History Teachers Break Down The Most Interesting Responses They've Ever Gotten To A Lecture
Teachers work so hard to prepare students with knowledge for the real world. Of course, there are many different kinds of teachers and their chosen subjects bring unique challenges.
History teachers, for example, are tasked with helping young people become engaged and thoughtful citizens. That means knowing about past events--as seen from ALL perspectives--and applying that to life in the present day.
What a rewarding project, right?
For many history teachers, for every fulfilling teaching achievement there is a horrifying glimpse at student ignorance. Many times, that offers only more opportunity to set the record straight.
But for some students, as on Reddit thread illustrates, that ignorance has dug its heels in pretty deeply.
7deadlycinderella asked, "People who teach history, what's the most interesting or concerning response you've ever got to one of your lessons?"
The Very Best Source
"So I teach 4th grade, and it's a history lesson focused on sources, like what makes a good source and what makes a bad source(its a lot more nuanced but still), I give my students the task of finding out how old the school is."
"My idea, when I planned the lesson, was that they would go out along the school and find a couple a bricks with the year on it or a plaque. Some of the students did that, and got mixed results, another found a website with the exact age and picture of when it was founded, took them awhile to do."
"The last group just went up to the principal and got every answer straight from him."
"It was awesome, I loved that they had the balls to do that. I made sure to give credit where it was due. The principal thought it was a laugh as well."
Yeesh
"'They're only Jews.' To put it politely, I seized the opportunity to make that a teachable moment."
"It was on my demo lesson for an interview. I got the job 😛"
"But, But My Family Said..."
"My high school history teacher met Revolutionary War hero Samuel Prescott's descendant. When Mr. Kirk said Prescott was half black, the kid shouted, 'You're a damn liar!' Mr. Kirk told him that no, it's historical fact."
"The kid spoke to his family and it had apparently become a family secret by the time he was attending my high school. Considering this was in the South, the family had good reason to be secretive."
"His family told him Mr. Kirk was right but that he should still be careful who he tells about it. I wonder what he's doing now."
-- ugagradlady
In One Ear
"I teach criminology but always do a few mini lesions on various historical topics (history of prisons and jails, law enforcement, mass incarceration, etc).
"One lesson was on economic inequality between races, which requires a quick history lesson about segregation (among other topics). I provided numerous sources, and keep in mind that segregation is a measurable phenomenon."
"Yet on the exam, when I asked them if segregation still occurs, approximately 30% of the class said something like, 'No, because there's a family of (insert race here) descent that lives on my street.' Keep in mind we do talk about the difference between anecdotes and data, and as I've said I shared with them the data on segregation."
"I was very concerned that they truly believed their own individual experience was at all relevant to answering that question."
-- zarza_mora
A Unified Conclusion
"Teaching about the start of the Civil War. Asked the question, 'Why didn't Lincoln just let the South go?' "
"At first, the consensus was, 'He should have.'"
Slanderous Sources
"I'm not a history teacher but my teacher told us a story once. He had assigned a paper on Martin Luther King Jr. One of his students found the website that the KKK made to try to make MLK look bad. It had stuff like he had many affairs and a drug problem. The dude wrote his entire paper using that one source."
"The site has been since been taken down."
-- Kerberos--
Makes You Wonder
"I was surprised to learn 'people these days' didn't know the movie Titanic was based on an actual event." -- ColdEngineBadBrakes
"I think about this all the time. Will the things we experience today be remembered in 100 years? Sometimes I think about what would happen if someone from the late 19th or early 20th century ended up in the present somehow. Would they think we're all completely ignorant?" -- Dark197
Tough for Some to Swallow
"Started a unit on the Middle East for freshmen World Studies with a lesson on the most basic basics of Islam in Cornfields, IL. Some of the students and their parents would not hear it that Islam is an Abrahamic religion and thus worship the same god as Christians." -- Pox22
"I sometimes joke that everybody acknowledges that Christians and Muslims worship the same god, except for some Christians and Muslims." -- Genshed
Rewritten Narratives
"Hitler killed himself because he had really bad social anxiety/depression and the idea of having to stand in a court and talk to people made him so anxious he killed himself."
"A student said this during a presentation and I had zero idea how to respond, honestly I still don't."
