People Who Flipped Their Opinions On Extremely Controversial Topics Explain Why They Did

People Who Flipped Their Opinions On Extremely Controversial Topics Explain Why They Did
[rebelmouse-image 18357886 is_animated_gif=People can have very strong opinions on certain subjects. But even though they may think they'll never change their minds about their deeply held beliefs, sometimes they do.
Reddit user morieu asked "People who 'switched sides' in a highly divided community (political, religious, pizza topping debate), what happened that changed your mind? How did it go?"
Here are the insights into people who jumped from one side of the fence to the other.
Union Dues
[rebelmouse-image 18357887 is_animated_gif=My family used to be middle income. I used to be super pissed about those "damn unions" when they were striking, called thise taking gov support "leeches" etc.
After the 2008 financial crisis ,my family lost a huge amount of their income due to no fault of their own, and my career took a huge downturn. Meanwhile workers rights were completely dismantled, trying to turn the country more "competitive" and as a result I had shitty wages and almost no protection from bosse's predation. The phrases "Just be happy I even pay you" or " There are thousands waiting at the door just like you" become the norm in pretty much every job. Work rights that are absolutely standard everywhere dissapeared overnight.
Since then the only thing that allowed us to keep our head above the water have been government support with health plans, free training trying to get back to the work force, protection from eviction etc.
I am hardcore social democrat now, and I can see were communists come from, even if I don't agree with a lot of stuff the philosophy entails.
TP Orientation
[rebelmouse-image 18357888 is_animated_gif=Toilet paper over or under. I used to be in the IDGAF camp until I realized under was Satan's work.
Over all the way now.
Nothing Fishy
[rebelmouse-image 18357889 is_animated_gif=Fishing. I used to an very avid catch and release angler, fished with some of the best, was in a few magazines etc etc. I started to look a bit closer as to what I was doing, how many fish survive after catching and releasing them and came to the conclusion that though it's fun for me (at the time) it probably wasn't all that much fun for the fish. My regular group of fishing friends who were a fun and very talented, knowledgable bunch, mostly conservation minded guys just couldn't understand my change of heart. I now fished only to keep, which they thought was wrong but I never over harvested and always kept to the limits allowed or just a couple for supper, freezer, whatever. I'm not sure what changed my mind but I just started feeling bad about how I was hurting another living being for nothing more than essentially bragging rights and my own pleasure.
Leaving Bigotry Behind
[rebelmouse-image 18357890 is_animated_gif=In 2006 in Tennessee I voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and I deeply regretted that later, and was very glad when SCOTUS overturned it.
The reason I voted that way is pretty simple though, religion. At the time I was a Christian, and thought being gay was a sin, and that as a result they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Later, when I deconverted, there wasn't any struggle about the gay marriage issue at all, because I never actually had anything against gay people, even when I was a Christian, but I was just following my belief system.
Without that belief system it was sort of a no-brainer that they should have the same rights as everyone else, and that there's no logical argument against being gay, and that I was the one who did that wrong thing when I helped to take away their rights, not them.
No Mo' GMO No
[rebelmouse-image 18357892 is_animated_gif=GMOs. I used to feel that they were "unnatural" and therefore bad. After getting a chemistry degree and spending a lot of my personal time studying food science, as well as working on farms and gardening, I think that genetic solutions to farming can be great.
I still think that big farming is rife with horrible practices, and some companies exploit GMOs and patents on GMOs to the detriment of humanity, but I can no longer subscribe to the GMOs=evil point of view.
Regrets
[rebelmouse-image 18357893 is_animated_gif=Wisconsin had an election in 2006 where a ballot item called Referendum 1 would decide whether marriage between a man and a woman would constitutionally be the only legal form of marriage accepted and allowed in Wisconsin. It passed with 59% of the voters voting yes and the state Constitution was amended. I voted yes.
Shortly afterward, I started thinking. A lot. I started to realize that many of my friends were gay and I was friends with their partners. They were happy. They adopted kids. They volunteered for the fire department. They were nurses. I started realizing that their homosexuality didn't define their being. I was foolish and ashamed.
By 2011, I deeply regretted how I voted. Who was I to judge how people were supposed to live their lives and who they could marry? Within a 5 year period of time, I completely changed my mind. A new movement to get the amendment ruled unconstitutional was formed and I found myself supporting the group. In mid-2015, the US Supreme Court declared the referendum was illegal.
