Teen dramas on television are popular because everything is high stakes.
Through the lens of an angsty teenager, unrequited love, a cheating boyfriend or girlfriend, academic pressures, and not making an athletic team, are all big problems that make for compelling viewing pleasure.
And through it all, gossip is the accelerant that fuels the drama, regardless of whether or not rumors are true.
Curious to hear about the real-life rumors that ran rampant in school halls, Redditor Le_Bayou_Cochon asked former students:
"What high school conspiracy turned out to be true at your school?"
The following recollections sound as though the scenarios were right out of something from Riverdale.
Mental High
"I attended a newly opened high school that apparently used to be a school for troubled kids. Someone told me there were padded rooms somewhere in the school so I skipped lunch with a friend one day to walk the halls and find them!"
"They did exist, but by next year they were renovated into offices and storage rooms. I thought that was pretty interesting and seriously wondered what went on there before it was turned into a 'normal' high school."
– E-macularius
Ex-Staff Member
"It was rumored a staff member helped a student run away and slept with him. Unfortunately it was true."
"Unfortunately this same staff member after she was fired, had a graduated student at 19 ask to be her roommate. The then ex-staff member agreed and ended up getting into legal trouble."
– clinicskeleton
Something Sinister
"There was a girl freshman year who went missing. She ended up being found dead in the river. There were rumors that she was seen on a bridge with her boyfriend the day she went missing. Nothing was ever found and they assumed it was suicide/ an accident."
"Fast forward 25 years and the boyfriend murdered his best friend of several decades, set a fire to cover it up, and went on the run. Couple days later he killed a woman at a rest stop in the bathroom to steal her car. They reopened the case about the high school girlfriend. That rumor was correct all along. He will be in prison the rest of his life."
– pomegranatepants99
Forbidden romance seemed to be a recurring topic.
Racy Romance
"That one of the cheerleaders was dating one of the teachers (in his 40s). A year after graduation, they got married and had a baby. Still together 11 years later."
– Trailmix99
The Music Teacher
"There were rumors about a music teacher and a student, but they were both pretty dramatic people and did very little to dismiss the talk. So half the school wanted to believe it for the salacious thrill and half just waved it off as attention seeking and sh*t-talking."
"Teacher got canned without explanation. Most of us just figured it was budget-related. A math teacher filled in on his music/theater roles."
"Years later I randomly caught up with the student and she said the rumors were true, she freaked out and tried to end things to shake off the reputation, and eventually the teacher showed up trashed and naked on her family's front lawn, in the rain, yelling out for her."
"Like a really f'ked-up version of John Cusack from Say Anything but with less boombox and more drenched wang."
– Dangercakes13
These Actors Were Perfectly Cast In Their Roles | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Sometimes an actor comes along that is able to reach the audience on a deeper level. The actor that immediately comes to mind is Robin Williams. Although it ...
Worse Than The Presumption
"We had a Student Teacher, so a reasonably attractive guy who was about 22 or 23. The rumor was that he was dating a girl in our class, a senior who was nearly 18. It turned out the rumor was wrong, he was dating her younger sister who was in 8th grade."
– Drulock
These troubled adults were former educators for our future leaders.
The Dealer
"For years before I got to my high school there was a rumor that the Admin Assistant (guy you went to when you got in trouble) was doing drugs, selling drugs, and confiscating from students without turning over to the police. Well about five years or so after I graduated he got busted a couple towns away for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute."
– TheBuschels
Conditional Promises
"There were stories about the music teacher having sex with some of his students, in exchange for solos, better grades, prestige, or jobs after graduation."
"They later turned out to be true. He was found guilty in 2018, and was given a six month prison sentence. He's barred from teaching, and lost his pension. The news his my dad rather hard, since they studied together at college, and were good friends. Dad had no idea."
– TedMeister88
The Trusted Role Model
"A good family friend of ours (knew him for over 10 years), went to tons of BBQ, painted our walls alot, did some housework, had tons of other mutual friends with my Dad and their work friends; ended up getting into drugs or something. He kidnapped a woman and murdered her."
"It was a huge deal in my hometown, and when they said they finally found the guy and the mugshot and name came up, we all were in shock and just couldn't believe it. We trusted him, I shook his hand a few times as a kid too, im sure my parents and everyone else would've trusted him with thier kids or family members or what have you."
"We still have no idea what led him down that path, but the mugshot looked brutal and its like his whole soul was drained from his face, it wasn't the same smiling happy face I remembered."
"Just goes to show how much you really know someone, and how close all humans are from a breakdown, anyone can change, It surprisingly doesn't take much."
– PandaCatGunner
The Inebriate
"That my high school history teacher was putting whiskey in the 2-liter bottle of Pepsi he carried around everyday. He was caught trying to buy liquor for some senior girls and it resulted in a car chase we all watched. The police had to pull out the spike strips to catch him."
– Tylerurby
Speculations and hunches were confirmed, and it didn't involve criminal activity for a change.
A Double Life
"My old math teacher was a WWF wrestler, i recognized him from my childhood days channel surfing and couldn't find anything about him on google, but i was so sure it was him I just asked. I was right lmao."