Not What We Were Going For There
"9th grade World History class. I did a whole unit on the European wars of religion. The common theme was that religious intolerance led to wars, massacres, persecutions, etc. And all this ended during the Enlightenment when people figured out that freedom of religion worked just fine."
"On the unit test, one moron wrote that the US would be better off if everyone was forced to be the same religion, because then there wouldn't be any religious violence. No, dummy, that's not the takeaway here!"
"In my English class..."
In my English class in high school, we were talking about what sci-fi is and some kid genuinely asked if Mein Kampf was considered sci-fi.
"I was a student teacher..."
I was a student teacher this year, teaching US to 13 year olds. I had two kids, one white and one Black, say they wish they could own slaves. They were not joking.
"It wasn't me..."
It wasn't me, but I personally found it adorable when a young man at my very Southern undergrad college angrily and dramatically stamped out of class one day when our history professor pointed out that the naked male figures on some Greek vases were not wrestling.
"Once he brought up the facts..."
This was more of an experience I had in History Class, But anyways in my case there were these "thoty kind of girls" in my class, and one of them said that it was super sexist of what my teacher said about why men fought in wars and woman didn't.
Once he brought up the facts and logic to the reasoning to why that stuff happened, they went quite fast. Lmao they dont know much history, so this was a very uncharted section of knowledge that they didn't have any knowledge of.
"I think it was..."
Me: Okay does anyone know who killed Abraham Lincoln?
Student: I think it was John Stamos Booth.
"Started a unit..."
Started a unit on the Middle East for freshmen World Studies with a lesson on the most basic basics of Islam in Cornfields, IL. Some of the students and their parents would not hear it that Islam is an Abrahamic religion and thus worship the same god as Christians.
"One of my third graders..."
One of my third graders asked me where Jesus was born when we were talking about immigration. I said that was a question for home. Another kid yelled "in a barn, dummy". I had to change the subject fairly quickly after I told the kid not to call people a dummy.
"I could have gotten..."
4th grade. We are reading Number the Stars. Day after I give my primer about the Holocaust, many kids first introduction to not only the Holocaust but the Nazis at all, a kid tells me "My mom says the Holocaust didnt happen, and is a myth." This was a student from a country where Nazis are strangely idealized to this day.
I decided to kill that with fire. I asked the kid (who was honestly the sweetest little girl in the world) to have lunch with me the next day. I brought my copy of Night from home. First I told her her mom is wrong, which is shocking for a kid to hear but I minced no words. I told her I had an advanced book for her to read called Night. I said its a really hard book but I think shes a great reader so she is up to the challenge. I e-mailed her mom, told her what her kid told me, and attached an .avi of Night and Fog and respectfully told her that shes been misinformed, and asked her to watch it.
Kid came back the next day and I asked her privately if she started reading the book. She said her mom showed her the movie, which wasnt really my intention but it is just as well. We talked about it a bit, and I said that I was sorry she had to see that but it was extremely important she understood that it was real and that it was one of one of the worst things that has ever happened.
I could have gotten into trouble for that one but I didnt really care.
"Just before starting the unit..."
Just before starting the unit on the American Revolution, I told my class of juniors the administration was upset with how many tardies there were already in the school year. Since money is a powerful motivator, the board approved some financial penalties.
- If you are late, you must pay $2.00 for a tardy slip.
- If you want to know your current grade average in any class, that will cost $2.00.
- If you want to print anything, you have to purchase school paper at $0.75 per sheet. (Color prints are $1.50 each page.)
- Any other paperwork they want (such as report cards, permission slips, etc.) has to have a stamp from the main office that costs $2. Any papers without the stamp will be considered a forgery and whoever holds it will receive a detention (that costs $10).
Then I went into a lesson about the Declaration of Independence. While doing this, I read the room. Some seemed not to care, but many were pissed. One guy who showed up late almost every day was seriously upset. (And yes, a few knew what I was doing and sat there quietly smiling.)
That's when I apologized for my ruse, explained there were no such charges, and described how this mirrored taxation during the lead-up to the Revolution.
The response was amazing! We talked about what everyone felt over the fake charges, and that dovetailed nicely into colonial sentiment towards Great Britain and why the colonists were upset. All students got it, and that's both rare and interesting.