6,000 Years
[rebelmouse-image 18357894 is_animated_gif=I was raised to believe in creationism. Specifically, young earth creationism. That's right, my parents taught me that the Earth was something like 6000 years old, and that concepts like speciation or human evolution were not true. I had the whole nine yards: Sunday school to reinforce it, the Discovery Institute to tell me science was wrong, pastors to re-enforce it.
The degree to which they controlled the information that I consumed was pretty f---- up as well. I remember my great grandparents giving us a bunch of those old Time-Life books, one of which was the Life Nature Library series. One of these books happened to be on evolution (my parents did not review the books before letting me at them), and being a 7 year old science geek I read it. I remember showing it to a friend of mine, and explaining the patterns associated with human evolution, and when my mother overheard this, she snatched the book from my hands. My parents later told that everything in that book was completely untrue, and I believed them.
Unfortunately for my parents, being a science geek, I eventually ended up in AP Biology. In that class I was totally ready and fired up to argue against the teacher whenever human evolution came up. What ended up happening was a reasonable explanation regarding our origins, with piles of evidence to back it up. That course changed my mind about evolution, and once that happened I started to question God's existence.
My conversion to atheism was a long and drawn out process, that ended with me moving out of my parents place. Things are better now, as my parents have decided that having me in their lives is more important than me believing in god.
Live & Let Live
[rebelmouse-image 18357895 is_animated_gif=I'm a conservative and used to be really homophobic until I realized I live in a country founded on personal freedoms and we shouldn't decide whoever someone wants to marry. Still a conservative but couldn't give 2 bits if you are gay or not.
Dungeons & Denominations
[rebelmouse-image 18357896 is_animated_gif=I used to be an active member of my church. (I'd experienced a near death experience when I was a child and was reaching out to try to better understand what happens to a person when they die.)
One thing my youth pastor was adamant about was that D&D was a gateway for the devil. He used to talk about his younger days when he was a teen and he tried D&D and how the devil would reach through him and act through him and his friends. He says he stopped when the devil tricked him into thinking his friend was a demon, and he tried to kill his friend.
My brother was getting into D&D at this time, so this was particularly worrisome. It lead to a great deal of fighting between me and my brother.
Over time I kept watching for signs of the devil in my brother and never really found any. I started taking a closer look at the books and trying to suss out what the threat was. But couldn't find one.
Then I started pressing my youth pastor and people who knew him for more information. Eventually my youth pastor slipped up and mentioned that he'd frequently drop acid while playing D&D.
Suddenly everything made a lot more sense.
The Last Straw
[rebelmouse-image 18357897 is_animated_gif=I've pretty much stopped using straws at/from restaurants.
I know it sounds stupid and small, but the plastic pollution stuff is getting to me and I am not a "green" type of person at all... so it's a big deal to me if for nothing else than personal growth. As time goes on, and pretty much every time I take out the trash, I'm reminded of how utterly wasteful everything is. Baby steps I guess...
Right to Life and Death
[rebelmouse-image 18357900 is_animated_gif=I used to think that it was awful that people ever died, or wanted to die. I thought that it was normal and natural to want to fight for ever last moment, every last breath, even if it wasn't quite great.
Then I got into medicine and nursing. Now I understand how valuable death is in life, how important it is that we have that choice and that option. There truly are some times where the life you are living is truly awful suffering, and it's cruel to expect people to continue on with it. It's cruel to ask somebody who will never move again to continue living that way just so we don't feel bad. Death is important sometimes. It saves us from when life goes very very bad.
Disconnect
[rebelmouse-image 18357901 is_animated_gif=I grew up in an uber-religious family. Church 3 times a week with classes and meetings in between. Everything we did was for the lord. When I started getting older, however, I started realizing that what was being taught wasn't quite what I believed in.
Love thy neighbor turned into Love thy neighbor as long as they're not gay.
Help the needy turned into I've got mine, so politely go f yourself.
Only God can judge you turned into everyone judging everyone about everything and church politics took over.
Do unto others? Lets go tattle to the preacher and complain until someone is kicked from the church.
Most people fell in line and never really looked into what was being taught vs what the bible said. It was seriously like a cult of like-minded beings and since I was critically thinking about it, they turned on me as well.
I couldn't see how horrible things were until I was away from it all. Its like getting lost in a maze and not being able to figure out where to turn. Once you get out, climb that cliff, and look back down, you realize every corner and wrong turn made and you can't believe how caught-up in that mess you were.
