Modern life means existing both in the "real" world and as an online version of yourself. We often criticize and cancel people over the stupid stuff they post online, but we rarely celebrate people's internet accomplishments.
Let's change that.
One Reddit user asked:
What's your greatest internet accomplishment?
Come, my fellow citizens of internet. Let us applaud one another for these mundane moments of e-greatness.
Not my Domain
paid pay day GIFGiphyI sold a domain name for $1,500 a couple of months ago. That was pretty great. It was a company I owned briefly several years ago but ultimately closed. I kept renewing the domain because it was cheap, but sold it in a heartbeat when someone offered to buy it. It's now a parked site with crappy ads.
In the UK
I had the first authenticated twitter account in the UK. Well... it was MANY years ago (obviously) and it was for a company I was running. Twitter hadn't really come to the UK but I knew folks there. I wanted to get my company the badge so asked a mate that worked there. We ended up being the first in the UK to get it. I know this because like a month a later a BIG UK company got a verified account and it was in the trade press. No one would have cared about my little business.
Creative Family
Establishing a creative writing group that lasted about 10 years. There are still active friendships between members, but the creative writing part has been dropped due to various factors.
Smut.
I wrote a story on a website and it got so popular it was translated in two different languages and my mom also found it and read it.
Very awkward because it was VERY smutty lol
Keep in mind this story is dated and written in 2012, I was 16 years old lol
If you want to check out my new project, click here. You all have sparked my creative flame!
Dog Famous
dogs jumprope GIFGiphyNASA follows my tumblr which I use to post photos of dogs I meet in the streets. I'm not even from the US. dogsinthestreet.tumblr.com.
The Tossup....
- a guy DMed me about an old comment I made on another account about parenting. Said he looked at it from time to time when he felt like he needed guidance as a new dad. It was the sweetest thing.
- one time I apparently made someone pee outside of the bowl because they were laughing at a comment. The comment was one word, and it made my day.
- got a bunch of awards and like, words of encouragement a few months ago for an angsty dumb poem I posted.
If I had to pick the one I'm proudest of, it's definitely the one on top. The second is a tossup.
I'm 38 and my badge says NASA.....
I wrote a bull white paper/how-to back in 98 or 99, while still in high school, on how to install Linux on a particular Dell laptop. (Y'all kids laugh but 40yr olds know what I'm talking about! Crap took weeks of fiddling to get work!)
Some dude who worked for a small IT consulting company found it and reached out with questions. I helped him. He offered me a help desk position at his company. I quit my job at Kmart and commuted to NYC for work that summer. College time came but I'd already established myself as the kid who can do anything IT, so they were using me on big projects like pen testing banks.
They offered me $65k plus bonuses for certifications (they were a VAR for many vendors). I told mom and dad I wasn't going to college for music (Tuba performance!)
I'm 38 and my badge says NASA and I have ~20 PhDs under me.
I'd say that stupid paper on how to install Linux on a laptop was my greatest internet accomplishment.
American Idiots
Mike Dirnt from Green Day replied to me on Instagram multiple times. Commented on a picture of my bass guitar. He was my inspiration to pick up the bass, so I'd say that was one of my greatest accomplishments on the internet. #MikeDirntHomies.
krunker.io
A few years ago I was playing some random game on the computer called krunker.io, I was playing so good that the number one clan in that game invited me
Edit: I also forgot to add that almost every time I played I would get accused of hacking because I was that good with the sniper
I don't play anymore since the new updates made it just feel weird and I don't think the clan exists anymore, it was called opal.
"I am the captain now"
I created the original Captain Phillips "I am the captain now" meme in high school ~6 years ago. It got big enough to be stolen by dory all those other damn accounts. I ended up deleting the tweet because I hated comment notifications, since it got around 20k of each interaction. That was the biggest mistake to date because now no one believes that I created it besides a few classmates I don't speak to anymore smh.
Original caption:
"When you're in a group project with unreliable people"
Hey O!
happy fun GIFGiphyBarack Obama followed me back on twitter back in 2007/2008 when he was running for President.
Popularity!
Thanks to PSN I knew so many new friends! I was also able to help one of this friends, who is paraplegic, to get better at Destiny2! In November he didn't know that much about this game, and a week ago he was able to complete 2 raids (6 players activity) with us. :)
Pip-Boy?
I made this classic Pip-Boy mod for Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3. It's a mod that replaces the default arm-mounted Pip-Boy with a handheld one that harkens back to the model used in Fallout 1 and 2.
It turned out to be pretty popular, but frankly I was surprised that no one had made it already. At the time, there was a super futuristic PDA/tablet mod (which was cool, but not lore-friendly), and no classic Pip-Boy? Strange!
Thank You, I'm Next.