"Teaching about the Church..."
Teaching about the Church in Europe during the medieval period. Kid asks "Isn't the Pope that stuff in the orange juice?"
"Reading a Peter Rabbit story..."
Reading a Peter Rabbit story to kindergartens and they all got worried when Mr. Gregor's hoe came into the story. One little girl told me I shouldn't say that word.
"There was a light chuckle..."
I once worked as teacher's assistant and we had a history lesson coming up and the subject would be 9/11 (this was held in 9.11.) The teacher was running late, so i decided to start the class without saying anything and played on a big screen the original news footage of 9/11 and the aftermath. After the clips were over, 1 kid (12yo boy) in the front row had light tears in his eyes, so i asked him what's wrong? The kid answered: "When i'm old enough and strong enough, i want to stop those people who would do such a thing."
There was a light chuckle in the class room after he said that but i followed up with a devil's advocate question to see what he'd answer: "But why would you want to fight on behalf of the U.S.? They attacked them, not our country." "They attacked people, like us, that's why."
Gotta say he's got a point.
"Here's a good rule of thumb..."
Concerning: An outrageous amount of Jewish conspiracy crap, the worst of which basically blames them for pogroms and The Shoa/Holocaust. Also, and probably related, a large amount of people who think a YouTube video is a proper source for a paper or presentation.
Interesting: The same things because I am a professor. Meaning I teach at a university. Meaning these kids actually had to do OK in High School. And I don't teach a low level course either, meaning they had to do ok in other history courses.
Here's a good rule of thumb folks: If it doesn't have sources, it's not a source.
"Surely..."
In a college music history class, one student wrote on her exam:
"Bach had 20 children, 2 wives, and practiced on a spinster in the attic."
Surely, she must've meant to have said "spinet."
"I made multiple students..."
Not one of my students, but last year we were doing a long research project for all the sophomores. I was student teaching and my mentor teacher (who was a very bad teacher) had a student who wrote their whole research essay on how 9/11 was faked.
Now, this is not really the student's fault. The teacher was supposed to teach about source credibility and finding reliable sources. They were also supposed to check their student's sources and read their drafts and generally trouble shoot when they got stuck. The student should have never gotten to the stage of final draft using only conspiracy theory based websites without anyone noticing. That is a teaching failure not a student problem.
I made multiple students re-do steps of the process because they had crappy sources and we talked extensively about what made sources high or low quality all semester long.
As a teacher it's important to remember that your students will come up with all kinds of weird and sometimes shocking stuff, they're teenagers it's expected. It's the teacher's job to help guide them without publicly shaming them or making them feel stupid.
And more importantly your job is to give them the critical thinking tools to help them better navigate on their own, because you won't always be there to let them know the thing they just read on the Internet is a bunch of BS.
"I was presenting..."
I was presenting some Week Without Walls trip options at an international school. A good portion of the Muslim kids (the liberal ones who dislike their own conservative culture and governments) started booing/snickering when Israel was presented as an option.
"The kid spoke to his family..."
My high school history teacher met Revolutionary War hero Samuel Prescott's descendant. When Mr. Kirk said Prescott was half black, the kid shouted, "You're a damn liar!" Mr. Kirk told him that no, it's historical fact.
The kid spoke to his family and it had apparently become a family secret by the time he was attending my high school. Considering this was in the South, the family had good reason to be secretive.
His family told him Mr.Kirk was right but that he should still be careful who he tells about it. I wonder what he's doing now.
"For their final project..."
I did a class project based on Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start The Fire." For their final project of the year, the class had to put together a PPT that described the historical significance of each event and each individual mentioned in the song. Every student had to participate in the project by speaking in front of the audience for a minimum of 3 minutes. I invited the entire high school to come and watch the presentation. It was impressive.
"He was the football coach..."
When I was doing my student teaching, I had to shadow teachers. A world history teacher told his students that the Eastern-Roman monk Methodius invented Methodism (a popular Christian sect in the south). Literally nothing about that is even close to true.
Methodius and his brother Cyril invented the Cyrillic alphabet for the Russians. Methodist Christianity was a hundreds of years later, in America.
He was the football coach, and a moron. At the same school, I sat in on an American history class and the teacher taught them about the KKK....without mentioning anything bad they did. Did not mention lynchings at all. He told they class that they helped enforce prohibition.