I moved out of state and married a wonderful guy. I don't talk to part of my family anymore.
Fission Revision
[rebelmouse-image 18357902 is_animated_gif=I used to be against nuclear power, so I then decided to research it for school and it turned out it might be the best we've got until renewable resources get further in their development.
I don't think it's the best long term, but I don't think it's the devil no more. My parents who were green wavers during the seventies are very mad at me for this.
Important Issues
[rebelmouse-image 18348527 is_animated_gif=Certain themes of conversation
Resonate around the nation -
Small contentions oft repeated
Make for altercations heated.
Let us talk of all religions -
Add a dash or half a smidgen's
Pinch of doctrine hard to swallow -
Watch the chaos shortly follow.
Let us talk of state and power -
Add a drop of Donald's tower,
Daily news and contradiction -
Settle back and watch the friction.
Soon you'll find you're off debating,
Ranting, raving, raging, hating,
Never ending,
never stopping.
... let us talk of pizza topping.
Respect Gained
[rebelmouse-image 18357903 is_animated_gif=I was a hardcore anti-theist since I was a teenager, basically a rebellion against my strict religious upbringing. When I was in college an older family friend of ours relapsed into drugs and started f*ing his life up, losing his family and house. My parents invited him to their church and he gradually turned his life around thanks to his spiritual "rebirth." I'm still not a believer, but I have a greater respect for the social utility of religion after seeing what a turnaround that dude made.
Herbal
[rebelmouse-image 18349305 is_animated_gif=Cilantro. I absolutely could not stand the soap-like flavor for 20+ years. Entire stalks slapped on my Thai entrees, bits in the guacamole, haunted my dreams and damn near ruined Thanksgiving one year. Then one day, like magic, the soapy fog lifted. I have no idea what happened. I absolutely love the stuff now.
Reprogrammed
[rebelmouse-image 18357904 is_animated_gif=I used to think programming was dumb and computers were ridiculous for not being more intuitive. Then I spent 11 years working with people and realized they're worse. Now I'm stressed and can't remember how to program anymore.
Grammar Police Retiree
[rebelmouse-image 18357905 is_animated_gif=I used to be a die hard grammatical prescriptivist. There was a right way to talk and that was that. THERE ARE RULES!.
Over time I realized the rules are more or less arbitrary and the point of language is to communicate ideas, not follow strict rules. Whether you follow every rule in the MLA handbook or u talk liek dis all da tiem is irrelevant, as long as the listener understands the speaker's intent.
Anti-Vax No More
[rebelmouse-image 18357906 is_animated_gif=Used to be extremely anti-vaccination. Now quite in favor. What changed my mind? I had a baby and had to make that decision for someone other than myself. I dove into the research and did a lot of soul searching. It was really just a problem with ignorance on my part. We are all fully vaccinated now.
Expanding the Playlist
[rebelmouse-image 18357907 is_animated_gif=I used to hate country but then I discovered the banjo and bluegrass and turns out what I hate is modern country.
As the saying goes, you can't believe everything you read.
But every now and then, you might find yourself reading or hearing a piece of information that you at first think couldn't possibly be real.
Until you are presented with verified, reliable information to back it up... Then you have to eat your words and put your disbelief behind you.
Perhaps the most surprising instances of these are statistics, which at first glance you can't possibly believe are accurate and find yourself proven otherwise.
"What is a fact or statistic that seems fake but is real?"
And You Thought Sharks Were Dangerous...
"Horses kill more people every year in Australia than all the other beasties combined."
"Everyone thinks it's the spiders and snakes that'll get you, but it's the horses you've really got to watch."- Gingerbread_Cat·
The Dangers Of Scientific Advancement
"It took us more time to go from bronze swords to iron swords than it did for us to go from iron swords to nuclear weapons."- IMJUSTABRIK
Frightening People For Generations!
"Sharks have existed longer than trees have."- Capital_Indication_4
The Great Unknown
"I saw a scale model of the earth, moon and sun in a museum."
"The sun was about the size of a basketball, and the earth was on the opposite side of the room, the size of a small marble, I'd guess about 30 metres away."
"The moon was the size of a tiny pinhead, about 10cm away from the earth."
"On this scale, the nearest star to earth, Proxima Centauri, wouldn't be in the same building, or even in the same city."
"It would be 10,000km away."
"And that's just one star, the nearest one to us, in a galaxy containing billions of stars, which is just one of billions of galaxies."
