Find A Way To The End
[rebelmouse-image 18346693 is_animated_gif=It can come from ignorance. It can come from inexperience. It can come from a lack of empathy or understanding. Racism can spring up in any heart, and it can stay with you for a long time, festering. However, there are those times when a life-changing experience can shift what you thought you knew. Just ask these people, former racists who answered Reddit user, u/skankinanarchist's question:
Former racists of reddit, what made you change?
Just Meet People
[rebelmouse-image 18349745 is_animated_gif=Met black people, met asians.
Realized they're just people and it took more energy to hate them irrationally than it did to just... Not. From there it was easy to not be racist against others.
Deep Down, We're All The Same
[rebelmouse-image 18349746 is_animated_gif=The military.
We all bleed red.
The Internet Is Doing Good For Once!
[rebelmouse-image 18349748 is_animated_gif=Internet.
Internet helped me understand everyone has problems.
It's Not Who You Are, But What you Do
[rebelmouse-image 18349749 is_animated_gif=I wasn't racist but my mum was. I had a middle-eastern friend and she realised she's not a terrorist that race doesn't make you a terrorist - being a terrorist does
When You See The Problem Isn't A Problem
[rebelmouse-image 18349750 is_animated_gif=This is gonna sound ridiculous but I grew up white trash in Australia in a very white suburb, where somehow immigrants (that didn't exist to any great degree) were the problem (not the rampant spousal and child abuse /drug addiction).
I (and many others) grew up being taught that hate. For me the first time I really was confronted with that I was 9 and Changes by Tupac released and it blew my mind.
By the time I got to highschool and had to interact with actual ESL immigrants I was thankfully not a racist.
Get Out In The World
[rebelmouse-image 18349751 is_animated_gif=Travelling.
To actually experience the culture of other people is a brutal eye-opener.
When The Problem Is Within
[rebelmouse-image 18349753 is_animated_gif=I realized that I didn't dislike black people for being black...I disliked pretty much everyone regardless of color. Just lived in a sh-tty area and everyone was sh-tty.
Left and everything got better.
Getting Out
[rebelmouse-image 18349754 is_animated_gif=Leaving home. My mom is Japanese and raised me Japanese, racism and all. I left my house late 17y/o and now that I've lived on my own, I grew to be myself, and with that, grew up mentally.
Make A Tough Decision
[rebelmouse-image 18349755 is_animated_gif=This is in the same vein, but not actually racism. I was raised in a Baptist church. My family simply didn't discuss gay people because there was no reason to. As I grew up, I became pretty homophobic due to the church. Not as bad as the absolute psychopaths you see. But, bad enough.
Then, I worked at this place when I was like 20 and made a friend named Marlon. He was an older guy, in his 60's, but cool as hell. We used to talk and hang out for hours. He gave me a DVD box set of 'Carl Sagan's Cosmos' was just an all around good guy.
Then one day, he stopped me and was like. 'Were you at a gay club this weekend?' I told him I wasn't and he was like 'Oh, I saw your twin there then.' I kind of laughed it off and went on. Then, a few minutes later the realization hit me and I went back to him and was like 'You were at a gay club, are you gay?' he confirmed that he in fact he was.
At this point I had a decision to make, this guy who I thoroughly respected and really liked. What do I do about him? Do I hold onto my prejudice, or do I admit I was wrong? The decision was easy to make once I thought about it, took less than two seconds. Suffice to say now I go to gay pride festivals, I keep a dog tag I got from one on my key ring and I'm a huge supporter of LGBT rights.
I know he wasn't trying to change anything about me. But he did, in a profound way. Not only did he make me think different about gay people, but he also made me think about all my prejudices and that helped me become who I am today.
One on One
[rebelmouse-image 18349757 is_animated_gif=One on one time with white people.
I had bad experiences with white peers when I was a kid. I was always left out and felt ostracized. As an adult, I still feel that way sometimes. It helps to have one on one time with acquaintances and friends who are white. You get a better sense of their inner monologue. By finding common ground, you make better assumptions about them even in their absence.
Fighting With Your Family
[rebelmouse-image 18345383 is_animated_gif=A part of my family is racist. There are pictures of child me with David Duke when he was running for some office. I'm not sure what he was running for.
I'd say just growing up and experiencing life.
Southeast Texas can be rough in areas and I've had good and bad things happen from all races. My uncle and granddad told me they'd beat me if I dated a black girl. Stupid things like that. Everyone is just trying to make a life for themselves and I see no reason to hate a race.
A Full Cycle
[rebelmouse-image 18349758 is_animated_gif=I was raised to not be racist. I didn't even recognize being white as a child, I told people I was peach colored. I had best friends who were black, Spanish, Middle Eastern.