Confederate flag boots were the hot fashion statement at this school.
"The look on my professor's face..."
Background: History student with a background in Classics. Lots of work with ancient languages and such.
First day of my university program's advanced Ancient Greek history class. Keep in mind that this is a course reserved for History majors/minors. The professor, who is a really level guy, started his lecture by justifying the reasons why we study ancient cultures. He pulls from a variety of sources, including modern literature and advertisement, and relating them to progenitors. This goes on for about 40 minutes. Everyone is engaged. Connections are being made for the uninitiated. All is well.
In the last few minutes of class, as our professor was briefly surveying Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor, one of the students raises her hand. At this point we're all generally relaxed. That didn't last. She asked:
"So what was the United States doing in this period? What were *we* up to?" That emphasis was very, very punctuated.
The look on my professor's face was absolutely amazing. I have never seen internal screaming look so transparent.
I really feel bad for that student. I sincerely hope she went on to do wonderful things.
"In an AP US History class..."
In an AP US history class some girl asked if Hitler was the reason we got into the Vietnam war.
People are required to have a license to drive, fish, and have certain jobs.
So it boggles my mind that people aren't required to have a license to have kids.
Some of the cruelest and most vicious things I've ever heard were words uttered by a parent to a child.
As an adult, I was haunted by a few thigs.
I can't imagine the scaring of an adolescent.
Redditor Tight_Anywhere6794 wanted to hear about the things parents have said in the past that haunts everyone still, so they asked:
"What insult have your parents said, that is stuck in your head as an adult?"
I've been blessed with the mother I had.
So I can't speak from experience.
But I've heard parenting horror stories.
Bad Expressions
Sad Kid GIF by 1tvGiphy“'You’re so annoying.' Said to me as a young kid while I was expressing enthusiasm over some new interest. Later my father complains I never tell him anything."
foppishyyy
Mean Spirited
"What did I do to deserve a fat kid?"
Silosolo
"My parents also mocked me for being fat, and outright physically abused me as in forcefully grabbed my fat child manboobs or slapped me while calling me fat-related names."
"A lot of people at school did it too, so obviously I have a lot of self-image issues like I never let anyone see me without clothes these days. The worst part is that I legitimately internalized a lot of hate, I could never care for myself enough to actually get fit."
FoeWithBenefits
What's My Name?
"My parents divorced when I was young and they hate each other. My mom would call me my dad's name when she was really upset. What makes it worse is that I confided in her that I never wanted to be like my dad. She used that ammunition against me."
Discarded_Pariah
"That's awful. You are your own person. You aren't your father."
blksmnr
Unfunny
"'You can't even laugh right.'"
"My mom in a weird moment I thought we were bonding. There's something inherently extra evil when someone tells you your joy is wrong. Told her I'm engaged and hoped she could at least be happy I'm happy and she ghosted everyone to the point the family thought died. She's a mess."
BlindEditor
"I'll never understand parents that are so hard on their own children that they can't even be happy for them. So their sole function is to bring misery to their offspring?"
macabre_irony
Evil
Oh My God Wow GIF by The Roku ChannelGiphy"My little brother was drowning, I tried to save him but also almost drowned, we got rescued by a neighbor. My mom told me that they should've left me in the pond. I haven't spoken to her in many years."
Ilookbetterthanyou
Good Lord. How do people like this exist?
Tragic.
HIM
"She told me I was acting just like my father when I would get upset. I would just get kinda pissy and sulk. He would go on rampages and scream and hit and throw things. He pushed her down the stairs once. I would never lay a finger on my current partner. The worst part is I look just like him. I was wondering if my mother always expected me to turn into my dad. I prove her wrong every day."
rot_grl
10 Years Old
"When I was ~10 years old, my mum once said 'If I could go back in time and make sure I never gave birth to you, I would in a heartbeat.'"
"Never forgot it. Talked to her about it a couple of times years later and her responses ranged from 'That never happened' to 'Oh yeah and I suppose I’m just the worst mother ever' and finally 'Yeah but I didn’t mean it, you know that.'"
"Messed me up tho tbh. Another one was '[older sibling] was the only child we actually planned for, the rest of you were accidents.' I don’t think it was intended as an insult, but being told your entire existence was an accident as a child kinda stung."