"The scale of the universe really is mind bogglingly big."
"Far bigger than we can begin to comprehend."- Qabbalah
Zero Points To The Lost World For Authenticity...
"We live closer in time to Tyrannosaurus Rex than the T Rex did to the Stegosaurus."- reiveroftheborder
From Bad To Worse?
"After the British made head protection mandatory in WW1, the amount of head wounds increased."
"It's due to they were no longer KIA, but 'only' a head wound."- WouldUKindlyDMBoobs
Sarah Palin Can Confirm...
"USA is only 2.4 miles from Russia."
"2 islands in the Bering Strait, the body of water in the Pacific Ocean that separates Alaska from Russia, are 2.4 miles from each other at the narrowest point; one island is owned by Russia, the other is owned by USA."- Qabbalah
But Where Did "Ginger" Come From?
"In English, the color orange was named after the fruit."
"Before that, orange was just considered a shade of red."
"That's why gingers are called redheads."- I_might_be_weasel
At Least We Can Be Sure He Didn't Lie About It
"George Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed."- Silver34
But What Did They Want To Do With Those Cobras?
"New Delhi hired people to hunt cobra snakes which led to people having Cobra Farms to earn money, then the government stopped the project which led the Cobra Farmers to release their snakes, causing twice as many snakes than they first started."- cathabit
The Truth Lies Between The Lines...
"Barcode scanners scan the white lines, not the black ones."- the_blast_radius
But Does It Make It Easier To Avoid?
"Wombat poo is cube shaped, to stop it rolling away."
Perception Can Be Dangerously Misleading
"The Oxford University in England existed centuries before the rise and fall of the Aztec civilization."- RefrigeratorStatus96
"Time Is The Longest Distance Between Two Places..."
"A million seconds is 12 days."
"A billion seconds is 31 years. "
"A trillion seconds is 31,688 years."
"People have a lot of trouble comprehending numbers that big."- sunbearimon
One thing that makes science so remarkable is how difficult it can be to believe.
And yet, scientists have been working since the beginning of time to prove that facts are, indeed, facts.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.
People Share The Best Real-Life Examples Of 'You Can Have A Ph.D. And Still Be An Idiot'
Earning a college degree, especially a doctorate, takes a heck of a lot of work and definitely requires intelligence. Expertise in your usually narrow field of study definitely doesn't guarantee expertise in other areas — especially common sense, it seems.
Redditor SgtSkillcraft asked:
"Richard Feynman said, 'Never confuse education with intelligence, you can have a PhD and still be an idiot.' What are some real life examples of this?"
Too Much Ketchup
"My ex-boyfriends mother was a linguistics professor and knew over 10 languages. She was also one of the dumbest people I've ever met. Some examples: she believed that in case of emergency stewardesses catapult out of the plane; she was also convinced donating blood causes some blood disease and you can die because of it. But my favourite one was when she said her son's orthopaedic problems are not a result of a serious injury he had. His knee hurts because he eats too much ketchup."
- ImnotUK
"Man that ketchup is going straight to my knees. Ima need to sit for a minute."
- myrevenge_IS_urkarma
You'd Think An Engineer Would Understand Physics
"I had a boss who was an engineer who put a couple hundred dollars in change in a bank’s pneumatic drive through tube where it got stuck and they had to use a jack hammer to get it out. He was upset that the bank was charging him for this because he didn’t know this would happen. They had large signs saying not to put change in the tubes, including on the tubes themselves."
- RumBunBun
Self-Powering Power Strip
"My first call at my first IT job was in a medical laboratory. There was a doctor who had been in the job for years and she called saying her computer would not power on. I walked her through some troubleshooting and nothing worked. "Is the computer plugged in? Ok, is the monitor on? Ok, when did the problem start?" type of questions were asked and she answered them all. I go up to her office and indeed the computer is plugged in to a power strip which is plugged in to itself. Cleaning crew had deep cleaned her office and never plugged anything back in. Dr. plugged the power strip into itself thinking that as long as it was plugged in, that's all she needed."
- acheron53
Liquid Displacement Isn't That Complicated, Is It?
"I was at a keg party at college and the (gravity keg) was set up. Someone complained that the beer was not flowing, so I check that the keg was still almost full. Turns out someone closed the air intake on top. I opened the intake and poured myself a beer. Problem solved. A few minutes later someone else complains the beer is out. I told them the keg was full a few minutes ago and it was a tap problem that I fixed. They told me they just came from the keg. I go back to the keg and find the intake was closed again. Opened it and poured the young lady who said it was empty a beer. As she is leaving my suitemate comes in and goes to the intake can closes it. Now my suitemate is a straight A student who gets all As mostly due to his photographic memory."