Then I went into a group home. My friend was jumped for being white, I was made fun of, got yelled at walking down the street, called snow bunny, was told I could never understand hard times. And for a long time it made me bitter and judgemental.
Now that I'm out of those situations I don't generalize anymore and I'm back to my old self.
A Life-Changing Hike
[rebelmouse-image 18349759 is_animated_gif=Ooh i can finally answer one of these in a serious way. So i was raised in the bible belt by a super far right dad.
My mom and sister were pretty normal, but growing up I hated Obama and i was on the email list for a couple groups that were extremely pro second amendment and far right. This seemed normal to me and all through out high school I acted like a jack a-- to people in my school who weren't white or supported a liberal agenda.
Eventually i went off to college.. took a year off.. and moved back in with my dad while I saved up money to hike the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast. During that year that I took off I interacted with so many minorities and liberals and people who I would have hated in high school. But after living a 'hippy' lifestyle for 2 months while hikking the PCT and even living at a "Eco-Feminist-Hostel" in Hawai'i for 2 months I became a lot more chill.
Now I'm no longer racist and I'm a lot less likely to judge someone for their beliefs no matter what they are.
Public School For The Win
[rebelmouse-image 18348478 is_animated_gif=I was raised by racist parents and grandparents but I just grew up and formed my own ideas.
Public school helped, most of my friends were Mexican as we lived in a mostly Mexican town growing up. It wasn't a big realization or anything. After I turned 9 I stopped believing in God, stopped being racist. By 12 I was interested in politics and left leaning while my parents are die hard republicans. I just formed my own ideas and didn't let them brainwash me.
In Someone Else's Shoes
[rebelmouse-image 18345232 is_animated_gif=Spent a month as a minority. It's pretty disconcerting to have everyone turn to look at you everywhere you go.
Care to elaborate? I'm assuming you were traveling out of the country but the silly part of me is imagining you applying black face every morning for a month.
Yeah, I spent a month in an Asian country. I didn't see another white person for a week. Even though there was no animosity, it was just tough being "the strange looking person" day after day
Aren't We All People?
[rebelmouse-image 18349760 is_animated_gif=My hometown still has an active and organized arm of the KKK, and there were cross burnings and race riots around 2003, so this was where I grew up, and I'm happy the N-word doesn't appear as the first unconscious thought I have when I see a black person.
It feels weird saying 'black person', or 'Hispanic' nowadays, thanks to the US military.
I came out of the service around 2011, and it took a couple of years before I 'got' that racism is still a big thing out here. I just forgot that skin color mattered while in there.
Still seems so d-mned stupid that you're going to divide yourselves because of how our ancestors evolved protection against sunlight.
Don't we have mutual enemies to fight? People that need our help? Children to raise and protect?
Are we this devoid of better things to do?
Meet Someone. Anyone.
[rebelmouse-image 18349761 is_animated_gif=I met a holocaust survivor.
He was a child at the camp in Sobibor. It was a life changing experience. Without it, I'd probably have ended up being part of the alt-right. Instead, I got a real wake up call and have taken to being a major supporter or human rights.
A Long Time Coming
[rebelmouse-image 18349763 is_animated_gif=I was extremely racist in 6th and 7th grade. I had a strong hatred for East Asians, African American, and Caucasian people for no good reason. My parents also didn't express any form of racism, which just makes my actions even more ridiculous.
I would constantly harass this East Asian girl, making fun of her appearance and telling her that she ate dog. I would also refer to Caucasians as "crackers" and would make slavery jokes in front of the African American kids. So yeah, I was a pretty terrible person.
I changed after two events occurred. The first was when I got into a race war with an African American girl. I made a really racist joke about dark chocolate, which led to her telling me off. She didn't mention my past history, which led to the principal letting me off the hook. Later that day, we had a liturgy (I went to a Catholic school), and my crush was there. An African-American kid was trying to be nice and let me sit next to her, but instead I pushed him over. Eventually, my crush and a teacher overheard my remark, which led to me being taken out of the liturgy and sent to the office. I was later given a detention for my remarks, and that detention became Saturday school when the girl told the teachers of my past behavior.
A few months later, I was still unchanged. I just stopped teasing the African-American kids. One day, I went to the East Asian girl and made a joke about her belonging in a sweatshop. Clearly annoyed, she told me off. I was immediately suspended, and my parents decided to take me to a behavioral counselor for my actions. After this incident, I reformed myself. I apologized to everyone I had harassed for the past two years, and stopped my racist behavior. I left the school one year later, as I wanted to leave the past behind.
I learned to accept everyone of all colors, and no one should be treated poorly because of the color of their skin.