Ariana Grande GIFGiphyI've had a couple celebrities like my comment/tweets. The biggest being ariana grande. I don't know why. I'm not that interesting.
Making Beats....
I've "made beats" as a hobby for 15 years or so.
A rather large producer stumbled on one of my beats and wanted to buy it from me (apparently this happens quite a bit).
So I sold him the rights to the track for what I'd consider an absurd amount of money.
Like a year and a half later my track; remade with higher quality samples was on a rather popular rappers album. You may have heard it, by no means a #1 hit but it was around. Heard it bumping in ppls cars a few times.
I legally can't tell anyone what song it is, and it doesn't really matter.
Point is it took me like an hour and a half to make a track, I posted it up somewhere then by chance this guy heard it. From there I was able to pay a full years rent up front when I got my money, to start with.
Really don't think I'll ever top that.
Actually, like right when the original X-box came out I got this pop up ad on a site "YOU WON AN X-BOX". I was stupid and I gave them my information.
I actually received an xbox like a month later. The fact that random pop up was legitimate and not a scam might be even more impressive than selling a track.
Linkin Park
1.Grey Daze followed me on Instagram for a while. It was after I posted a Linkin Park mashup in honor of Chester Bennington. He was the singer for Grey Daze until they broke up in 1999. Then he went on to join Linkin Park. Him and Grey Daze had been talking about reuniting shortly before his suicide in 2017.
2. Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park liked a vocal part I submitted when he asked for fans to sing on one of his songs. I cried on both of these days.
Evil Dead Wiki
I'm a moderator of the Evil Dead Wiki. Tons of information I've added to articles over the four or five years I've been at it has started recently appearing in officially licensed merchandise (mainly the comics and prop replicas), directly copied and pasted from the site. It's been pretty surreal for me as a fan of the franchise to see how something I started doing out of boredom one summer has started having an impact on how people treat the mythology of the series.
The Homer Theory.
homer simpson doh GIFGiphyCame up with a Simpsons fan theory about Homer being in a coma. It went viral, featured on Buzzfeed, Yahoo, TMZ, etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/2usu70/the_simpsons_homer_simpson_is_a_vegetable_in_a/
You can google "Simpsons fan theory" today and it'll still pop up.
Band of Friends
Not entirely via Internet, but I met a couple members from my favorite band in a bar and they invited me to their table. I asked the lead singer if he would follow me on Instagram and he did instantly and we chat every once in a while.
Edit: I am a skinny 21 y/o dude from Argentina. I met them again a couple more times among other friends and we all went to have dinner. The singer remembers me and comes to say hi when he sees me in the crowd. I think they're just that friendly.
Hey Arnold.
arnold schwarzenegger things GIFGiphyI did a cartoon about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Someone posted it here on Reddit and Arnie saw it. He liked it and complimented me on it. This is also the reason I joined Reddit in the first place. I didn't really know what it was about until that happened.
Easy A
Getting straight A's on difficult courses I would have otherwise failed if the pandemic didn't push for online education.
I was in Trig, and I'm proud because it's not even that I'm bad at math, just had a god awful professor. I'm on Calc 1 right now and it's going much smoother, now that the professor isn't total crap.
Fun AND $$$.
I paid to play a game, not sure I'm allowed to say it, on two occasions. It is totally free to play but unless you're a genius or have no job and never sleep, you pay for guns/ammo/mining tools/ships/mind implants etc. and any loot you get is worth real money on a fixed exchange rate with the US Dollar. Well I used to invest around £100 to £200 a month. I was single at the time and lived at home.
During that time I had 2 big loots, worth roughly $4k each (real money, 40k game money). I reinvested some but wanted to move out, so I sold everything bar my actual character and ended up with over £4,500 in total after conversion. A few months later and the money was in my bank and I used it as a 5% deposit on a mortgage for a flat that I now own. Fun AND monies.
Toxic Reports
This is kind of the opposite, but my friends and I used to play CS:GO religiously. They thought it would be funny to constantly report me for toxicity. To this day, the only way someone can talk to me through the game is to unmute me. Like the game has me automatically muted. Lol
The Star Dragon
game of thrones fire GIFGiphyIf we count online gaming I got the world first mage solo of a Mists of Pandaria world of Warcraft raid boss. It was the star dragon it was killable almost as soon as the next expansion launched provided you took the correct equipment (the stamina buff scroll was very important).
The Stalked.
I have a story on my profile here about how I was stalked by the same man that stalked my mother. I got some messages from podcast owners asking for my permission to read it, and I was so excited. I waited all week and kept checking Spotify for it, and when I saw they had a new episode my story wasn't in it. I was really disappointed, but happy I got an offer.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Said yes to everything a scammer asked me yesterday. I'll try my best to reenact the conversation:
Me: hello?
Scammer: hi I am calling to help you resolve your debt on a credit card.