"Back to the keg. So I tell him that he needs to leave the intake open to let air in to displace the beer coming out of the lower tap. He then proceeds to tell me that since the beer is carbonated air is not needed to replace the liquid volumn lost when the beer is dispensed. So I asked him two questions; If it is not needed, why is there the upper tap, and does he really think the amount of gas the carbonation gives off in a glass of beer is equal to the volumn of the liquid beer? He thought for a few seconds and his only response was, "I have a 4.0, what is your GPA?" Then he walked away."
- vpniceguys
Med Students Aren't Immune To The Bystander Effect
"Not quite PhD. But I was at a party (in the uk) full of med students and stereotypically everyone was off their face drunk. Well some guy fell over and broke his collar bone and immediately got rushed by a dozen of them all fussing and asking him the same questions over and 'going through the checklist'. Half an hour later and he's still on the couch in pain and I go in to ask if anybody knows why the ambulance is taking so long. Nobody had an answer because nobody had called one. A party full of medical students hadn't called an ambulance or made any transport arrangements for a guy in severe pain with a broken clavicle. Idiots."
- Reiseoftheginger
"That's actually super common in emergencies when there's a group of any kind. One of the first things you learn in a lifeguard certification course is to identify a single person to instruct to call 911. Never just yell out 'someone call 911' or assume that it's been done because everyone in the group is assuming someone else did it already."
"It's not necessarily that everyone forgot about it, just that everyone assumed it was the logical first step that someone else would have taken already."
- Bangarang_1
He Just Hadn't Had His Coffee Yet
"I had a professor for higher mathematics who had real difficulties figuring out how to extract a cup of coffee from the vending machine. Bless him."
- onesmilematters
Laser Focused Intelligence
"My wife has two Masters and a PhD, is internationally recognized in her field, and is an absent minded doofus. My role in her life is to ensure that her car works, that she takes her meds, and that she eats things other than yogurt and eggs. She can be brilliant one minute, then walk into the side of a moving bus the next."
"I love her dearly but she's a numpty."
- Lost_One_1963
Dump Dinners Were Designed For This Person
"As someone who did two trades and then decided life is better with education - my experience currently going to Uni is how clueless so many people are in Uni. I wouldn’t say they’re an idiot, but tons of ignorance develops living in a student bubble your whole life."
"I rented a room to a guy who did his masters, and it would take him hourssss to cook dinner. I watched him one day, and he just couldn’t wrap his mind around cooking things that take different amounts of time to cook."
"Like, he’d start cooking potatoes and wait til they were done before moving on to the next thing he was going to eat them with."
- XavierOpinionz
Doctors Are Brilliant...and Not So Brilliant
"I work with medical doctors all the time for work. Doctors are some of the dumbest smart people I have ever met."
- Secksualinnuendo
"Yup. I know a plastic surgeon who thought it was a great idea to sue Yelp for bad reviews his business was getting. This ensured that tons of news stories were written about him that repeated those bad reviews to a bigger audience."
- heimdahl81
"My friend's dad is a surgeon, I never forget when we were 13-14 and her mom called her to ask if she could go home and make something to eat for her dad because he was starving."
"That's when she told me that he had never ever made a meal himself for his entire life, he cannot even work the toaster, literally! So the guy was just starving at home because he cannot make a simple meal. And the next day he's fixing someone's heart."
- _reykjavik
"As someone who works security in a hospital, I can say a good 90% of the doctors there are smart but lack any type of common sense, and sometimes I wonder how they function on a day-to-day basis"
- Ray_Ray_86
Doors Are Hard
"I used to work at a university, and tons of academics are incredibly educated in their chosen field, but have the common sense of your average dachshund."
"My favourite was probably an entire group of geology professors and PhD candidates who got 'stuck' for a good few minutes in an entryway because they didn't think to check if the door required a pull rather than a push. Bearing in mind that they'd just entered with that same door not an hour before."
- Koras
Children Require Supervision At All Times
"My ex had a real lack of knowledge and common sense when it came to children."
"She's currently completing her PHD in biochemistry and molecular biology. She was confused though when I said I couldn't go out after putting my toddler to bed as I had no one to babysit. In her mind, once my daughter was asleep she no longer needed anyone here to take care of her."
