There's nothing some people love more than drama. Not being involved with it, of course, but getting to witness it, and indulge in all the glorious weirdness of it. It's addicting. Don't lie, we all love to hear about it.
Sometimes the tension is too much to handle. Piebalddacshund asked:
What's your greatest, "you can cut the tension in the room with a knife" story
Awkward moments are usually pretty d*mn cringey. Here are some of the wildest stories.
A bad time for twerking.
“I bartended in college. The new manager, during the club rockin, at midnight, proceeded to cut off the music and tell 200 drunk college kids about how he was 120 days sober and showed everyone his coin. Then he preached about sobriety and him not having custody of his kids for about 4 minutes before putting Lil John back on so girls can twerk.
No one twerked.”
Now THAT’S awkward.
College Graduation GIF by Duke UniversityGiphy“Graduation day at the college where I work. The commencement speaker, a famous journalist, is giving her inspiring speech, working in little bits of trivia about our school. But something seems off. And as she starts listing our famous graduates, we realize she's Googled the wrong college, and is talking about the hyper-conservative Christian school a thousand miles away that happens to have the same name.
But the speech goes on and on, fifteen minutes more, with more awkward details she looked up on the wrong Wikipedia. And nobody wants to tell her while she's onstage. A murmur goes around, even the graduates' parents have figured it out by now, and several thousand people slowly cringe themselves to death.
To her credit she graciously apologized on her TV show and gave the college a nice promo.”
Yup, she REALLY did something there.
“At my sister's wedding, her "frenemy" showed up wearing a white dress... and to make it KNOWN she came upstairs to her room at the banquet hall before the "big entrance" (classic Italian wedding, you know?). She walked in and all of us bridesmaids and my sister were just slack-jawed. (she had zero reason to come upstairs except to show off her floor length white dress).”
[deleted]
“I just don't understand the mentality here. Is there a single person anywhere who would think ‘wow, she really showed the bride’ rather than ‘that guest in the white dress must be a raging c*nt’? That just makes yourself look bad.”
When family gets involved, that’s when you know sh*t has REALLY gone down.
The husband handled that well.
“Several, it really makes you feel older and make your BP skyrocket.
My cousin (F) came out to our family during a party. In front of her husband of 5 years and their 2 kids. She confessed to seeing another woman behind his back and that they've been together for far longer than she'd been married and she was the true love of her life and the kids names were her idea.
She then introduces her to everyone and as the silence went on and the the color in our faces returned, her husband just stands up and shakes the woman's hand and tells his wife that the papers will be coming along.
Party ended right there and her parents were pissed, they didn't care about her being a lesbian but her cheating was a big problem.
I learned that her lover had been in and out of rehab and is in no condition to support her or the kids.
My cousin had her marriage annulled but she lost custody of her kids, and could not get any settlement. By the end she didn't have a house and was basically homeless.
She's still with her but her kids refused to visit or have anything to do with her. Her girlfriend acts as if she's the one who gave birth to them and sends hateful messages to the father.”
This might win for the most tense.
toni collette dinner GIF by A24Giphy“My dad was an amazing father but once, when I was about five, he was gone all weekend. It was not like him to do this. He was a great dad and we were all crazy about him and so was my mother. Mom was stressed beyond belief.
At the time, she didn't work and he was our sole provider. There were four of us. She was a devout Catholic and Friday night, she lit candles and had all of us kneel and pray for his safety. Saturday morning, she called the police and said he was missing. Sunday morning, they called and asked her to come and identify a body that matched the description she'd given.
She was f*cking rattled when she got back. Some guy who was my dad's height and weight had been murdered. I can only imagine what she felt going into that room and seeing THAT on the slab. She asked to see his arm that had a tattoo and it was the wrong tattoo.
Dad came home Sunday evening with some cock and bull story about being slipped a mickey (old school roofies). You would have needed a jack hammer to cut the silence between them.
My mother always brought his plate to the table first. That night she brought all of our plates first. When she put his down, it was SO HARD, I remember his food being about two inches in the air from his plate. He didn't say anything. She didn't speak to him for a good while. Let's just say it never happened again.”
Things That Are Normal Where You Live But Crazy Anywhere Else | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
This is so sad.
“My mom died due to an overdose and without a will. At the funeral home, my stepdad, grandmother, aunt, brother and I were in the office to plan my mother's funeral.
My aunt and grandmother hated my stepdad. They said he enabled my mother, and didn't take care of her. My stepdad also owed my grandmother money.
My stepdad hated us all. My brother had stolen from him, he thought my grandmother and aunt were over-bearing, and he blamed me for my mother dying because I had cut off contact with her (it was for my own well-being).
My brother was just plain angry at everyone but me. He thought my grandma hadn't supported my mom. He also was in such denial that he thought my stepdad had murdered our mother.