– TheTastySpoonicorn
Secret Underground
"That there were tunnels under the school that led to a hidden pool."
"Confirmed by my father who was a maintenance man for the school district. The tunnels were just utility tunnels, the pool is below the gym floor and was abandoned due to financial reasons."
– pondcypress
It's a wonder how students are able to focus on their studies when there's a lot of whispering going on about who did or said what.
Gossip and academic conspiracies can be distracting. But don't let those keep you from receiving your diplomas.
Stay focused, kids.
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Don't be fooled by their cuteness
"The nuke stockpile in Washington State is guarded by trained dolphins that seek out and clamp a balloon on unfamiliar divers."- Gothsalts
A possible STD symptom no one mentions.
"Boanthropy is a psychological disorder in which a person believes they are a cow and try to live their life as one."
"Medical explanations suggest late-stage syphilis as one of the causes?"
"Cool."- j451k4·
You mean, that wasn't flipper's real voice?
"The sound used for a dolphin in nearly every single tv and movie is actually the same Kookaburra bird recording."- HFXmer
Episode 1 Hello GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyYou always wonder what goes through their minds...
"Animals and other creatures each perceive time in different ways based on their Critical flicker frequency which is almost like their minds refresh rate."
"Dogs, for example, perceive time as being slower than humans do, and it's perceived as a little faster by cats."- TwilightArcade
Well that's disturbing...
"No one has found a centipede with exactly 100 legs, because all centipedes discovered have an odd number of pairs of legs."
"They have found centipedes with 98,49 pairs, and 102, 51 pairs, but never exactly 100."- ZagreusD
If you take a closer look...
"Raindrops don’t fall in the drip shape popularly conveyed. "
"They fall in the shape of tiny parachutes or hamburger buns."- CBGville
Stop Motion Water GIF by TarverGiphyTwo iconic roles
"The girl who voiced Lilo in 'Lilo and Stitch' also played Samara in 'The Ring', both released in the same year, 2002."- ThrowRARAw
Um... how is this not better known...
"Before toilet paper was invented, the people of the USA used corn cobs."- Impossible_Cicada_75
"..I don't want to live on the moon..."
"Not sure how many people know this, but the moon has a sort of atmosphere."
"However, it is so thin that it's considered to be an exosphere."- JustAnotherAviatrix
black and white moon GIFGiphyThey'r contributions did not go unnoticed
"More pigeons have war medals than horses, dogs or mules."- Global-Program-437
It's easy to laugh off most of this information, as our lives might not be changed one way or the other for knowing it.
But we should always be open to learning something new.
And hey, if we ever find ourselves stuck with scratchy toilet paper, we can at least be grateful it isn't a corn cob.
We could just leave whenever we wanted to!
"Knowing where your kids are 100% of the time."- bradland
We're all wired up today!
"No one had a computer in their house in 1972."- tcharp01
Buckle up!
"Car seats for children."
"And most of the time we sat in the back seat with no seat belts available."- Rosemoorstreet
"Wearing seatbelts."
"There were no sensors- seatbelt were just shoved out of the way."
"Carding for cigarettes."
"Machines were everywhere for anyone to use."- factchecker8515
buckle up crash test dummies GIF by ADWEEKGiphyIn the old days, we had one chance!
"Watching an entire TV series at a time that's convenient for you."
"VCR's weren't even a thing 50 years ago, so if your favorite show was on Wednesday at 8PM, you were either at home to watch it or you missed out on it forever."- DeathSpiral321
Music on demand!
"Listening to the song you want to where you want to, rather than whatever is playing wherever you are."- jfincher42
GiphyBeing beholden to a landline!
"I am amazed to think about how disconnected we were."
"I could wake up on a Saturday morning and start calling friends."
"It was possible that not a single one picked up the phone and that was that."
"I would be on my own unless I waited a few hours and tried again."
"Also, in my area, the adults in the house almost always answered the phone so you had to get through them to your friends."
“'Hello, is Johnny home?'”
"'Hi this is his mother, what do you want?'”
“'I was wooooondering if he could come out to play'.”
“'Well he’s doing homework right now but I’ll tell him you called'.”
"As a kid, our times were divided between when we were 100% under adult control, which was when we were physically in their presence, and when we were free which was all other time."- Mrmidhoratio
"Asking 'Where are you?' when someone answers their phone."- brontosproximo
Shocked Phone Call GIFGiphyNo wonder they were all so tan...
"Regularly wearing sunscreen."- dixius99
It's amazing to see how much the world has changed in such a relatively short amount of time.
Leaving us to wonder what things will be "normal" 50 years from now, which today the very thought of would make us burst out laughing.
RedditorDankestKush420wanted to hear from the people who have survived the darkness of the sea.
They asked:
"Deep sea divers, what are your horror stories?"
I almost drowned from a small but wave on the Florida coast. So a deep dive is a lifelong HELL NO for me. But go ahead... tell us some stories.
Poof. Gone.
GIF by VPROGiphy"I was watching a documentary about saturation divers the other day. Absolutely scary stuff. They live in a dome under the sea for several days/weeks so they don't have to decompress every day."