Me: yeah I do have debt
Scammer: and what is the pin number on this credit card so I get the right one
Me: yes
Scammer: sir, the pin?
Me: yes
Scammer: I am asking you nicely to please state the pin number of the credit card that has debt
Me: yes
Aggravated Scammer: Your mom is a b***h?
Me: yes
Aggravated Scammer: hangs up
Had my friends laughing, not my proudest thing but really wanted to tell someone so enjoy. :)
A Toast to the Band.
My best friend HATES Linkin Park. One morning in college, I woke up and messaged quite a few mutual friends to please message him something about Linkin Park (image, video, comment...). And then I forgot.
Apparently he woke up to easily 100+ notifications. Everyone had sent this to other mutual friends and then other strangers chimes in as well.
This guy had so many messages of "hey I heard you love LP so I thought I'd send you this".
One friend was a photography editor and edited his face into multiple photos as the lead singer. It was talked about for so long and I brought it up as best man at his wedding last year.
RIP forever Zoila.
I posted a pic of my corgi sitting in the car with a seatbelt on tumblr and it gots hundreds of thousands of notes. spread to other sites, lol buzzfeed used it too
edit:here is the pic!
Not Alone.
Happy Cheering GIF by bluesbearGiphyI found a comic I posted in a website referenced in a girl's blog about her struggle with diabetes. It was pretty heartwarming to see that, given it is the one and only comic I've ever written (I'm an economist).
Synonyms....
A friend's last name is Klotz. Me and another friend started a campaign in the late 90s to turn his last name into a synonym for loser. We used it whenever we could. The friend helping to spread this was a corporate trainer so he used it in front of people from all over the country. At some point I check urban dictionary and it was on there.
Club Penguin
I attained 2000+ subscribers on my Club Penguin focused YouTube channel as a kid, back in 2009, when 2000 subscribers was a pretty high amount.
The Best Block!
donald trump GIFGiphyI got blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter for calling him a "mad b**tard!"
The Jolly Parade.
I once played WoW during Christmas and started a Christmas parade that circled old Orgrimmar. At its peak, I was able to follow the back of the parade and most people were on reindeer mounts following each other at rp walking pace.
Technically my most famous internet thing is actually a hearthstone highlight on the hearthstone subreddit, but the Christmas parade always makes me laugh when I think about the hour or 2 i spent on christmas starting a thing I hadn't yet seen.
Way, way, wayyyy back when....
amish GIFGiphyWay, way, wayyyy back when the World Wide Web first came into existence, I was the author and owner of the world's first Amish Web Page.
It was a joke page, obviously, playing on the fact that the Amish would likely not be online or using a computer (at least not then).
It was sparse. It had a section on "tending thy livestock", and one on "raising thy barn", and another on "fixing thy computer", and finally a section titled "tourists and how to hide their bodies".
It disappeared sometime in the 1990s. I can't find it on Wayback. It's truly lost to the ages. But it was very definitely the very first of its kind on the WWW.
Flood Escape.
Alright. So. During Hurricane Harvey I posted a snapchat to the "our story" so that everyone could see it. It was hundreds of cockroaches escaping from the floodwaters in Houston. I deleted it from my own story bc I was like eh this is dumb and I hated the sound of my voice in the video. Well it stayed on the "our story" and got 1.2M views. My biggest internet accomplishment and I didn't even save the video as proof! And my 10 seconds of fame was due to... roaches.
Edit: Oh! Just remembered. A few years ago Aaron Carter followed me back on Twitter. Childhood crush. Not adulthood crush though.
"internet police"
I played Minecraft when I was younger and joined a server where I met someone I've now known online for around 8-9 years. We managed to trick some kid we were the "internet police" and had reason to believe he was hacking. We ended up getting his dad on the microphone and trying to explain that we believed his son was cheating. He replied "I'm sergeant something something with the New Jersey police department" and we immediately left the call scared AF, looking back, smart guy.
Tracing Figures.
animation drawing GIF by CheezburgerGiphyI draw actors, for fun, and if they come to a local convention, I'll get some of those drawings signed. Those drawings get framed and hung up on my wall. I also try tagging them on IG so they can see. While my favorite actor doesn't have IG, his wife does, and one day, she actually favorited both drawings. I didn't know it was her at first. So, even though I'll probably never meet him in reality, he at least saw my work.
Before El Camino
Before the release of El camino, Jesse Pinkman - Aaron Paul did a Video (4:16) for vanity where he breaks down fan theories of breaking bad... And one my fan theory got featured in it... I am happy about that.
I remember watching that video! I totally believe your theory, because if it's true that means Jesse didn't suffer so much.
Kylie for the Win!
kylie minogue gif bubbles pop GIFGiphyIt was 2013, a mobile phone company called ZTE, hosted an online quiz to win a "Blade III" smart phone.