My grandma also partially blamed me for my mother's death because of going no contact. My mother had been an addict for years, but apparently I was the reason she overdosed.
I was fuming angry that all of these people blamed me for the actions of someone else and I was being scapegoated again for my mother's actions. I was mad at my mom for not having a will, and for dying when I was 25.
I cannot imagine the tension that funeral director felt in that room, as all these people who detested one another tried to agree on funeral arrangements.”
Friendships can be really fickle, especially when we’re young. Definitely makes for a whole lotta awkwardness.
That’s karma.
“Back in highschool, my best friend was dating one of the most popular guys in school (not just our grade, the entire school). So it was a huge deal, and she gained a lot of popularity from it. This meant her getting invited to a lot of parties and I got to tag along to many of them.
During one of these parties, I was sitting with her boyfriend and another mutual friend of ours. I had gotten up to go inside and wash my hands, when I heard muffled sounds coming from the pantry in the kitchen. I went and looked, and my friend was in there hooking up with another dude. It wasn't just any dude either, it was the "weed guy" of our grade who was very awkward and weird.
Word spread around the party about this, and basically everyone knew what was going on but my friend's boyfriend because he had stayed sitting in the same spot for a while and nobody had the balls to tell him what was happening.
Finally after like twenty minutes, my friend comes out with the "snacks" she was getting and sits next to her boyfriend. You could've heard a pin drop as everyone got silent and stared at the two of them.
Worst part of it all, her boyfriend chuckles and says "you were in there for a while, what'd you do, lock yourself in the pantry?"
The tension was practically unbearable. Eventually he found out the truth, not sure how, but they broke up the next day and she basically became ostracized from hanging out with anyone that was even slightly popular. It never really blew over either, she had to transfer schools for the next school year and she deleted her social media accounts for several years."
We’ve all been in this situation.
Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory Tantrum GIFGiphy“I had a friend back in middle school that invited me to spend the night at her house. I was there for maybe 1 hour when she asked her mom if we could order pizza and her mom said no. My friend then proceeded to have the absolute worst, over dramatic screaming temper tantrum at her mom and then started screaming at her that I wanted the pizza and they were being rude for not buying it. This carried on for the rest of night and I just sat on her couch beet red waiting for it to end.”
Awkwarddddd.
“"When I was in 6th grade or so, I was invited to my friend's birthday sleepover party. She tells me to be there on Friday after school. So I show up with my overnight bag. Nobody else is there yet but I didn't think much of it. I just thought she wanted me to be there early to help set up and hang out. She says nothing. Her parents say nothing. But I could start to feel something was up when her mom takes us to Walmart to get things for the party. I said things like "we're going to have so much fun tonight!" that was met with awkward silent tension. I sat and watched TV with her family for a while and I could feel the whole room just go stagnant.
About an hour after we got back from the store, her mom started making dinner. I asked if I could help her, but that I thought she was going to be ordering pizza for the party. She finally told me that I was an entire day early for the party and that I needed to go home.
Edit: for those who asked, the party was terrible. She invited all the "mean girls" from school. It felt like Jenna's birthday party in 13 Going on 30 fr. I ended up leaving early after they started making tiny baby gay me uncomfortable by daring each other to kiss."
Not the impression you wanna make.
“My ex's family camping trip. Her mom is talking to one of her daughters, and the daughter says something along the lines of "I don't think I've ever seen you actually angry" and my dumb*ss has to chime in, ‘she was pissed at me once when I took your sis to two movies in a row and forgot to give her a heads up that we were gonna be back later’ mom chimes in ‘nope, I was pretty mad at you around thanksgiving a year or so back’.
I immediately grabbed my toast, downed a big ol glass of shut the f*ck up, and dipped out of that conversation. She was referring to when she found out I took her daughters virginity.”
We've all been there, on every end of it. Awkward moments are just a part of being human. Just remember, “this too shall pass". Or something.
Tension passes. Don't forget that
Redditor OfficialVickiLuv wanted to share the truths we need to know, so they asked:
"What is a common 'fact' that you know is bulls**t?"
There is no such thing as an alternative fact.
So let's start there.
Not a Forest
the ice pirates shaving GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphy"Shaving makes your hair grow back thicker."
Heavy_Educator9822
"I used to believe this one. I was very disappointed when I learned it was BS."
leebon427
Both Sides
"There are two kinds of thinkers: Right brain people are who are creative, and the people that use the left side who can do math."
Beaver_Buster
"Try telling that to psychologists/psychiatrists who do research/clinical studies/trials. I’ve been denied dozens of times to partake in research studies revolving around mental health, specifically depression, and anxiety."
"Why did they deny me [even tho I was a perfect candidate]? Because I write with my left hand. And apparently it would make their study 'invalid' because they 'don’t want to interfere with results.'"
