Have you ever heard the expression, "I wish I could un-see that"? The human brain is naturally slightly obsessive, and the smallest detail that shakes our trust in something becomes part of that obsession.
It's likely a leftover survival mechanism--where we must have paid close attention to everything around us that was even slightly off, so as to make sure we had all our bases covered and nothing was going to slip up and kill us. Now it just majorly attacks our anxiety.
u/CaspertheGhostsFarts asked:
What is one thing you had never noticed before it was pointed out to you, but now you notice it all the time?
Here were some of the answers.
The Wild Beasts Howl And The Wild Winds Blow
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That in ancient cultures 40 was used as a general "quite a few." Not an uncountable amount, not infinite, but more than you want to casually count. In these old civilizations, where literacy was a treasure, being able to count to 40 was as much as most people cared to do.
Now any time I hear Bible stories, it strikes me (again) how silly literal interpretation based on the English version is.
Rained for 40 days and 40 nights = it rained for quite a while.
Fasted and prayed for 40 days.... wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.... it is EVERYWHERE
Tricks Of The Trade
My friend showed me how sometimes in a movie, when there's a character approaching the camera, they'll glance down at an out of shot cue-spot taped on the ground before the scene starts so they know exactly where to stop walking. Ever since he pointed that out to me I notice it in nearly every movie I see
The City That Never Sleeps
In NYC we have sewer drains on pretty much all the street corners, if you look on the curb above them you'll notice little spray paint marks.
Been living here for over 50 years and when one of those trucks came by my house to suck all the debris out the driver pulled out a few cans and marked it. I asked him why, he said that's how they keep track of when it was last cleaned, they have a color code chart that they check.
Now I see it all over the place.
For an image of what I'm talking about take a look here.
Diction Is Important
When I was about 10 years old, I took vocal lessons for a little while. For one of the songs I wanted to learn, the teacher told me that I kept singing "choo" instead of "you." She said people do it all the time when singing, and it always annoys her when she hears it in a song. Now I hear "choo" constantly when the singer is trying to say "you."
Not Actually A Viable Option
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In movies when people crawl through the air conditioning ducts. Somehow it always seems to be perfectly lit INSIDE the duct, no air flowing, VERY clean and NO screws to tear them up. I have worked around enough commercial HVAC equipment and installations to know that these are the stupidest things I have seen in movies and shows. In the real world you would not be able to see, be fighting very cold and fast air flowing while getting tore up by all the screws used to put the ducts together plus it will not be at all clean. Whoever came up with this misleading idea for entertainment is a jerk and a liar.
The President's Entire Platform
This may sound weird, but ad hominems. My best friend, who was on a debate team, introduced me to the term. For anyone who doesn't know, an ad hominem is when you attack the person rather than the argument/position he has (ieeg telling a guy he is "too young" to understand politics).
Since he told me about it, I've noticed how almost every person I try to have a discussion with, at some point, says an ad hominem to try to discredit my point by referencing me instead of explaining why the point is wrong. I realized then how often I use it during arguments, and I now actively try to stray away from it.
An Eye For Detail
I read somewhere that pretty much everything you see on screen is meaningful. Because literally every second of screen time costs so much money to develop (between cast, crew, editing, production, etc.), there is almost nothing "throwaway" that happens on the screen. If you see someone coughing, that's usually not just someone who is randomly coughing, as you say.
I had a somewhat related experience when I saw a recognizable actor in the background of a movie (it was a hospital drama, I think the one where Alec Baldwin has a god complex). My wife and I said "well, there's the bad guy." No way he's randomly in that shot.
Everything on screen is meaningful in some way. If someone randomly mentions that her brother is an elephant trainer in Kenya, that's probably going to be important later. If the movie takes a second to show someone putting an object on a table, it's because the movie needed to show you that object on the table.
It kind of changes the way you watch movies and television, honestly.
Aids For Enforcement
A small, inconspicuous blue light installed near a busy intersection that operates exactly in time with one of the signals. It's viewable from an area where a waiting police officer (who cannot actually see the traffic signal) can then know without a doubt who ran the red, and is then in a position to easily and safely make a traffic stop on the offender. I was on a ride-along a few years ago with one of our local officers who pointed this out to me. This particular one was slaved to a left-turn signal and it was positioned on the back of the signal pole such that the officer was ready to pull over scofflaws as soon as they completed their illegal left turn.
Oddly Sexualized Film Techniques
If an action movie has a female character with combat skills, you can bet there is a scene where she throws an enemy by doing this weird move where she wraps her legs around the enemy's head and spins.
Fight choreography in movies has gone to complete sh*t in the last 10 years and it's mostly poorly done fast cuts that are really hard to follow. John Wick excluded.
A Twinge Of The Eyes
When somebody points out input lag on a gaming system.
Another example is someone pointing out that Mario Kart 8 ran at 59fps instead of 60fps. This meant that every second, one frame would repeat itself and the game would stutter for 1/60 of a second. You couldn't notice it until they pointed it out and once they did, you could never unnotice it.
Here's what I mean. Also worth mentioning it was fixed in the switch port.