"I chalked it up to cultural differences and never being around children. Eventually though our opinions on raising kids differed too much and I had to end things for my daughter's sake."
- RetroDad-IO
Just Read The Documentation
"Worked at a tech company, was made team lead. One of our team members was a PhD in astrophysics. He would ping me constantly for how to do things that we had well documented. How to install certain programs, how to gain access to servers or code repositories. Literally we would sit in zoom calls together and I would just read the instructions out loud and watch him do them. I was utterly confused as to how he could breathe by himself."
- Woodhouse_20
It's Not Supposed To Be A Soup
"A long time good friend, absolutely brilliant. Can literally beat you at chess blindfolded. Engineering in college and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But he’s a big picture guy, sees how things develop and great long term vision. Incredibly successful. But little things? Guy couldn’t pack a suitcase, wouldn’t know how to book a flight. Was making boxed Mac-n-cheese and couldn’t figure out why it was so watery. Ya, he didn’t drain the water after the pasta was cooked."
- PapaChoff
India Is Definitely Not A Continent
"Mother in law has a PhD in some thing related to botany. She thought India was a continental island like Australia. To this day I still have no idea how that happened when this came up she was in her mid 60's."
- SavingsCheck7978
Computers Aren't That Hard To Understand
"If you work IT you feel this. Every lawyer, doctor, celebrity and CEO I've ever worked with is computer illiterate. They can email, they can Twitter and that's it. They confuse the mouse, they openly call themselves Luddites, they kick the power plug out and claim the 'box broke'. Mega-millionaires, too. Smart in other regards, but computers are kryptonite."
- zeift
"not IT, but, I worked in tech support for Verizon fiber optic services a long time ago. they provided internet, TV, and phone services."
"my favorite call was a dude who couldn't receive calls, and this was a Big Deal™ because He Was A Doctor - that might've been something he repeated a few times. anywho, I walk him through basic troubleshooting as he's dramatically exhaling after every sentence because I should obviously just be sending a tech. I wasn't allowed to do that without going through the steps, though."
"everything in the house checked out, but, after an attempt to remotely reset the system to no avail, my last required step for the guy was reporting the state of some status lights in the terminal on the wall outside the house. I get the guy to pop the front panel, and I'm explaining that he needs to tell me which of these lights is on and off, and what one of the digital panels says. guy cuts me off to say, 'oh, hey, there's a bunch of phone and internet cables in here,' to which I reply, 'yes, there are, but, we don't need to pay attention to them at this time, we just need to know what the status of the system is.'"
"dude says, 'well, these don't seem to be plugged into the right ports. let me see if I can correct-' this was when I interjected with, 'sir, please don't mess with any of the wired connections, those are setup on installation and everything is already mapped to your home layout-'"
"that's when he cut me off with, 'I think I know what I'm doing - after all, I'm A Doctor.'"
"the line immediately went dead. obviously, I tried to call him back... but, his issue was that he couldn't receive phone calls, and we didn't have a cell phone number for him. shucks."
"I've often pictured the guy standing outside his home, realization of his mistake settling in, all while his brain starts to focus on the fact that he had to wait on hold for over fifty minutes to even speak with me. f**king glorious."
- extralyfe
We can't all be smart in every area of life, but it's good to be able to acknowledge your weaker areas as well as your strengths.
When it comes to TV and movies, acting is everything. A good actor can make a bad TV show good, while a bad actor can do the opposite.
While the main character is the person viewers focus on for the most part, the villain may be the most important character.
Without the villain, our main character wouldn't be interesting.
The actor or actress who plays the villain needs to be top-notch. A great example of this is Imelda Staunton, who played Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1.
Umbridge was a truly despicable character, made more evil by the fact that she posed as someone working for the greater good and held a position of authority over all the heroic characters. Staunton did a great job portraying her exactly as the books described, and made viewers hate her just as much as we hated her in the books.
As the main villain in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a poor performance would've destroyed the movie. Instead, this is often the movie fans like the best.
Redditors know the importance of a good villainous performance and are eager to share their opinions on the best in TV and movie history.
It all started when Redditor Helloimafanoffiction asked:
"What’s the greatest villain performance in a movie/TV show?"
Worst Teacher Ever?
"J.K. Simmons is up there for his role in Whiplash. Hated his guts there."