"Please tell me how excluding a large amount of people from a research study would somehow give you the correct answer for treating mental health for everybody?"
asianstyleicecream
Find them...
"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."
Zatiebars
"Especially with children, the quicker the police can get to the 'crime' scene the fresher the evidence and easier to follow leads. I used crime in quotes because there could have been a crime or the kid might have just wandered off."
"But it's not just for kids though... If you know someone is a home body and never leaves home and you know something has happened, by all means call the police. Even if they like to take random trips, it never hurts to inform the law."
Zatiebars
Crackle... Pop
"Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis."
Famous-Background329
"Probably just normal. Cracks are just little bubbles of nitrogen that settle where there's space. They don't build up over time, once the space is occupied by a little bubble then no more can join it. A knuckle that hasn't been cracked in 50 years is the same as a knuckle that hasn't been cracked in a few hours."
ConstantSignal
Give a Howl
Angry Wolf GIF by CuriosityStreamGiphy"Alpha wolves being real. The guy who did the original study disproved his one study and gets mad when people get it wrong now... lol."
Silverj0
"Came looking for this, also extrapolating this BS to human beings and 'sigma,' go read. The articles are all available. It's nonsense that people still believe s* like this with access to everything in their hands."
artemispock
The wolf pack is always ready.
Trivia
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphy"A 'factoid' is an often repeated statement that isn't true, but is now believed to be true due to people saying it all the time. Its not a mini fact, or like, fun piece of trivia."
JackofScarlets
Breakfast Companies
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The quote was made by Kellogg's to make people buy more cereal. If you search up articles that say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, most are sponsored by Kellogg's."
Jazzlike-Caramel7103
"I’m not sure Kellogg’s made it up. In my country there’s a saying that’s been around forever that alludes to the importance of breakfast that goes 'have breakfast like a king and dinner like a poor person.' Kellogg’s might’ve simply exploited an existing popular belief."
kaleidoscopichazard
Hey Stumpy
"Caffeine makes you short."
CForey62
"This one makes me laugh. I've been drinking coffee since I was like 9 years old and turned out 190cm tall."
TurquoiseBeetle67
Spuds
"Potatoes absorb toxins. The amount of people that believe putting potato slices in your shoes or wear them around your neck as a holistic medical treatment is shockingly high. It’s just oxidation."
wheresmychin
"I recall seeing a antivaxx meme that said if you had to get a COVID shot to put a potato slice at the injection site to absorb all the toxins. I’m all for sharing that idea if it makes people get vaccinated."
OrangeTree81
Look Out
Flying Fox Bat GIF by Barbara PozziGiphy"Bats are blind."
IWantOneSpatula
"I remember getting into a really stupid argument shortly after high school with a friend over this who just couldn't believe that bats weren't actually blind."
__M-E-O-W__
"Fine. Bats are legally blind."
shifty_coder
Now I've learned more.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.
Redditor KentuckyFriedEel wondered what movie moments have left scars for life, so they asked:
"Which movie scene is really hard to sit through and watch?"
The death of Artax in 'The Neverending Story.'
Scared me for life.
Stop Dialing
vince vaughn beer GIFGiphy"Swingers. Mike calling and leaving messages over and over for the girl whose phone number he got at the bar."
Careless-Ground-7349
"Never. Call. Me. Again."
playblu
Look Away
"Trainspotting. Specifically the scene where they wake up from their drug induced haze to find the dead baby. The decomposition effect made to look like they neglected to check on her for DAYS... Then their best and only response is to shoot up and get high again. Dull the pain. Just tragic."
SqAznPersuasion
INTENSE
"A very good portion of the original French version of Martyrs."
"That movie is both the definition of gore porn, but also a solid story that makes sitting through how uncomfortable it is completely worth it. It’s unfortunate that Hollywood somehow made a mostly shot for shot remake and completely ruined the movie."
egnards
"My housemate and I watched Martyrs and spent like the next three days talking about it, that movie was INTENSE."
raz0rflea
Too Dark
"Green Mile. I leave when Mr Jingles chases the thread bobbin, and again for the execution scene gone wrong. I've seen both scenes once. Don't need to see that again."
Publandlady
"The book is as heart-wrenching as the movie. It's my all-time favorite Stephen King book, but it's tough to get through."
F**kImCold
"When I saw that execution scene as a kid I was at a friend's house and decided to go home right there. Came back next day to finish it though cause didn't wanna get made fun of."
canadianclassic308
Just No!
Bom Dia Hello GIFGiphy"Annihilation. The bear quietly screaming. ‘Help me.'"
"Absolutely not, thank you."
HaunterUsedLick
Never saw that one. Maybe I'll take a peek.