Slowly, But Surely
[rebelmouse-image 18349764 is_animated_gif=It's kind of hard to articulate but I'll try. I grew up and still live in the Bible Belt in a predominantly white area. I grew up being taught that the KKK was evil but also hearing racist jokes every now and then and the people around me laughed so I thought they were funny. It didn't happen overnight but there was this slow realization that these jokes are not funny and it's NOT ok to have a feeling of superiority over someone because of skin color or cultural differences. The middle aged white people in this area are so ignorant of how they sound. The same people that tell racist jokes would be hurt if they would be called racist. Someone that I know fairly well was trying to be super PC and she called black people "the coloreds" because she thought that was better then just saying black. It was so cringey.
Sometimes, You Just Need To Meet People
[rebelmouse-image 18349766 is_animated_gif=I was 1 of 3 native people in a school with 300 people. I was harassed daily, got called a chug, squaw, dirty Indian and was told to go back to my rez. I've had food, bottles and other things thrown at me. My cellphone was stolen and smashed days after my parents saved up to buy me my own. Girls would try and physically fight me for no other reason than that I didn't look like them.
By the end of highschool I HATED white people. I thought they all hated me so it would be fine if I expressed the same kind of resentment and anger, even towards strangers who hadn't done anything wrong.
All it took to change my mind, was a trip to a national park with my dog. People were so friendly and kind. I couldn't believe it, people from all of the world were interacting with me and my dog. I was receiving nothing but kindness and love, especially from white people and children who wanted to pet my dog. That's all it took, was a dog to undo years of my racism towards white people. Surely if my dog could love any human he encountered, why couldn't I?
H/T: Reddit
Things People Didn't Realize Were Expensive Until They Became An Adult
Reddit user ForeignReviews asked: 'What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?'
I was very fortunate that my parents were able to pay all expensive not only through adolescence but even through college. However, they made it very clear that once I graduated, I was on my own.
I made every effort to make sure I could afford to live once I graduated. I made copies of all the recipes my parents got when they bought stuff for me, and started saving my own receipts, something I didn't do through high school. I calculated monthly expenses and created a budget for the future.
When I graduated, I had accounted for all the big expenses: take-out food, the expensive skin care essentials I needed to keep my acne at bay, and utilities (heat, AC, electricity).
What I didn't realize was that small expenses are not so small. Microwavable meals went up by $2. Gas, which was pretty steady while I was in college, seemed to shoot up daily. And things that don't seem expensive at first glance, such as toilet paper, become big expenses as they add up.
I'm not the only one who had these realizations. Redditors have too, and are eager to share what items they didn't realize were expensive until they became an adult.
It all started when Redditor ForeignReviews asked:
"What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?"
Yummy, Yummy
"Food is both more expensive and goes bad quicker when you're an adult."
– BriSnyScienceGuy
"I know right! I honestly love grocery shopping, so when I started driving I would go grocery shopping when I had the car and so nowadays I do maybe half of the grocery shopping. But, it's just so expensive. I often look for deals and will buy generic/store brand on most items but, still."
"My biggest tip for "goes bad quicker" is to always get from the back, because usually that's where the longer lasting stuff goes and when it's stacked, get from the bottom. When it's stuff with longer shelf life like cereal and canned stuff, I don't usually bother. But I mostly do that with bread and dairy products. My mom taught me that when I was little."
– ariana61104
"Yes! Having to feed yourself and your household is getting too expensive and so tedious. I really admire my mom for making dinner every night when I was growing up. Thankfully I don't have kids so me & my husband are okay with just eating snacks sometimes."
– WildMoonWitch
So Sweet
"My parents split up when I was a kid in the 90s, and I remember going to my dads apartment in another city, and him cooking us steak on the grill. I always loved that."
"Once I moved out I was like "wait steak is how much? Why the hell did Dad keep feeding us this?""
"Then I realised he was eating poverty meals all week to treat his kids on the weekend."
"For his 60th birthday us kids pooled our money and took him to arguably the best fine dining restaurant in my province for the full tasting menu. Seeing him light up at trying things like caviar and truffles for the first time made me realize how much he has sacrificed for us."
"So yeah, steak is expensive."
– KFBass
"You guys are awesome; what a nice story. He raised y'all right."
– Augustus58
Where Do I Sit?
"Gotta be furniture."
– harrisrichard
"When I bought my house I only had a bed in the master bedroom and all my friends kept saying “you make good money just buy furniture, you could have it furnished in a month.” Then they themselves bought houses and now understand why it took me a year to furnish my house."
– Stetikhasnotalent
They Don't Need To Be That Nice!
"Rugs. Why did no one tel me a ‘nice’ rug was $18,000."
– BenSadfleck
"But it really ties the room together."