– Xporttek
"I just watched that movie for the first time a couple days ago, I too hated him! Who throws a chair at a student??? Who embarrasses a student in front of a whole audience just for revenge and then have the audacity to say "I will gouge your f*cking eyes out"???? Hated him."
– Lejarwomontequadea
"Thank you for getting that he was a villain. Too many of my friends see his speech at the end about finding/creating a good musician as profound enough to justify everything he did throughout the movie. And they see the “reconciliation” at the end as a sign that he was a good teacher after all. Maybe I’m off base, but that wasn’t what I saw at all. I saw a power hungry, obsessed, abusive adult take advantage of a passionate boy."
– John__Wick
Origin Stories Matter
"Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister."
"His introduction where he lectures Jaime while skinning a deer is perfection."
– 501stBigMike
"Yes. His acting was far more intricate and nuanced than any other villian on the show. He seemed like a real villian, not just a character being played. Too often hollywood goes overboard on the evilness of their characters and makes them evil for the sake of being evil. Give me backstory. Tell me how they become who they are."
– NeighborhoodCold6540
Super Scary
"Homelander in The Boys. I forgot the actor's name but the performance is actually kind of terrifying"
– Carnaraa
"Antony Starr"
– Precumbrian
"Yeahhhhhh he is so very very very scary. Absolutely amazing performance."
– Haliwe
"Every scene he's in I'm always worried that whoever he is interacting with won't survive the scene, especially if they're not a main character."
– HappyChaosOfTheNorth
"Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds"
"That opening scene is just....... 👌"
– hackyslashy
"Tarantino grew so frustrated at casting that role, he was five days away from calling off the movie when Waltz auditioned."
""I told my producers I might have written a part that was un-playable,” Tarantino said. “I said, I don’t want to make this movie if I can’t find the perfect Landa, I’d rather just publish the script than make a movie where this character would be less than he was on the page. When Christoph came in and read the next day, he gave me my movie back.""
– Exact_Roll_4048
The Curl Of The Lip
"Any and every villain Alan Rickman played, the man was a pure genius"
– Psyco_diver
"Rickman's villain roles are always captivating. Hans Gruber and the Sheriff of Nottingham being the two more notorious examples."
– Hydra_Master
"Sheriff of Nottingham is my pick. Maybe not as high as others in the evil stakes but nobody curls their lip in disdain like Rickman."
– Swimmingbackwardsish
Nightmares
"Child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang .. this one performance might have stopped many rl kidnappings."
– nineties_nostalgia
"Was the first film character that truly terrified me"
– 2020_really_sucks_
"Yeah nightmare fuel for sure, he was a ballet dancer in real life."
– nineties_nostalgia
Is There A Right Answer?
"Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh."
– f*ckyourlandlord
"To this day, I still wonder what the right answer to "Do you see me?" is."
– PaulsRedditUsername
So Very Hateable
"Commodus in Gladiator"
– SimonApexPlayer
"One of the first movie characters I actually hated. And that one a**hole from The Green Mile."
– heylittledog
Why So Serious?
"The Joker by Heath Ledger"
– Adalbjorg_Hiraeth
"I think it’s too easy of an answer so people are going with other stuff. He is the GOAT for that performance."
– CappinPeanut
"Absolutely this one. Crazy, maniacal, insane, unhinged - he’s just so damn convincing. 100% my favorite Batman film."
– mrshfter
Rage Inducing
"David Tennant in Jessica Jones."
– jennyrob669
"I absolutely adore David Tennant, in a Doctor Who—obsessed kind of way. And Kilgrave terrifies me to my core. It was really difficult to reconcile. He did such a good job being positively chilling."
– Lionswithwands
"The man has range."
– Tudpool
"Man he felt straight up menacing and nothing redeemable about him."
– Konebred
"I’ve never wanted to step into the screen and kill the bad guy more than this character."
– Primary_Difficulty19
Brilliantly Done
"Really enjoyed Andrew Scott’s portrayal as Moriarty in Sherlock."
– GlennSWFC
"Of course people are going to die, because that's what people DO!!!!"
"He was such an enjoyable unhinged maniac in that show."
– Hydra_Master
The Ultimate Anti-Hero
"Walter White"
"Probably the most complex and realistic evil character both in writing and performance. So complex that you honestly might not call him a villain at all. He's something like a good person who does evil things with good intentions and evil reasons. And Bryan Cranston's portrayal of him is awesome."