"There was this interview where one diver told a story about a colleague just vanishing. He was right behind him at one moment and then was gone in the next. No signs of an accident on the safety line, no sounds, no light signals, he was just gone."
PenguinSwordfighter
Implosions
"I used to work at a dive shop, a regular customer of mine told me on one of his deep cave dives at around 300 feet his main light imploded, and both of his backup flashlights failed. While this happened he also lost his guide line (read: life line back to the surface)."
"He was in a large room, so he dropped a reel with line on it and swam back and forth basically fishing for the guide line. He eventually hooked it and located it, but then had to make a decision which way to follow the line. The correct choice would lead him to safety, while the wrong choice would lead him deeper into the cave system. He made his choice and slowly followed the line out."
"He reached his first spare air tank that he staged and knew he chose the right direction. He had a long wait at each of his staged decompression tanks. It took him, from what I recall, around 7 hours to properly decompress and make it back out of the cave, all while not being able to see a damn thing."
pwnstar
side-by-side...
"I went on a group dive trip with someone who was pretty experienced, and he was telling us a bunch of stories about his wreck dive down to an old WWII-era Japanese warship sunken in the Pacific. One somewhat morbid but funny story was when his group went into the ship and saw several pairs of shoes strewn about, lying perfectly side-by-side."
"After they all surfaced later, one girl in the group was like, 'Why did they leave their shoes behind like that?' and everyone else just looked at each other like, 'Oh man... who's gonna tell her?' Anyway, the real horror story is about a father and son duo who had decided to go on this trip as a bonding experience. So the thing to note about WWII shipwrecks is that after over half a century, they're pretty much rusted to oblivion."
"One bad kick will effectively disintegrate a perfectly-preserved captain's log, just from the motion of the water. Well, the duo was exploring the inside of the ship, and suddenly someone hears a loud CLANG! The father and son had wandered into an enclosed room, and the door had slammed shut with both of them inside."
"At that point, the guy telling the story paused, and someone else in the group was like, 'Wait, so what happened to them?' And the guy was like, 'What the hell do you mean, man? They got trapped and f**king died!' And in that moment, I decided f**k that s**t - I am never, ever diving down to go check out the inside an old WWII warship lmao."
yungbabo
Unreal
"For as long as I been around the internet 1 diver story stuck with me. Not because of paranormal or unexplainable events. This person's story said they were deep diving with their father and literally saw a Lovecraftian size creature envelope his father ahead. After all was said and done at the surface he come to find out later his schizophrenia had come to while he was deep sea diving. I couldn't imagine seeing something your brain was telling you was real. Especially in that setting."
SunnyvaleRicky
Vortex
Joe Biden Reaction GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphy"One time when I was on a diving boat with some friends, one of the guys on there told about a story about how he used to be an underwater welder, and one time he and some other guys witnessed someone getting sucked through a hole the size of a tic tac."
Dragon_King3199
Why do people even go that far down?
Everywhere
marine life wildlife GIF by KQEDScienceGiphy"I’m by no means a deep sea diver, but I am a licensed diver, sea urchins are massive and everywhere, like you really don’t expect their size and how common they are."
drewdreds
Wrecked
"Did a 60M/200ft dive on a wreck in a shipping channel. The dive boat skipper should call up the harbour master and check if there are any ships scheduled, and if there are not good to dive. Anyway did the dive. 25 mins bottom time so a fair amount of deco."
"During the 12M deco stop we could hear the rumble of a very very very large engine. Hmmm. Kept getting louder. And louder. And louder. During the 9M stop it got REALLY loud we looked at each other, gave two thumbs down and bolted back down to 18M and just hung there figuratively shi**ing our drysuits until it got quieter after a few minutes."
"We then resumed our deco. A small pod of dolphins came in to have a gander at us which was cool. A big f**k off panamax sort-a-size ship had come within 100M of our deco buoy. Never dived off that boat again."
thedugong
Gruesome
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the [Byford Dolphin Diving Bell Accident] (https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/4x1a2c/comment/d6blno6/) is pretty gruesome and scary. Basically, when deep see divers were returning to the surface, they were in a decompression chamber at a very high pressure."
"And there was a catastrophic failure of the decompression room that meant the air depressurized several atmospheres almost instantaneously and killed a couple divers by literally exploding them from the pressure release. Not sure what could be more of a gruesome tale than that."
anon_e_mous9669
The Worst
"Not my story but still wanted to share: it's the story of a diver who was hired to remove and bring back bodies from a bridge that collapsed into semi deep water with numerous cars on it. Some people made it out of their cars and some didn't. But the worst thing that he saw was the bodies of children still stuck in the cars while the parents saved their own lives. The thought of going into murky water to essentially fish up corpses that are like a day old chills me every time I think about it."
sarper97
Nope!
Not Gonna Happen No Way GIF by FaZe ClanGiphy"I went diving to a wreck around 200ft down, and I heard this terrifying roar and saw some creature almost twice the size of a blue whale. Noped right outta there as soon as I saw that, I'm not going there again, I'll stay in my lifepod."
Overgrown_fetus1305
Well that is all I need to hear. I'll stay on dry land, thank you.