– alittlec4
"Dude, you could fly to Morocco and get a hand made wool rug for that much. What the heck are you buying?"
– mofukkinbreadcrumbz
"My dog isn’t going to want to butt scoot on anything cheaper than 10k."
– iamaliberalpausenot
Car Accessories
"New tires. Most unexciting $1,000 purchases I have ever made."
– PRCraig
"Also why the hell are oil changes so expensive now!?"
– johnstonb
"Bro fr I swear they were just $20 just a second ago now it’s like $60?? I asked my dad to teach me how to do it myself as a teen and he said it was so cheap that I might as well pay someone else. That didn’t last."
– greeneggiwegs
Walk It Off
"A good pair of shoes will set you back a bit, especially if you need more specialized ones for whatever reason."
– sedition-
Part Of The Family
"Pets."
– TeacherLady3
"They have gotten a lot more expensive due to expected care changing dramatically, and how we feel about them."
"The idea that you would put a pet down because a vet treatment costs too much is horrible now, but was pretty common in the past. Outdoor cats were the norm so they pretty much fed themselves and you had far fewer litter changes - litter was just clay, and you tossed the whole thing."
"Dogs ate table scraps and whatever they hunted down, or cheap as dog feed made of whatever ended up on the slaughter house floor (bones and all)."
"While purebreds were probably still super expensive, most people had a mutt or tabby, that the found/were given, instead of buying."
– RandomChance
"All true. But I waited until I was in my 50's and had raised my kids until I could afford a pet. Like kids, I wasn't going to be a pet owner until I could provide the care they deserve."
– TeacherLady3
The Cost Of People
"Kids."
"I'm amazed how my parents could afford me."
– only_stupid_answers
"My parents had 5 of us. It amazes me to this day, that my fathers paultry salary at the time had to support it all. How the f**k could anyone do that today?"
– The_REAL_McWeasel
Vroom, Vroom
"Cars, all grown-ups had them, maybe even multiple. I still think its insane that some cars are more expensive than a 2 bedroom apartment."
– Tommer_nl
"I remember people restoring cars all the time when I was growing up. I would love to do it but even a rough condition rolling rust is super expensive now for even common things people aren’t super after."
– Pup5432
"Yeah what the hell!? I feel like everyone's dad (mine included) had a project car that they were tinkering with."
"All of my 'tinkering' is to keep my single, daily driver running!"
– disisathrowaway
Shiny Teeth And Me
"My teeth."
– Bumfuzzled_Hobgoblin
"Teeth are luxury bones, don’t ya know? Why on earth would regular health insurance cover them? Hahaha. The fact that vision and dental are separate from the rest of your body is absurd."
– Blackfoxx907
I See You!
"Glasses. I have awful eyesight and an astigmatism and got quite a shock when I had to pay for my own prescription glasses for the first time."
– Heavy_Mycologist_104
Time Flies
"Free time."
"As a kid I had loads of it and gave it away. now I can't afford even a minute !!"
– TokenFeed
"I took a toll road home today for an extra hour of free time and it was the best money I ever spent."
– squidkiosk
What I wouldn't give -- or pay -- for some extra free time!
People Share The Dirty Secrets That Made Them Stop Supporting A Company
Ben Rosett on Unsplash
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, actor Michael Douglas' antihero Gordon Gekko infamously said:
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
The quote became a perfect representation of rampant corporate greed and corruption prevalent in the era during and after Republican President Ronald Reagan's stint in the Oval Office. The Reagan administration pushed deregulation and elimination of consumer protections.
While the government may not always step in to thwart shady or harmful businesses, consumers have one way to control them—their money.
Money talks.
Reddit user Wetter42 asked:
"What's a dirty little secret you found out about a company or service that made you stop using them?"
Poor Working Conditions
"Ashley Furniture—abysmal OSHA record, repeat and willful violations."
"People are not expendable."
~ surfinwifsharks
"I assure you, it's worse."
"That's just what OSHA made public, but I live near their factory in Arcadia and know people who work there, or used to work there."
"Someone bled for your dresser."
~ Wild_Question_9272
"I used to work as the lead designer for BLUENOTES in Canada. YM Inc knowingly uses near slave and child labour and denies everything in the press, but they do know, and they don't care."
"Money is more important."
~ Pkactus
"I used to work for Goodwill and in the back I saw one of my coworkers who has a physical and mental handicap come out of the office of our store manager crying. I really liked this coworker, I remember her as one of the nicest people I've ever known."
"I asked her what was wrong and she said that her wages were going to be cut substantially. She stated the store manager was told by corporate that it was since she was not able to work as fast as others in the back doing pricing.
"I asked if she would mind if I asked what they had cut it to and she said $3.30 an hour."
"WTF!"
