We all go through phases, but some of them were just too much to looking back on them. These people reveal the most cringe worthy phases they have been though.
u/thecorgisleeps asks:
People who went through that "it's not a phase mom" phase as a teen, what are some moments from it that still make you cringe when looking back on it?
When you were going for the edgy look
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I pierced my lip while I was sitting in my 8th grade math class with a safety pin I found outside. I didn't change it to a stud until 6/7 months later. So in essence I wore a rusty safety pin in my lip to look edgy.
When you pretend to be from somewhere else
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For some reason I spent a couple months attempting to speak with a Jamaican/Caribbean accent.
That would be 12 year old, 65lb scrawny white guy me.
When you didn't really go all the way
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"Being a wiccan" which was entirely me just wearing black, buying incense, and drawing pentagrams on all my school work.
When you tried to be in fashion
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Trying to cut my own emo fringe.
I literally just cut a straight line into half my fringe and looked like a f****** moron.
When your mom is to blame
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Back in Junior High/High School, I was a full on Goth freakshow.
Black clothes, black dyed hair, black lipstick, black nail polish, black everything. I even wore spooky contact lenses to make my eyes creepy. My favorites were these red ones that made my eyes look like a snake.
I think the most cringey part was the fact that my Mom was 100% supportive of it. She took me to Hot Topic to buy all of my clothes, and even came up with fun ideas to make me look scarier to the "conformist zombie sheep" that I desperately tried to offend with my awkward appearance.
I sometimes wonder how many Goth kids came from supportive, privileged, upper middle class homes and had conversations like I had with my Mom.
When hip hop helps your english
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Back in 9th Grade, I had Eminem fever, where I dressed up like a white slim shady and rapped his songs, It would be normal, Except I was in India, No one knew who Eminem was and what the songs meant, My mom was angry and I called it a phase, few others supported me because they though I had great English skills for rapping "Without Me". Everyone called me Hip-Hopper, which got annoying before High School.
The bed-less phase
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Decided my sophomore year if high school that i didn't want a bed anymore so i moved a couch into my room and slept on it til i got out of high school.
Looking back on it my parents didn't make a big deal about it.
When everything was groovy
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I was extremely 70's-ish, minus the weed. High school, nickname being Hippie. I'm talking bell bottoms, a headband every day, braids, flowy shirts in garish colors, the whole 9. My mother hated it so much that she begged me to stop, so I gave my headband to her one year for Christmas with the promise to not wear it again. But I made another one. It was an awkward time.
When you were from another planet
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For maybe a few months I decided I was an alien. My parents just hadn't told me, and we were really from Saturn. I told a couple of kids at school and wore this cool windbreaker jacket my grandma got me even though it was hot out saying that it was designed to regulate my temperature.
This is not a phase, it's fashion
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Baggy jeans and thick, long wallet chains!
I still remember the argument:
Mom: this is the stupidest fashion craze I've ever seen!
Me: IT'S NOT A PHASE MOM! ITS FASHION! YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME!
I was so sassy back then lol
When you were the most rude
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I'm 17 and its Thanksgiving Day. I'm wearing my Megadeath Tee shirt, I have an angry scowl on my face and not talking to anyone. We go around the table and say to each other what we are thankful for, I say "I'm thankful that I won't have to see you all for another year".
I did this in front of about 20 family members and a couple guests. The younger cousins thought i was a world star, but I look back on it as a 42 year old and I want to punch my younger self.
When anime is life
I was a big anime fan (still am, I just hide it better now) and used to walk around with my Naruto plushy as a 16 year old. I hate that I used to do that, and I still cringe today. My boyfriend once told me that if we knew each other in high school we definitely would not have gotten along because he used to think people like that were weird and I thought everyone should watch anime and were lame for not understanding me.
It's a style, not a phase
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It's not a phase, mom. It's been 30 years since I picked up the habit of writing 7's the European way with a bar through the stem. Without the bar a 7 looks naked.
When you were everything
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I went through a Wiccan phase, but it was jacked up to an 11. Because we believed were the destined saviors of the world! That's right.
When your mum was right
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Me and my mum having a huge fight because she wouldn't let me go out in jeans that were honestly about 3 sizes too small.. Then I ran away with my boyfriend (who was 4 years older than me) and we hid under a bridge.. all because my mum didn't want me to look like s*** . Sorry mum
When you created a vampire army
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Vampire- wore plastic fangs all the time and white facepaint all black, corsets and victorian style gowns and crinoline.sometimes fake blood. I rounded up awkward friendless kids and had them dress Like me and made a 'vampyre clan' complete with a book where we all chose our 'vampyre' names and backstories. We also became pretend * wiccans* which was hanging out in the mall parkade pouring candle wax On cut off hair. Thought it was serious stuff.
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run