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People Break Down Their Greatest Accomplishment On The Internet

People Break Down Their Greatest Accomplishment On The Internet
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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 GIF Giphy

I 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.

blenderstyle

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.

philsabuster

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.

JustSnilloc

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!

MadBlackQueen

Dog Famous

dogs jumprope GIF Giphy

NASA 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.

Chairkatmiao

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.

Hummerous

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.

HeyiLikeThingsToo

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.

InsomniacNimrod

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.

Goron_217

"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"

N80085

Hey O!

happy fun GIF Giphy

Barack Obama followed me back on twitter back in 2007/2008 when he was running for President.

blushingelephant

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. :)

_luke22

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!

edisleado

Thank You, I'm Next.

Ariana Grande GIF Giphy

I've had a couple celebrities like my comment/tweets. The biggest being ariana grande. I don't know why. I'm not that interesting.

Mystiically

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.

user1444

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.

smardtboi_wthsilentd

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.

MinecraftTroller28

The Homer Theory.

homer simpson doh GIF Giphy

Came 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.

Hardtopickaname

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.

elelfojoa

Hey Arnold.

arnold schwarzenegger things GIF Giphy

I 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.

mat_the_wad

Easy A

Getting straight A's on difficult courses I would have otherwise failed if the pandemic didn't push for online education.

ItsAlwysColdInNY2

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.

zrk03

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.

Lardinho

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

verybighockeyfan

The Star Dragon

game of thrones fire GIF Giphy

If 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).

Akul_Tesla

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.

iamcece

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. :)

jds1812

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.

Shunaianuhs

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!

Embarrassed-Cream

Not Alone.

Happy Cheering GIF by bluesbear Giphy

I 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).

Jacques_Le_Chien

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.

beaushaw

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.

Betterthanthouu

The Best Block!

donald trump GIF Giphy

I got blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter for calling him a "mad b**tard!"

WShepherdHenderson

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.

Searns

Way, way, wayyyy back when....

amish GIF Giphy

Way, 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.

GreyCrowDownTheLane

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.

stargazr_93

"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.

Diskparts

Tracing Figures.

animation drawing GIF by Cheezburger Giphy

I 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.

LittleSmokeyWeiners

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.

devilliars98

I remember watching that video! I totally believe your theory, because if it's true that means Jesse didn't suffer so much.

Jazzwell

Kylie for the Win!

kylie minogue gif bubbles pop GIF Giphy

It 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!

Automatic-Record

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.

- slowdownskeleton

Overthrowing Clan Leaders

Giphy

I 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!"

- tortillakingred

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.

- PiemasterUK

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.

- mywifemademegetthis

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.

- myfriendrichard

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.

-TGrady902

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.

- stretch_muffler

Exceeding His Karma

Giphy

My 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.

- TigressSnow

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.

- IAmASolipsist

Infamous Internet Rumors That Ended Up Being True

Reddit user strakerak asked: 'What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?'

boy playing at laptop inside room
Photo by Ludovic Toinel on Unsplash

In 2017, I returned to my office after my lunch break to hear my supervisors discussing Tom Petty. This seemed like a random topic to me until one of my supervisors told me Tom Petty had passed away. He was a huge fan of Petty and spent the next hour or so combing through the internet to get more information.

He came back into the room my other supervisor and I were working in and announced that Tom Petty wasn't dead after all. News outlets had jumped the gun to announce his death, but he was actually still alive.

The next day, I came in to find out that Tom Petty was dead; the news may have been premature, but true.

This is a classic example of the rumor being started on the internet. Sometimes, like with the news of Tom Petty's death, the rumor can run wild and appear everywhere. Other times, the rumor can be seen by just a few people and dismissed. However, a lot of times, these rumors turn out to be true.

Redditors know a lot of internet rumors that turned out to be true, and are eager to share.

It all started when Redditor strakerak asked:

"What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?"

The King Of Pop

"Michael Jackson writing the music for Sonic 3."

"He actually did, but was never credited on the game because it would breach his contract with his record label."

– -WigglyLine-

"He did the same when he appeared on The Simpsons. He appeared under a pseudonym, and the Producers said it was an impersonator."