"It turns out that Goodwill has a policy to pay disabled workers the legal subminimum wage."
"Sec 14 (c) allows corporations to pay people with disabilities a subminimum wage. According to Labor Department records, Goodwill pays some of its disabled workers as low as $0.22, $0.38 and $0.41 per hour depending on the state laws."
"Goodwill does not show much goodwill towards their workers."
~ Red_Beard_of_Tucson
Questionable Spending
"Susan G. Komen for the Cure."
"The pink ribbon is a scam!"
~ worldsokayestmomx3
"Most people also don't realize it just because something is pink, has a ribbon on it, says breast cancer on the front or is sold in October it doesn't necessarily benefit anything other than the company that made it!"
"There are no patents or trademarks on pink ribbons that mean that anytime it's used it has to benefit breast cancer research or awareness. Literally anybody can sell something pink with a ribbon and it doesn't mean a damn thing for actual cancer patients."
~ Crystal_crone
Shady Business Practices
"H&R Block used to do something like this with their tax preparation service. Not sure if they still do."
"Their slogan was something like, 'Come on in and we'll tell you if there's mistakes in your self-prepared return, for free!'."
"So you go in, they spend 5 minutes looking at your self-prepared return, and they tell you, 'Yes, indeed, there are mistakes here'."
"And then you ask them to tell you what the mistakes are. And that's when they tell you it'll cost $75 for them to tell you."
~ whomp1970
"Intuit lobbied the government to keep taxes complex."
"F*ck TurboTax."
~ lifesavingsgoboom
"Angie’s List (aka Angi). Did work for a person and they left a good review on Angie’s List.
"Next thing I know I’ve got a guy from their call center blowing up my phone. He wanted me to pay them to put more good reviews under my company’s name and to steer potential customers towards my business for an additional fee."
"Basically everything they say they don’t do on their ads. I’m sure it was a trustworthy company when Angie still owned it, but it’s scammy as hell now."
~ Tangboy50000
"My mother is terminally ill and closing her business. Angie’s List called about promotion and she kept saying no."
"Finally had to tell them she was dying."
"They offered her a cheaper promotion. They suck."
~ StitchingKitty897
"The sheer amount of people who still use uTorrent, even among my friends boggles my mind."
"It's basically an adware at this point. They even used to bundle a cryptominer at one point that secretly used your computer to mine bitcoin (or some other crypto)."
"ALWAYS use open-source Torrent clients."
~ vpsj
"There is a vintage toy store chain near me called the Toy Vault. The owner, Dan, has been ripping people off for years, offering them very little money for their toy collections."
"He treats his employees terribly. Many toy collectors in the area have their own Dan story."
"One time a couple of years ago I was setting up a pop-up shop to sell a massive collection of toys that my friend's parents had hoarded."
"We had been advertising for a couple weeks and were excited to make some people happy offering great deals on a lot of cool toys."
"The Thursday prior to opening Dan messaged me asking if there was a price we'd sell the whole collection for, saying that he could bring a truck that night and rid us of the burden."
"I said no because neither of us had the time and told him he could come Saturday with the rest of the buyers."
"He replied angrily calling me an 'amature' and said that if we were 'serious about selling' we would make the time, and that he knows we shop at his stores."
"Well I don't anymore, Dan."
~ ancient_scully
"There used to be a comics and collectibles store near me that was run by the same type of people. They would take the current month's comics and bag them and mark them up by at least 50%, so you would have to pay a premium for even the most recent issues."
"If they thought the comics were going to be hot, the marked them up even more). They were pretty much the only comics store in the area, and they were one of the few that sold a lot of independent comics, so it sucked that I had to boycott them."
"What's worse was their policy towards collectibles and action figures—the owner would buy case upon case of whatever the latest fad toy was and pull out the rarest figures and charge $100+ for them."
"Then he would drive his pre-teen son to the local Toys R Us with the rest of the figures, and have the kid walk in and claim that he had gotten all of them for his birthday, but he didn't want them, so could he trade them in for store credit.
"At the time, Toys R Us had a pretty loose policy towards returns—if you brought in something still sealed in its original box and it was an item they sold, you could get store credit for it. This worked for a while, but eventually this guy was banned from every Toys R Us within like an hour's drive."
"Eventually, the comics and action figures craze died down and this guy went out of business shortly thereafter."
~ WaldoJeffers65
"Companies like BetterHelp (mental health platform) exploit clients data/info and breached privacy."
"Yet they still advertise everywhere. Somewhere like 3 lawsuits about it."
~ Friendly-Jump-5307
"Therapist here. BretterHelp is total garbage."
"I feel bad for the clients who go through several green therapists to find someone who's actually a good fit and then the therapist leaves (understandably) because BetterHelp treats and pays them so poorly."