Too Tough
Toni Collette Crying GIF by A24Giphy"Hereditary. Watching the kid just pull up to the bed is pretty tough to watch. The scream by the mom the next morning is also pretty tough."
happymyself
Shiny Trauma
"I've never gone back and watched it again, because it skeeved me out so much, but that scene in Dr. Sleep, where the Shine Vampires are stealing all the shine from that kid through pain was ROUGH."
Horknut1
"I came here to say this. Jacob Tremblay practiced for months before the scene to be sure he could get it right. When the time came to shoot it he did so well that all the Shine Vampires forgot their lines and struggled to finish the scene. The first time I saw it was pretty traumatizing."
Capteverard
True Pain
"The shower scene in Schindlers List. It took me years to get through it, even though it ends up just being a shower and not a gas chamber. Also the Tony episode on the new Dahmer series. I was hysterical watching it and feel sick thinking about how much real people suffered because of him."
ashleylauren3
"I watched Schindlers List for the first and only time a few years ago and couldn't stop crying after."
wearyomask
Dried Up
"The scene in the SpongeBob movie where SpongeBob and Patrick dry up."
crossbowman44
"I know this guy that loved movies and would give me all these high brow recommendations. One Saturday morning, I decided I wanted to watch a movie and was considering one of his recommendations. I watched the SpongeBob movie instead. And I made the right choice. Saturday morning is for cartoons."
Brawndo91
War Crimes
Screaming Matt Damon GIFGiphy"Saving Private Ryan - when the German soldier is plunging the knife into Mellish."
LackOfStack
"For me it is when the medic is dying after attacking the machine gun nest. All those soldiers standing around absolutely helpless."
DramaticWesley
"Oh God don't get me started. Only scene from a movie that gets my physically angry."
crispycritter909
All good movies. All to never watch again.
The ones that have come to fruition but caused an uproar were mentioned when Redditor Future-Game asked:
"What is the most controversial TV shows of all time?"
Shows pushing the envelope were so risqué. Some aged well over time. Others didn't.
Taboo Topics
"I don't know about all time but the time it aired here in Canada, the original Degrassi High series. They covered so many topics that weren't really covered on mainstream shows back then. Even still somewhat taboo today. And everyone my age watched it and talked about it the next day."
– YEGMusic43
Outing Ellen
"When Ellen Degeneres's character came out as gay on her sitcom, there was a f'king firestorm."
– seanofkelley
Tame Drama
"Believe it or not the comedy SOAP was highly controversial when it premiered in the late 70s. It's done by the same people who did GOLDEN GIRLS. SOAP is so tame by today's standards a ten year old could watch it."
– ComedianRepulsive955
Chappelle's Show.
"I like South Park as an answer, but if we are talking about pushing boundaries, Chappelle's show at least deserves a mention. The Black, White Supremacist alone was wild to see on TV, and it was the first episode of the show to air."
– WaKa_
Reality bites. So did these reality competition shows.
Trash Talk Show
"Jerry springer, what a sh*t show."
– Jok3r609
When Looks Are Everything
"The Swan - a show about generally average, everyday women with low self esteem (due to a variety of factors), receiving plastic surgery and whole makeovers. Every episode would feature two ladies and a "winner" would be decided between them. At the end of the season, all of the winners would be put in a pageant to compete and see who would be dubbed 'The Swan'"
– DungeonFam30
Questionably Racist
"Takeshi's Castle / MXC wasn't exactly controversial at the time, but the production of that show seems awfully exploitative by today's standards (and for the English dub, horribly stereotypical and downright racist at times). We've since watered it down severely with versions like Wipeout, but the real ones know what the lineage of shows like that is."
– plasma_dan
Ultimate Exploitation Of Privacy
"Big Brother. How about we mix the worst people with the most exploitative form of entertainment whilst also casually normalising invasion of privacy."
– JFSOCC
Just because it was family friendly didn't mean everyone approved.
Representation Matters
"Sesame Street - When this show debuted in 1969, TV channels in the southern US refused to air it because it’s racially mixed group of children playing together was too controversial."
– virago72
Beavis And Butt-Head
"Surprised I haven't seen Beavis and Butt-Head on this list yet. When it came out everyone was freaking out."
– l06ic
Swearing
"Southpark, we went from outrage at Bart saying "eat my shorts" to Cartman feeding children their parents."
"I mean swearing on TV was less prominent , then Southpark pushed that forward quickly as well, all of a sudden "A**" and "Bullsh*t" were on standard TV."
– nonaestet
Every now and then a show comes out and sends audiences clutching their pearls.
But sometimes, even an episode from a relatively tame TV show can send viewers reeling with topical moments.
Examples of this include the much-hyped same-sex kiss on Melrose Place in the 90s that was ultimately edited to imply the act and the One Tree Hill arc that explored school shootings–which was considered daring and admirable at the time for addressing a malaise that continues plaguing the US today.