– PaulsRedditUsername
Animated Villain
"Azula in Avatar the Last Airbender"
– nicoledtn
"The scene where she and Zuko fight is so amazing. You see her unhinge and slowly lose her sh*t up to that scene. She finally goes crazy and it’s brilliant."
– vaulter2000
"Grey Griffin was the best voice actor for the role. Intimidating but cool."
– Sleepy_H34D
Azula was always my favorite villain!
Who would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
Sometimes the most outlandish ideas sound totally plausible.
In this day and age when 'Saturday Night Live' and 'The Onion' sound like credible news sources, anything is possible.
It feels like a lot of humans will believe literally anything.
Redditor Jeffery_DahmerTV wanted to discuss the ideas that sound too crazy that they have to be true, so they asked:
"What is the most believable conspiracy Theory?"
In this day and age of alternative facts, it all seems like lies and truth.
Enlighten me.
Infection
"That computer viruses are made by antivirus companies to test their antivirus software."
astarisaslave
"Parents bought a new computer recently, the McAfee stuff was in there pretty deep to remove. The staff bogged it down, way faster afterward."
lt12765
War
"We are being goaded into waging culture wars that don't matter to keep us from waging class wars."
virgilreality
"Is this a conspiracy theory though? It would be if you assume it was engineered from the start, but this would also make it very unbelievable. But that existing conflicts had been fueled and taken advantage of by people in the position to for millennia is well evident I'd say."
Leseleff
Double Down
"Mattress Firm is a front for laundering money. There is no other reason for there to be so many. No one is ever even in there."
Free_Bingo
"Double down on this one! I have a Mattress Firm next to my job and I have never seen anyone in there ever. It’s been six years!"
cbcmama781
"I’m not convinced of this. Our local Mattress Firm is clearly baking $1k+ into their margins and then aggressively selling credit-based financing. Selling two or three a month probably covers everything."
Agloe_Dreams
Weather Issues
"Those climate protestors that glue themselves to the road are hired by oil giants to make climate activists look stupid."
milanvlaman
"I feel this way about a lot of 'extremist' groups on both sides, that there are plants from the other side doing really stupid stuff just to discredit the idea."
Herr_Poopypants
The climate is changing. We have to come together. How is that a conspiracy?
That's All
"That the fashion industry purposefully doesn’t put pockets in women’s clothing so they have to carry purses."
diceunodixon
Financial Clean Up
"That the only reason that the US government doesn’t do anything with student debt loans is because then people would stop signing up for the army."
Brotastic29
"That and healthcare.
"When you join up you get healthcare fully covered for you and your family, and you can get a full college education.
If the government started providing either of those for civilians, no one would need to join the military anymore."
redF5veStandingBy
"I think so too. I know and agree with what that dude was saying but when I see or hear people use 'Army' as a way to generalize the military, it usually means that what they said is something they’re just repeating what they heard."
chefboiortiz
The Commission
"There's definitely more to JFK's assassination than the Warren commission made it out to be. Whether or not LHO was the sole killer, I find it fishy that the CIA was so desperate to hide information from the public."
Bitter-Record-3831
"There is a very well-done documentary that concludes it was an accidental discharge from a Secret Service agent in one of the cars ahead of him."
Babstana
"CIA probably considered the assassination a declaration of war against Russia. They’re probably covering up that they were about to start WW3 over it."
tangcameo
Dairy Pounds
"The Great cheese conspiracy. Each year the US government buys more and more milk to make more and more cheese. The US government is sitting on something like 2 billion pounds of cheese. Just to artificially inflate milk prices."
worfhill
"Not even a conspiracy, just an example of the government controlling the economy in favor of dairy farmers."
Glass_Pies
"I watched a documentary about this. It's actually true."
PreferredSex_Yes
They're Listening
"That the CIA posts questions like this on Reddit to measure their past and current work, brainstorm for future projects."
ZRX1200R
Ominous
"I have a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. I believe the governments and 'leaders' of the world are actually rather incompetent, so much so, that they require the illusion of them being an ominous all-powerful all-seeing entity in order to remain in power."
"And to accomplish this they allow conspiracy theories like the Illuminati and etc to spread around to add a bit of urban myth to how 'powerful' they are."
"It's probably all a bunch of garbage Europe can barely communicate within itself you expect there to be some secret global order??? Oh, stop it haha."
SparkNoJoyThrw01
Sifting through what could and could not be true, could take forever.
Life is full of mystery.