~ SpuddyBud
"The Weather Channel app collected and sold user location data without disclosing it would it be shared with advertisers."
~ KawIsTheLaw
"I will never buy anything from LG."
"Sometime around 2008ish, they (like many other hardware/software companies) were messing around with what was essentially adware, seeing how far they could push things to get borderline-malicious advertising onto your home computer."
"Stuff like the pile of CDs that came with your new Gateway, the 'do you also want to install X, Y and Z? We're going to imply it's necessary' when installing messaging apps, or the huge unnecessary printer 'software suite' when all you needed was the driver."
"LG went a step further."
"LG embedded adware in the firmware of their CD/DVD drives."
"Every time you opened or closed the drive, you'd get a little popup from your system tray that served you an ad—pretty much indistinguishable from the legions of adware/spyware your aunt would get from clicking 'yes' to all her popup ads."
"Except nobody clicked yes on anything, and it couldn't be removed. It was embedded in the drive itself, essentially performing an AutoPlay exploit on a virtual drive to show you the ads, then disappear again."
"They eventually were threatened with legal action and had to post a firmware update/removal tool on their website.
"The ad software was called BlueBirds, and LG scrubs all mentions of it from their Wikipedia article every now and then."
~ DJ33
Cruelty And Greed
"Nissan spent a decade ruining the life of the guy who owned nissan.com."
~ zonker77
"Crumbl Cookies. Their VP of HR did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on LinkedIn that I happened to see because they are fairly local and I have a few mutual connections."
"Anyway, she went off on why they were always understaffed in an area because 'everyone one else is paying above market value for employees and [we] only want to pay market value and hire people passionate about [our] brand and making cookies'."
"It really rubbed me the wrong way, because if everyone else is paying more than you it doesn’t mean they are paying above market value, it means you are paying below market value."
"I haven’t been back since, besides they also sued another company for also selling cookies in square boxes… and honestly the other companies cookies taste better."
~ Luckyfinger7
While we as consumers and customers can't directly dictate anyone else's morals or ethics, we can choose who we will and won't give our money to.
Use your buying power wisely.
When we hear the term "class clown," we inevitably can think of a specific person who filled that role when we were growing up.
And in some cases, we can recall a time when they took their role much too far.
Curious about jokes gone wrong, Redditor Sharp_Emu6639 asked:
"When did the class clown go too far?"
Cancer Isn't Funny
"Kept making ‘Yo Mama’ jokes to my friend who’d just lost his Mom to cancer. My friend snapped and broke his nose."
- darksaber522
The Speed of a Fire
"When I was in High School, we had a Firefighter Explorer program where we could go and do shadow work at a few of the local departments."
"One all-volunteer department let some of us Juniors and Seniors respond to specific calls to do minor light work (hold stop signs, carry the ladders, fetch tools, etc.) and allowed us to have a code to their cipher lock. They gave the code to the four local kids so we could get there, unlock the doors, and open the bays and get trucks started and ready to roll."
"One night, the class id**t decided to go into their fire department and play 'pranks' on them. Took all their hoses off the trucks, strung them around the bays and looped them through the axles, discharged all the foam out of the main engine, and screwed with everyone’s bunker gear by swapping boots and removing the liners of structural gear among other things."
"Naturally, it ended very badly when a call came in for a structure fire and when the actual firefighters showed up the entire house was in such disarray that no truck could even leave."
"They ended up calling a town 20 minutes away to respond."
"Two people passed away in the fire. Naturally, all four of us were the top suspects, and it didn’t take the police long to figure it out as the place was full of surveillance cameras. He was arrested, his parents got the bill for all the damages, and we never saw him or his family again after that. They just skipped the area and vanished overnight."
"The fire department killed almost all ties with the Explorer Program and stopped allowing us to respond to minor calls. I went on to get certified as a firefighter and spent five awesome years with them where I still seasonally volunteer (during wildfire season) with them."
- JimSpieks
A Ruined Presentation
"We had a student teacher for like six months when I was in sixth grade, and towards the end of her time with us, she had to record herself teaching a lesson to the class and then provide the video to her school (as a final exam or something)."
"We had this class clown who had to sit in the back, which happened to be near the camcorder. During the recording, he kept saying things like, 's**t, pen*s, f**k,' quiet enough for no one in class to hear but loud enough to be obvious on the recording."
"The student-teacher ended up having to redo the entire video and we had to sit through the exact same lesson a week later without the class clown present."
- sloppyjoesandwich
Deflected Trouble
"Art class. Teacher leaves. Class clown says, 'Dare me to eat this paint!?'"
"My buddy and I ignored him. He got real pushy about eating paint."
"We told him to do whatever the h**l he wanted. He stood on a chair and ate two bottles of paint before the teacher walked back in."