"Only years later they confirmed it really was Michael."

"His singing voice was actually done by an impersonator, though."

– given2fly_

The Truth Comes Out

"In 1998, US Men’s National Team captain John Harkes was shockingly cut from the team right before the World Cup. The coach claimed it was because Harkes wouldn’t fit into his new preferred formation, but rumors flew on the early internet that it was actually because he had slept with his teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife. The rumor was so well-known in soccer circles that Harkes expressly denied it in his autobiography the next year."

"Fast forward 12 years to 2010 and Wynalda admits it’s true. The coach then came out and admitted it was why he dropped Harkes, but that he’d planned to keep the secret as long as Wynalda did."

– guyfromsoccer

Video Evidence

"The Tim Burton Hansel and Gretel that aired once on halloween in the 80's."

"I heard for years that it was fake but I knew it was real because my dad recorded everything in the 80s and he recorded that. We let a good friend of ours borrow it and switch it over from VHS to DVD and soon after that it made its way on to the internet , and there it is now. I know it's our copy because the tracking in the beginning is screwed up. Still have the VHS."

– Frozenthickness

"There was a similar story with a Nickelodeon movie called Cry Baby Lane. It was supposed to be so scary that Nickelodeon got complaints and denied its existence for years. Someone uploaded a taped copy to youtube about a decade ago."

– PattiAllen

The Movie Business

"That North Korea hacked Sony Pictures because of The Interview movie."

"I worked in the movie business at the time and the account managers at Sony all basically needed to get new identities as all of their personal information got leaked online."

OldMastodon5363

"My partner worked on that movie and the production bought all the crew 1 year of an identity theft tracking service."

CMV_Viremia

Keep Away From The Ears Of Kids

"Some banned episodes or scenes of cartoons."

"For example, I remember there was a Dexter’s Lab cartoon where he clones evil versions of DeDe and himself and they swear like every other word (censored of course), and people debated whether it even existed cause they only aired it like once. Now it’s pretty accessible online."

– Spledidlife

Yes, It's True

"Echelon, a massive electronic espionage system by the US and allies to intercept all electronic messages, especially emails."

"In the mid-nineties it was a topic on conspiracy BBS boards. A lot of people in my bubble at the time (mainly uni students in Europe) were including fake threats to the US in the their email signatures as a way to "protest" and "fill the system with false alarms" (obviously useless)."

"Then, in 1999-2000 came out to be true and a lot of security service agencies from UK and other US allies started to admit they were part of the espionage network."

– latflickr

How The Mighty Fell

"John Edward’s love child."

– ACam574

"A reminder that he was cheating on his wife while she was hospitalized for cancer treatment."

– Fanclock314

Ugh...

"Carrie Fisher's heart attack. Some a**hole who was on the same flight was livetweeting the whole medical emergency and justified it by insisting she was just making sure the family was informed."

– everylastlight

It Actually Happened

"Every year around her birthday there was a rumor that Betty White died. When I heard she died, I scoffed, saying that dumb rumor is back.... then saw it on the news. I was in shock."

– Known-Committee8679

"The fact that Betty died literally right before she turned 100 is such a Betty White way to go out."

– Paganigsegg

Big Actor, Small Roles

"I distinctly remember some rumors about the reason why Bruce Willis was taking so many roles in sh*tty movies before it was announced he has dementia."

– KampferMann

"RedLetterMedia did a deep dive on his recent movie activity to try and work out why exactly he was taking part in basically scam-movies. They noticed he had an earpiece in one of the scenes and joked that the director was feeding him lines. I remember they even disclaimed over the rumours at the time, and possible made a follow-up vid when it was revealed to the public."

– CardinalCreepia

What To Do Next?

"That the writer of LOST were making it up as they went."

"Turned out to be absolutely true."

– homarjr

That last one was kind of obvious!

Do you have any to add? Let us know in the comment below.

Person holding large stack of books
Photo by Jay Lamm on Unsplash

Whether you're naturally interested in fun facts and trivia or not, it's always nice to know a few that you can pull out of your pocket at a moment's notice as a nice conversation starter.

But there are some fun facts out there that are so weird, people become more preoccupied with how the teller found out that information rather than the information itself.