SpiderP*bes
Failures
“'You’re the biggest mistake I ever made.' - my mother when I was 5. I’m 32 now and it’s been the undercurrent for our relationship ever since, constantly wondering if anything I’ve achieved or struggled for is something she’s genuinely proud of or just relieved to say I wasn’t a total failure on her part."
thefaehost
Generational Issues
"Not a parent but a grandparent, I was adopted when I was 12 years old (my parents were both drug addicts so I was in and out of foster care most of my life) my adopted mother's father turned to me on Christmas Eve when no one else was around and said 'My daughter should have never adopted you, she should have let you stay on the streets where you belong'… he got nicer as he got older and sicker but I couldn’t find it in myself to forget what he said even almost 10 years later. Went to the funeral for moral support but was indifferent about his passing."
samweather227
Just Me
Sad Kids GIF by Cian DucrotGiphy"I was an only child and lonely. When I asked for a sibling, the response was 'If you want to know why we don't have more kids, go look in the mirror.'"
Responsible_Fly_3565
Some people should never have children.
Awful.
A tough realization that most of us have to process and accept at some point is the fact that our parents lied to us when we were kids.
But the tougher fact to process may not be the lying itself, but some of the lies that were told along the way.
Redditor Fearless-surfur-ee asked:
"What was the biggest lie you believed?"
Adulting 101
"That adults knew what they were doing."
- yukipurple
"Maybe not ALL adults, but I definitely thought that adults with responsible jobs have their s**t together. Then I realized they do not have their s**t together at all."
"Which in turn makes me feel somewhat better about being an adult with a responsible job who does not have their s**t together."
- kjhwkejhkhdsfkjhsdkf
Moving Violations
"It’s illegal to turn on the dome light while the vehicle is moving."
"Nope. Turns out it’s just annoying as h**l."
- OstrichMan975
A Lottery Trick
"When I was a kid, my cousin convinced me for, like, an hour that her mom had won the lottery. I can still feel the loss of millions of dollars two decades later, and that s**t hurts, bro."
"WHY, JESSICA, WHY?!"
- iforgotwhereiparked
That Truth Hurts
"I’ll fill up my car with gas before work tomorrow morning."
- hoangtudude
"I will do stuff like this for my fiancé in a heartbeat, but if I need to fill up my own gas tank to avoid doing it tomorrow? That sounds like a problem for future me."
- robbviously
When That Grief Hits Seven Years Later...
"My mom told me when I was five and my favorite dog died that it doesn't matter that dogs die, because in seven years, they respawn."
"So I was like, 'Oh, fine. See you then, bud, I will be older, and we will play again.'"
- josevilla7
Replacement Pets
"My hamster died while I was in school. Went back home, and I instantly saw he was a little bit different."
"My mum tricked me into thinking it was the same hamster and he hadn't changed a bit."
"Mom told me the truth a few years later. I was so p**sed off."
- changethename7
"My mom has done the same thing with my nephew’s parakeet. One day, Pickles #1 flew into the pantry, somehow got stuck in a case of Diet Coke, and got crushed by a can avalanche."
"He was immediately replaced by Pickles #2. My nephew asked why Pickles was so mean to him now. Pickles #2 is an a**hole."
"I’m suspicious that we are on Pickles #3 now but I don’t want to know for sure."
- Brotox123
"My mother's cousin did that with her little boy's rabbit."
"The new rabbit was a psychopath. Having his previously loving rabbit now hate him and repeatedly attack him was almost certainly more traumatizing than learning about death."
"I always wondered if stories like that were part of the inspiration for 'Pet Sematary.'"
- victoriaj
Just in Case
"The microwave will explode if I put my face too close to it while it’s heating food."
- ezzysalazar
A SUPER Secret Affair
"That my parents were married."
"The truth is, my father was, just not to my mother."
- left_over_croissant
A Creative Story
"That my dad moved out and rented a room in the house of a female friend for tax reasons."
- Eldhannas
Such Good Friends
"Outside of dumb lies your parents tell you as kids, my friend who worked at a gas station with a big food station that has some ground beef items told me they use kangaroo meat for their ground beef because it was cheaper than cow."