"He got marched to the nurse. We breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone."
"Later that day, my buddy and I got called to the principal's office. We were informed he was at the hospital getting his stomach pumped and it was OUR fault."
"I had never been in trouble before. I spent one hour in isolated detention to see if I 'wanted to share more,' literally just locked in a tiny a** room."
"I got a really long lecture about if I told someone to jump off a bridge and they did it, it would be my fault. I denied any fault again. Then I got put back in isolation until the end of the day."
"My parents went nuclear when I got home and told them what happened."
"The clown showed up the next day just grinning and laughing because he heard we got in trouble."
- Remz_Gaming
Boy Cries Wolf... Or Eats Candy
"Slightly off-topic, but our class clown choked on candy. We thought it was another one of his jokes."
"The whole class laughed at him, even the teacher. Then his face started to go red, his eyes got bloodshot, and he started slamming the table violently."
"Luckily somebody gave him the Heimlich maneuver and saved his life."
"Dude nearly died while everyone sat laughing at him."
- seneca_7
Enough Said.
"A classmate thought it would be funny to light somebody's mullet on fire in the middle of class."
- DrDWilder
A Graduating Vandal
"He came back to the school after hours and put caulking in the locks, and spray-painted pot leaves everywhere."
"Of course, he didn’t know there were cameras so it didn’t take long for him to be caught."
"This was right before graduation too so needless to say, he didn’t walk at graduation and his parents had a hefty damage bill to pay."
- Ozziwulf
Senior Prank Week Gone Wrong
"In my school district, it was tradition for the exiting seniors to pull a prank. One year, a few of the class clowns decided it would be funny to cover all the tile floors with cooking oil, cover the handrails of stairs with Crisco, and put large puddles of oil at the top of each stairwell."
"A girl already on crutches broke her jaw. We had to be evacuated to the bleaches outside. It was super not cool."
- QueasyAd7509
A Ruined Graduation
"Public school, small town. The graduating class only had 54 students in it."
"The kid smeared his s**t all over the bathroom. Walls, floor, sinks, everywhere. The principal had no way of knowing who it was, so the solution... they took the bathroom doors off the hinges."
- PhatWhiteCheeks
No Future in Serving Drinks
"He spilled formic acid on another kid who ended up with some light scarring on his chest."
"To be honest, it was a terrible call from the teacher to get him to carry it around for people to smell."
- CoolioMcCool
Substitute Teaching is Already Hard Enough
"They put staples in the substitute teacher's coffee... I went to school with some real monsters."
- This-Ad-1886
A Traumatized Teacher
"In seventh grade at a public school, our class was on the second floor."
"The class clown stood up in the middle of class, said 'I can't take it anymore,' and ran to the back of the classroom, opened the window, and jumped."
"The teacher screamed, and we all laughed. There was an addition to the building and the roof was under the window where the class clown was standing with a big grin."
"The teacher quit shortly after due to this and several other incidents in her class."
- OMOAB
Targeting the Substitute Teacher
"Sophomore year biology class, we had a substitute teacher during fetal pig dissection week."
"She had stepped out of the classroom for some reason while we were working on the dissection."
"The class clown took out his shoelaces, wrapped one end around the piglet, and rigged the other end to the door so that when the door was opened, his piglet would raise to eye level."
"He scared the teacher when she came back in and he was suspended for a few days."
- Ambitious_Misgivings
Caught Butter-Handed
"We had this kid who would take the small butter packets from the cafeteria and bring them to fifth-period history class. At some point, he would scoop out a glob with his pen and flick the dairy bullet on our history teacher's a** when he walked by."
"He did this probably five or six times without getting caught."
"One day, he f**ked up and scraped the teacher's butt with his pen."
"The teacher checked his pants and found the butter smear."
"The kid's eyes got super wide like a true deer in headlights. He had no excuse for why he did this prank. He just kept apologizing like it was an accident."
"Lol (laughing out loud). Who accidentally flicks butter on an old man's a**?? I'm pretty sure he never graduated. Not surprisingly."
- CannabisaurusRex401
Fun for the Students, At Least
"He stole the English teacher's substitute plans and rewrote them, giving us all a free period instead."
"Terrance, wherever you are, you're a f**king legend."
- jeconti
We can all agree that these pranks, jokes, and even assaults went much too far, whether the class clown was of minor age or not.
Sometimes a prank can be funny, when when it scares someone, severely scares them, or even injures them, it's obviously much too far. A joke is only funny if everyone involved is genuinely laughing.
People Reveal What Their Significant Other Did That Made Them Think 'F**k This, We're Done'
After all, the honeymoon phase is not forever.