Redditor Dry_Bus_935 asked:

"What is your 'don't ask me how I know' random fact?"

Nuclear Fail Safe

"You have quite a lot of time, certainly more than ten seconds, to turn back on the main pumps of a nuclear reactor once you have accidentally turned them off."

- egorf

"I'm not surprised. The amount of fail safes, redundancies, and emergency scenario planning for nuclear power plants is insane."

"I toured a nuclear plant and wrote my high school senior thesis on the plans put in place to ensure the Fukushima disaster would not happen at that plant."

"I'm sure the secondary pumps are plenty capable of handling the reactor until the main pumps are repaired or just turned back on."

- Borderlandsman

Happy Cat

"If your cat chews on fresh eucalyptus, they might start hallucinating and fall over repeatedly, leading to a $400 emergency vet bill just to be told she’s just kinda high."

- oddidealstronghold

"And, that's part of why koalas love it. Little stoners."

- littlebluefoxy

Archaeology: Do Not Lick

"Old human bones are very porous, so if you lick them, they’ll stick to your tongue."

- clanculcarius

Sharing is Caring

"A pigeon will only eat a Starburst if you chew it up a little bit first. Just to clarify: chew the Starburst, not the pigeon."

- OhTheHueManatee

"Instructions unclear. Pigeon unhappy."

- Wild-Lychee-3312

Intriguing Anatomy

"Everyone is here with the creepy crime stuff, and I'm just like, 'A soft fur rat has 22 nipples.'"

- horroscoblue

"Okay, so either they have really small nipples, their nipples overlap, or they have nipples in places where there shouldn't be nipples."

"(I've never written the word 'nipples' so many times in a singular sentence before.)"

- GdeGraaf

'Don't Ask Me,' Indeed!

"Turmeric can be used as clothes dye. It is capable of permanently dyeing cotton cloth even after it has passed through the digestive tract of an adult male."

- SlefeMcDichael

"You s**t your pants, didn't you?"

- PMmecrossstitch

"I'd prefer not to answer that question."

- SlefeMcDichael

High-Risk Survival Skills

"If you ever trying to survive in the Arctic, don’t eat polar bear liver. It is so high in vitamin A, it will kill you."

- WrongWayCorrigan-361

"It's also surrounded by a lethal amount of angry polar bear."

- horanc2

Real-Life Spies

"TV shows and movies go out of their way to make military/intelligence officers look bada**."

"But real-life 'spies,' by design and training, are boring. They have regular houses and standard second-hand cars, they dress down, and they have vague, boring job titles (accounts receivable) as cover, and they do not draw attention to themselves. Most come from specialized academia."

- Ok_Worth_1093

Haunting Reality

"Your muscles can keep twitching for several hours after you die."

- JustDave62

"Also, beards can appear to grow. This is however not because the beard itself grows but because the skin shrinks."

- RRautamaa

"I worked at a morgue for over eight years. If you grasp the hand of a dead body to move the arm, the hand will grasp back, but that's just muscles and tendons reacting to the tension."

- goneferalinid

The Sneakiness of Drowning

"When a drowning victim is revived, get them to a hospital as soon as possible. Drowning is the leading cause of death of kids from the age of one to seven and is ruled as accidental drowning when it comes to secondary drowning or dry drowning."

"Basically, your lungs are full of water despite being revived. Your lungs will absorb the liquid, but not before your body acidifies from high levels of carbon dioxide. The only chance to survive is to have the lungs pumped with oxygen via CPAP machine and time."

"Also, drowning is extremely quiet. You don’t hear the victim go under. And if you see flailing, do not attempt to save the victim otherwise you’ll become another drowning victim. Throw them a lifeline and hope their amygdala realizes that a rope or something is floating near them and grabs on it."

- Dfiggsmeister

Not Everyone's Favorite Chocolate

"Hershey’s chocolate has the strong smell of vomit or feces to some people (me), and that’s because they use butyric acid as a preservative. Butyric acid is the compound that makes vomit smell so bad."

"Edit: Digging further into it, there are some claims that they may not be “adding” the butyric acid, but rather it is occurring from essentially spoiling the milk in their milk chocolate. Either way, the butyric acid and putrid smell remains a part of their product."