"I am gullible with my friends."
- _Goose_
The Lie That Keeps Going
"When I was 15, over my summer break, one day my mom called and said she was gonna pick me up and we were gonna go to my stepdad's for the weekend."
"I didn’t understand why I had to go when she would leave me at home by myself for the weekend all the time. I was old enough that I knew the rules and she could trust me."
"She told me there was a mixup at the electrical company and they seem to think we didn’t pay the bill and so the power was gonna be shut off, so we were gonna go to my stepdad's until that got sorted."
"That was a lie."
"A weekend turned into two weeks, which turned into a month, and then the entire summer. We hadn’t been home in over two months. I kept asking when we could go home and she’d always have an excuse."
"We reached September, she’s driving me from one city to my hometown to register for the following year of school, which started up in a week, and this was the closest I had been to home in two months! After I registered, we bypassed my house and started heading towards the highway to go back to my stepdad’s."
"It was at that moment I snapped and started freaking out! I knew something was wrong."
"She pulled the car over and started crying. Apparently, my brother had been helping her pay the bills and when he moved out, she could no longer afford the place on her own. So my stepdad was trying to help but he had his own house and kids he had to look after, and he couldn’t keep it up. We had been evicted."
"We stayed with my stepdad for the summer while my mom tried to work something out with the landlord, but they couldn’t come to an arrangement. Because she never told me, and in order to buy herself time to work something out, she had to be comfortable with potentially leaving EVERYTHING behind…"
"Well, she couldn’t work it out with the landlord and we lost EVERYTHING. The only thing I got out of that house was the shoes on my feet and a few outfits and pajamas enough for a weekend stay."
"My mother wanted to keep the lie going for as long as she could to buy herself time that she had to leave behind everything to keep it going. She never went back for anything, so eventually I can only assume it was all thrown away."
"So not only did I lose material belongings like my computer, my video games, and all my clothes, but I lost basic things like my own bedroom… and privacy as a teenager! I slept on my stepdad’s couch for almost two years until his daughters moved out and I took over their old room."
"But I also lost sentimental things like childhood pictures/videos, the memory box I started when I was seven, and the porcelain dolls my dad had given me over the years, he bought me two per year (birthday and Christmas,) and now that my dad is dead, those are things I wish I still had."
- Neikitia
An Elaborate Tale
"When I was very young, we had a pet hamster. He got out of his cage, so my dad put the cage in the basement, thinking he might get hungry and get back in."
"One morning I woke up and there was the hamster in his cage in the usual place. I asked my mom how they found him and she told me she opened the door to the cellar and there he was dragging his cage back upstairs."
"It wasn't until I was a teenager and remembered the exchange that it occurred to me she obviously made that up."
- censorized
Too Real
"That acne would only be a problem when I was a teenager."
- McGamers56
"I started breaking out in the third grade and haven't had clear skin since. I'll be 27 pretty soon. This one hits home."
- bayleenator
Part of the Family
"When I was like 16, I found out that one of my sisters wasn’t actually my sister. She was actually just best friends with my oldest sister growing up, and she lived with my family from when she was 12 or 13 through 18 (she and my oldest sister are 15 years older than me)."
"Unfortunately, her parents wouldn’t sign her over for adoption and didn’t contribute anything to my mom raising her for six years."
"The weirdest part is that my family is predominantly fair-skinned, blonde with blue eyes, but the girl I thought was my sister was traditional Hispanic with darker skin, dark hair, and brown eyes. My mom was always very tan and had darker skin and hair throughout my childhood, so I thought that my other two sisters and myself were the odd ones out."
- Schleeeeeem
The Deepest Betrayal of All
"On April Fool's while I was getting ready for school on a cold winter day, my mom told me, 'School is canceled! It's a snow day!'"
"I ran around for a good two minutes celebrating before she told me, 'April Fools!'"
"I've never felt so betrayed in my life."
- samivat
"You better be a mastermind supervillain by now."
- T_WREKX
"Thank you for sharing your Joker origin story, lol (laughing out loud)."
- JulienS2000
These lies have a wide range from the hilarious to the absolutely diabolical, maybe even with a few villain origin stories thrown in.
A common thread throughout most of these was someone telling a lie in order to avoid a tougher conversation, which only led the younger person to have a lot more to process later.