Eventually, reality sets in for those who want to be in it for the long haul as the lovebirds gradually start discovering weird idiosyncrasies that can either be perceived as cute quirks or aggravating annoyances.
Is it worth it?
That depends.
Curious to hear of make-it-or-break-it moments in relationships, Redditor The_King_Of_Spades_ asked:
"What is something that an S/O has done that made you go, 'F'k this, we're done'?"
These exes had no regard for the lives of others, some literally.
Serpent Murderer
"She unplugged the heater on my red tail boa's tank. Since the tank was in the spare room I only checked it every couple days. It was winter and I had just fed it so I would always leave it alone for a few days after so it wouldn't stress and have issues digesting. She went in right behind me an unplugged it after arguing with me for weeks to rehome it, which I refused to do."
"I went to check on it a few days later and noticed it froze to death. I asked her if she knew anything about it and her response was 'oh bummer, now I guess you can throw all that sh*t out.'"
"The next day when she was at work I packed all her sh*t and threw it all over her sister's front yard, since her sister was always the one telling her to just do things if I don't give her her way and had told me numerous times to get rid of my snake or else."
"RIP Doobie. I'm sorry buddy."
– burkechrs1
Funeral Brawl
"She started a fight with someone at my gran's funeral."
– LapOfHonour
"That's odd. Nobody is looking at ME for some reason..."
– VAShumpmaker
"Ummm...ex-CUSE me! I'M the ALIVE one here!"
– PicaDiet
Family Comes First
"Gave me sh*t for skipping a minor league ballgame with her family so I could go visit my grandfather in the hospital."
"It was the last time i saw him alive."
"Edit - ok i get it, the last sentence is confusing. I’m referring to gramps."
– chickentimesfive
You never know about a person's true colors.
Dodging A Bullet
"Physically barricaded me in the bedroom and forced me to change into the exact outfit he wanted me to wear before we could go out to meet his friends. I put it on just so he would let me leave and then ran a couple blocks away while he was locking up and called an Uber to my friend's house."
– Particular-Natural12
The Freeloader
"My ex drove my truck and returned it with a drop of gas in the tank. Then she took my bank card from my wallet and filled up her SUV and went to work. I started my truck and got to the gas station, opened my wallet and my card was missing. This was back when I was kind of poor and didn't have any credit cards, just a debit card. I had no cash in my wallet, so no gas. I tried to make it back home but I ran out of gas. I called her asking for help, she refused."
"My buddy picked me up on the side of the road. I went home and packed up my stuff and immediately moved out. I stayed on my friends sofa for a couple weeks while I worked out new living arrangements."
– macmac360
The kids will always be priority number one.
Scared Child
"My 12 year old son was struggling emotionally and it was causing issues with his grades. Boyfriend told him he could go live with his dad if he was going to be a loser. My son called me scared because he thought he was going to have to move to his dad’s. I was out of town at the time. I broke up with him the moment I got back and my son and I moved out."
"F'k you Chris."
– Fickle_Freckle
You Don't Go After The Children
"Called my daughter (not hers) a 'f'king b*tch that ruined our relationship'. Hard no from me."
– javawong
"Thank you for prioritizing your daughter. So many single parents don’t."
– CowboyLaw
Those who abuse animals are not relationship material.
The Last Straw
"Kicked my (our) cat."
"He pushed and pushed to get a cat. I wanted one but didn't really want to spend the next 10 years cleaning litter boxes every day. I eventually gave in because he was so persistent."
"After a few months, he came home from work in a mood one day and the cat got under his feet - as cats tend to do. He kicked her and screamed at her, and she ran and hid under the bed for hours."
"Things had been pretty sh*t between us anyway, but this was the last straw. I told him that if he can't watch where he's f'king going, he shouldn't live with a cat. He responded with something along the lines of 'well f'king get rid of her then!', and I told him I'd rather get rid of him."
"I told him to pack a bag and find somewhere else to stay. He went to stay with his mum, and I only saw him once after that day when he had to sign some paperwork to confirm that he'd moved out of our flat."
"P.S. Still got the cat. She's perfect and I love her so much. She still trips me up almost every day."
"Edit: I do feel like I should clarify (even though ex doesn't deserve it) - he didn't like, kick the cat across the room or something, but he did kick her a lot more aggressively than just tapping her out of the way with his foot. She wasn't hurt at all, but was scared. Had it been any worse, I probably would have flipped out on him even more."
– aerialpoler
Always listen to your gut when it comes to being in a bad situation.
Vulnerable individuals who are deep in love have the tendency of ignoring warning signs and realize until too late that they are with someone they never should've been with in the first place.
That's the tricky thing about pursuing love.
You don't really know a person until you spend more time with them, which is all the more reason to not rush into things.