The question was something to do with Kylie Minogue.
Being the extremely gay 17 year old I was; I answered first, and correctly.
I won the smartphone, the only catch was, that I had to use it on Virgin Mobile. I'm so proud of myself, even to this day!
A Threat With Merit
Someone threatened a school shooting on WoW forums about 12 or 13 years ago, and I saw it right when it was posted. I managed to figure out where the guy was an alerted the proper authorities. All I did was talk to the guy and tried to relate to him. He flat out told me what town he was in and I just made a few phone calls.
I couldn't get any traction so I sent a message to a local newspaper, on the advice of someone else. The reporter reached out to me and then he ran with it, in terms of law enforcement. I don't know exactly what happened after that but I had an email thanking me for the heads up from the PD. The threat had merit and the guy got busted.
Overthrowing Clan Leaders
GiphyI joined a minecraft server back in ~2012 which had a clan system but there was only 1 clan and it had about 40 people in it because every other clan was immediately squashed by them.
Myself, my cousin, and one friend completely overthrew them and cemented ourselves as leaders of the server for probably the next year after that.
I came back like 2 years later and people would be like "holy sh*t, you're THE TrickDaddyRed? I've heard stories about your clan!"
The Thread Lives On
I started a joke thread on the official forum of a video game back in 2008. It was just something whimsical and satirical that I didn't think too much about at the time, but it absolutely exploded. Not only did it get about 50 pages of responses, but once it died it would get re-bumped every few months (at the end of every 'season' of the game).
I quit the game about 6 months later, but some years later I came across the link to the thread and I clicked on it. It turned out the post lived on and carried on getting bumped and generating a ton of responses all the way until the game eventually died in 2014. Which you would think would be the end of it. But I found out some years later that the game ended up having a sequel, and some of the players from the original game recreated the original thread on the new game's forum and it was still generating traffic. There are probably people commenting on it who weren't even born when the thread was originally posted.
Wikipedia Senator
I changed my school district's Wikipedia page. I created a section titled "Notable Alumni". I was a U.S. Senator for six months before they caught on. I even made a campaign website as a corroborating source.
Domain Names
I had a friend who was offered $1,000 for a domain. He called his attorney and his attorney said, "hold out for more."
He held out until $50,000. They paid $50,000... He used that $50,000 to start a business now worth millions.
My friend's sister misspelled her domain name when she registered it. Ended up being a sexual innuendo. Sold it to a adult film company for $15,000 and used that to help with start-up cash for a storefront.
Matchmaker
I made a bootleg comic book site back in the 90's. I used geocities and used each registration to host one comic book, then used another one to link them all together. I scanned all the comics from my collection. I even had an html template with the page numbers embedded so I would upload the same site with images. That's not the accomplishment part.
I had a phpBB forum for conversation and requests with a few thousand members... 2 members met there and got married from it. I think they lived in different countries too. That was cool, the rest was a waste of time I guess.
Exceeding His Karma
GiphyMy husband has been on Reddit for years, he finally convinced me to get it, and I bet him within the first 2 weeks I would exceed his 1200 karma.. on the 13th day I made a comment that got over 27k upvotes that put me at 10k karma :)
He was in utter disbelief sitting beside me watching the comment grow and reach top comments haha.
OG Minecrafter
I found Minecraft VERY early in development thanks to a browser addon called StumbleUpon! that put a "random" website button on your bar. I've been playing almost since the game went public in dev stage thanks to it. I'm not sure if that qualifies as an accomplishment or not.
You could fly by default and maps were just these tiny squares. Everything was one punch, there were no water physics to speak of, and I think there were 8 blocks XD
- Emu_pie
Humanist Scum
I got David Barton (crazy Christian nationalist that at least used to screw up Texas school books) to publish an article about how I was what was wrong with the youth in America.
I went to a fundamentalist college and was a Christian at the time when everyone at my school was excited by his website, I think it was called Wallbuilders. He wrote this article insulting people who didn't think the US was founded intentionally to only ever be for Christians.
I responded with a seven page sourced paper on how most of us now wouldn't consider the founding fathers "real" Christians and that while some likely wanted a Christian nation others were vocally against it so making the argument on intention would necessitate cherry picking who you cite. I also referenced how his extra sources he cites are dubious as he won't let anyone verify their authenticity.
My core argument was just that we don't know what they overall wanted and since they didn't explicitly make the US a theocracy it seems weird to take 2-3 founding fathers and apply their beliefs to all of them.
For this he made a post talking about how 19 year old user threedm was literally what's wrong with the youth in America and also was an idiot and also secular humanist scum.
- People Confess The Silliest Thing They're Strangely Proud Of - George Takei ›
- People Explain What Began As A Joke But Then Became A Legitimate Thing - George Takei ›
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.