With theaters finally open to those wanting the ultimate entertainment experience that streaming movies at home can't provide, the pandemic that kept many venues closed now feels like a distant memory.
There's nothing like seeing a film up on the big screen the way Hollywood studios intended, and many would argue that experience is worth shelling out the cash for.
That being said, there is no assurance audiences will remain in their seats until the credits roll at the end.
Because not all movies are created equal. Some are just embarrassingly bad and not worth sticking around for.
Curious to hear from dissatisfied moviegoers, Redditor girlcalledmariaaria asked:
"If you have ever walked out of a cinema because the film was so bad, what one was it?"
These Redditors had no idea what they were in for.
Wrong Expectations
"I've not, but when I saw In Bruges, an elderly couple walked out after 20 minutes and I heard the man muttering that this wasn't a film about Belgium at all. It really tickled me."
– Reverend-JT
Regretful Decision
"Holmes & Watson, my family really enjoyed step Brothers and Talladega nights. So I shouted the 5 of us to the movies on Christmas day because for some reason the cinemas were open and it was showing and we don't really do big celebrations. 15 minutes into the movie we all looked at each other like.. wtf is this. I tried to leave.. I went to ask for a refund because their policy said you can get a refund 30 minutes into the movie... But we were 5 minutes late because of the 20 minute trailers.. I'm still seething about spending $100 to basically die of boredom for an hour and a half. I was sitting there embarrassed about suggesting the family outing. My family stuck it out because I'd paid for it and couldn't get a refund even though I told them I didnt care and begged to leave."
– jande425
Plan B
"I've got a story of a film my friends and I refused to leave, actually."
"In 2006 I was turning 14 and was obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean. My mom threw a pirates-themed birthday party where my friends and I were meant to go to see Dead Man's Chest, which was still in theaters in August when the party was. We dressed up for it and everything."
"Well for some reason the showing we were going to see was packed despite the movie having been out over a month, so there weren't 12 tickets available. My mother (and my friend's mom who came along) made a split second decision to see the next PG-13 rated movie available."
"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."
"So a gaggle of 14 year old girls dressed as pirates walked into this theatre to a bunch of weird looks, but we sat down with our popcorn as normal. The next hour-and-a-halfish saw the moms be horrified at the crass nature of the film and keep asking if we wanted to leave. The answer was a HELL NO from the whole group. That movie proceeded to be the basis of our inside jokes for the next 4 years. To this day it's one of our collective favorite grade school memories, even if my mother continues to be embarrassed by it."
– fraxiiinus
Whether it was physical or emotional, these films didn't sit well with Redditors.
Saving Our Necks
"Oh, I remember vividly. It was Battlefield Earth."
"The shot angles kept being tilted this way and that for no reason and I started tilting my head so that things would be level. Then my friend joined in. Then we simultaneously were like 'are we going to cramp our necks for THIS?' And walked out."
– Ahlq802
Punishment For Sneaking In
"I walked out of 28 days later. Not because it was bad. I was 9 years old and snuck in and it was freaking me the f'k out.. watched it years later and enjoyed it."
– OMGi_hafta_poop
Oh, The Horror
"I saw Prometheus twice in theaters. At the second show, a group of 10-year-olds snuck in. The first R-rated scene, which features an alien worm/snake that crawls inside someone's shattered arm, caused these kids to flee the theater in an absolute panic. I imagine they will never forget that day."
– fleur_delyk
Sometimes, it's the theater's fault.
Failed Attempts
"I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy, and they played Rise of the Guardians."
"It took about five minutes to realize it was the wrong movie the first time. They tried to fix it, played Rise again, tried to fix it, played Rise a third time, and the whole theater walked out for refunds."
"Apparently it was a issue at a lot of theaters."
– MandolinMagi
Not A Prank
"I guess this technically counts but when I went to see deadpool 2, the cinema accidentally put the wrong film on and played some Amy Schumer film instead. Everyone in the screen thought it was some meta deadpool joke and out of nowhere he’d appear and shoot Amy Schumer so we were all waiting on that. After about 10 minutes of the film, the staff came into the screen and explained that they had put the wrong film on and couldn’t undo it because of their tight schedule etc but we would all get a refund and were welcome to stay and watch the rest of the Amy Schumer film. Everyone left."
