I much prefer the maple bacon since it's sweeter and doesn't overpower with saltiness."
- truije15
Who doesn't like bacon? That seems like a sacrilege. Right? But to each their own. Though I will never understand not loving walnuts in comfort food. Y'all need more self love.
Love the Big M
"Fast food tastes amazing, yeah its unhealthy as hell but don't you sit there and lie and say it tastes bad."
"Pisses me off when people act like they're better then McDonald's. What the hell? McDonald's is incredible and billions of people buy their food still. The same can't be said for other restaurants."
Blasphemy!
golden girls flirting GIF by HULUGiphy"Cheesecake is disgusting."
"I don't find cheese cake disgusting. It looks good. Smell delicious. Has ingredients in it that I love. But i can not eat more than one bite. It is too rich. One bite and i feel sick."
Too Many Legs
"Lobsters and crabs are giant insects."
"I don't really think that's that controversial, in my area of the world we even call this creature a 'Moreton Bay Bug' even though some fisheries try to give it the more appealing name of 'flathead lobster'."
bad bones
"Boneless wings are vastly superior to bone-in wings. I think bone-in wings are a ripoff because when you get half a pound of them, part of that half-pound is inedible. It's like if you ordered a quarter-pound cheeseburger, but the restaurant considers the weight of the plate to be part of that quarter-pound and you end up with just a slider. Just give me some damn meat."
The Slime
man oyster GIFGiphy"Oysters are truly disgusting and absurdly overpriced for quarter sized pieces of snot that tastes like salt water and hot sauce."
- C_23_s
Ok, I'm trying to stay calm. I don't want to judge. But some of these opinions... are leaving me shook. Except the oysters. That is that work of the devil. Look away...
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