- hefewiseman1

"That explains the weird aftertaste I always get! I don’t smell it but their chocolate always has this super unpleasant sharp/acidic aftertaste that I find repulsive. I assume this is why!!"

- PomegranateNo975

Do Not Lick the Asbestos

"Asbestos tastes like chalk. And if you lick it, it has the texture of extremely gritty sandpaper. Which is actually the feeling of microscopic asbestos needles piercing your flesh!"

- TooYoungToBeThisOld1

Mapping Out the War

"Beginning in 1911 in anticipation of the outbreak of WW1 in 1914, two statesmen, one from England and one from France, began visiting locations in France that they believed would be the settings for a number of major battles that would occur during the great war."

"Long bike rides through these future battle zones in the countryside and weeks spent building a foundation for a French-Anglo codebook that would later prove important in helping win the war."

- fjordperfect123

Avoiding Lawsuits > Protecting Patients

"Doctors, or surgeons more specifically, that make too many mistakes during surgery, ie, leaving instruments in patients, frequently gets ‘quietly traded’ to other hospitals where they continue their path of destruction with the patients not being aware of their past record. Hospitals tend to keep quiet about the matter to avoid lawsuits."

- Kittytigris

Bonus Points: Do This While Having Lunch in Your Car

"If you overfill a fast food gravy cup and then put a lid on, it will create a pressurized gravy stream that sprays all over your face and uniform while your coworker looks on in horror."

- thechaosjester776

This subReddit thread was so a roller-coaster of random facts, we've surely all walked away learning something.

But the biggest takeaway might just be: Maybe don't lick so many things.

Shocked woman covering her mouth
vaitheeswaran Nataraj/Unsplash

When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.

But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.

Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.

It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.

Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:

"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"

These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.

Bleeding Out

"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."

"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."

– DongLaiCha

Tragic News

"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."

– accountnameredacted

Bottom Of The Barrel

"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."

– Crotch-Monster

A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.

Like Father, Like Son

"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."

– psycospaz

Busted

"Flashing blue lights."

– FiddleOfGold

"This sobered me up just thinking about it."

– redmaple_syrup

Losing Sight

"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."

– MissHibernia

Quitting The Bottle

"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."

– omgtater

These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.

Unplanned House Guests

"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."

– Oneinsevenbillion75

Serious Health Warning

"Elevated liver enzymes."

"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."

"So I opted for recovery, instead."

"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."

– Far_Meal8674

The Joyride

"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."

– foxfood9116

The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?

How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.

But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.

Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.

Woman holding multiple shopping bags
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.

Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.

These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.

From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.

Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:

"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"

"Tale As Old As Time..."

"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","

"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."

"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."

"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."

"Lol!"

"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom

"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."

"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."

"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."

"I think he was a germaphobe."

"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."

"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."

"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.

"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."

"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."

"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000

Money Burn GIF by nog Giphy

Who Wore It Better?

"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."

"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."

"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."

"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'

"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"

"No."- mertsey627

Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...

"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."

"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."

"It was very low key."

"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."

"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."

"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."

"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."

"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa

south park wedding GIF Giphy

See You In Court!

"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."

'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."

"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."

"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."

"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."

"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin

It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!

"I work in a public library."

"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."

"A popular book that just came out."

"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."

"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten

A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!

"My own."

"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"

"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."

"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"

"Unacceptable!"

"This shall not stand!"

"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."

"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."

"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."

"I got over it."- DeathGrover

homer simpson episode 23 GIF Giphy

Holy Matrimony!

"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."

"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."

"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."

"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."

"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."

"It's just a party."

"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree

When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...

"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore

In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...

"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."

"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."

"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."

"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."

"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."

"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."

"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."

"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."

"We don’t offer wrapping services."

"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."

'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae

Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso Giphy

Happiest Place On Earth!

"I used to work for Disney."

"That in itself should tell you everything."

"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."

"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."

"Suddenly got worse huh?"

"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."

"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."

"I'm not kidding."

"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."

"My wife worked booking."

"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."

"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."

"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."

"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."

"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."

"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong

Disney World GIF Giphy

The horror!

Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!

It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...

Said absolutely no one.