– KMeech1969
Other times, the movie itself doesn't screen well for the audience.
Far From Purr-fect
"I’ve never walked out of a movie and I saw Cats opening weekend."
– Man_Bear_Pig25
"I walked out on it, but then decided I wanted to be back inside. They let me back in, but then I walked out again."
– CatherineOfArrogance
I'm all for supporting the arts.
But if a movie I already paid a non-refundable admission for was absolutely terrible, I'd have no problem forfeiting the cash to spare my sanity and walking out of the theater.
The one time I did just that was when I went to see The Island of Doctor Moreau starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.
I was a kid and I was thrilled to go see a movie all by myself.
Unfortunately, the sci-fi horror film wasn't enough to captivate my short attention span.
I walked out and subsequently called my mom to pick me up from the mall where the movie theater was.
Those were the days...
If there was one good thing to come out of the pandemic, it was that it made us all the more appreciative of all that is good in our lives.
No one ever appreciated the importance of friends or family more, having to be kept apart from each other for months, or the little things which bring us joy, which we made sure to keep doing even as pandemic restrictions were lifted.
Of course, being alone with our thoughts for such a long time also resulted in our reflecting on things in our lives, or in the world in general, which we were less than happy about.
Not to mention the all-important realization that life is short and precious, and we don't have time to waste our thoughts on some things.
"What is something you no longer have patience for?"
Off The Clock Means OFF THE CLOCK!
"Working outside of work hours."
"I used to go above and beyond, now I only put in what is required."
"Life is too short to live only to work."- Chesterfieldcat
"The working world."
"My life doesn’t revolve around working here and it never will."
"It will never be a part of my identity."
"I come in, do the job, make money, go home."
"Don’t expect me to come to all the work happy hours so I can pretend how much I love working here."- nuclearsalt
Some Things Just Don't Get A Free Pass
"Sh*tty people getting a pass 'because they're family'."- cgulash
angry homer simpson GIFGiphySay What You Mean, Not What You Feel
"Having to guess what people REALLY mean by something they said."
"I take everything people say at face value now and don't replay conversations in my head to find out the real meaning anymore."
"Be passive-aggressive if you want to but talk to me like an adult if you really have a problem."- WateredDownSalt
EYES ON THE ROAD!
"People who text and drive."
"You're driving a giant piece of metal propelled by explosive liquid."
"Pay attention."- MasterfulNothasie
The Only Life That Should Concern You Is Your Own
"People and groups of people that only talk about other people."- Turf98
"People who can’t mind their fucking business and are always worried about what other people are doing."
"If it doesn’t effect you, f*ck off."
"It’s literally free."- wackwackwackjpg
GIF by WWEGiphySome People Didn't Mind Social Distancing
"People invading my personal space."- Mighty-Foreskin
Influence Can Be Dangerous
"Anything that has “influencer” in it."- chemistcarpenter
Indoor Voices People...
"Streamers screaming, losing their sh*t, breaking things, and having tantrums."
"I used to think this was so funny now I just can't stand it; I can't even watch a streamer if I notice they're not using their normal talking voice." - Reddit
Fail Oh No GIF by G2 EsportsGiphyTaking Responsibility Is A Sign Of Maturity
"People who constantly blame others for the situation they are in."- SuvenPan
Time Is Precious And Shouldn't Be Wasted
"Waiting on people who are constantly late to plans."
"I will wait 15 minutes then excuse myself."- Dabbles-In-Irony
There's Multi-Tasking, And Then There's Just Being Rude...
"People being on their phone while in a conversation with you."
"Seriously."
"Put your phone away!"- rosieblinkstime
Phone GIF by Poehlmann FitnessGiphyIt Takes So Much More Effort To Be Nasty...
"Bad manners, unkindness and general rudeness."
"It costs nothing to be a nice person and from someone who works in a customer-facing industry, attitudes, sadly, appear to be getting worse."
"It really makes me cross."- Bellamiles85
At Least They're Being Transparent
"Medicine commercials with worse side-effects than the thing being cured."- mrbbrj
Wasting our time and thoughts about things that we know can only bring us down is simply no way to get through life.
It's essential to live our lives by taking the present moment for what it is: a present.