Let's just get it all out on the open. Shall we? I think one of the main reasons we're having so much societal breakdown is due to everyone's inability to communicate.
Now I know everyone feels differently about certain subjects, and everyone is entitled to their feelings, but a safe, open dialogue is for the greater good.
As a person who is part of a marginalized group, I'll be taking questions. Some of my people don't want to and sometimes I don't want to but I like to think beyond my own feelings. If someone is asking, that is an opportunity for us to educate.
All I ask is that you keep it polite. And don't test my patience.
Redditoru/jimmehbaconwanted the straights out there to have this moment to engage in an open dialogue, by asking:
Straight people, what burning questions do you have about the LGBTQ Community?
It's human nature to be curious about the things we don't understand. So let's probe these thoughts. Look at me already starting with a pun.
Let's Talk About Sex...
sex ed film GIFGiphy"Can I be gay without liking sex? I had moments when I was younger about wanting to be with a person but just that male-to-male sex turns me off or weirded me out."
"Absolutely. You could be gay and asexual if you're romantically attracted to the same sex but not sexually attracted to anyone. You could also be homo-romantic and heterosexual if you're romantically attracted to the same sex but sexually attracted to the opposite sex."
- jayraan
The Cycle
"Since a lot of people question their heterosexuality, do you also sometimes question your homosexuality?"
"Not necessarily homosexual, but in the bisexual community there's a term called 'the bi-cycle' which basically means the usual doubt and questioning cycle, because due to various reasons, most bisexuals question their bisexuality a lot and commonly."
Ladies?
"Lesbians: do you also find dating women hard? I know my gay buddies always complain that it's hard to find a solid relationship. So, I'm just wondering what your dating gripes are?"
"Yes absolutely. Dating pool is very small, you can't approach strangers because they could be straight and no one knows who should make the first move."
To Denmark!
"Why do asexuals want to invade Denmark? I'm nervous."
"There are estimated to be over 70 million asexuals in the world, which means that we can easily overpower the Danish military. Don't worry, we won't hurt the citizens, and we'll make it a great country. I know Denmark is already a great country! I've been there once, loved it, and in general I know it's a good country."
Flirts...
"Do you ever feel nervous when you compliment a guys looks or flirt with them because you think they might be straight and get super angry at you?"
"I used to be... I still don't flirt unless I KNOW they're not straight, but if a guy has a nice haircut, or a cool shirt or hat or mask or whatever, I'll say something. Brightens their day. I love when people compliment my wardrobe, after all."
How You Doin Kiss GIFGiphy"For all the people who are wondering about the sort of guys who would get their hackles up at a compliment from another guy—personal anecdote, I grew up in the southeastern US, 90s-00s. Very conservative area, very close to Alabama. Very homophobic. So... those sorts of guys. Lot of us LGBTQ+ folks gotta develop defense mechanisms to get by."
So far, so good. I'm pleasantly surprised by the actual thought behind some of these musings. Back in the day it was all sex questions. Dear I say, people have matured. Let's continue...
I have a feeling...
Season 3 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Is gaydar a real thing? How often do you hit on straight people straight people before realizing they are straight?"
"It's definitely a thing. Though it's never 100% accurate and it's really hard to describe the exact signs, there's just subtle signals that let gay people recognize each other more easily. I've personally never hit on a straight person before, and I've even called some of my friends being gay years before they came out to me."
People Break Down Their Greatest Accomplishment On The Internet | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Next to Normal
"Do you feel like it's genuinely getting better or heading in the right direction regarding equality and it just being considered as 'normal' or regular as any other relationship or lifestyle X?"
"In my country I think the shift is definitely more positive towards acceptance. Teenagers now just don't care what you identify as, when I came out my teenage sisters were just like yeah and then told me about their friend's identity and their own. It was a normal conversation not weird or hushed."
Options...
"I am not straight but I don't know what I am. How do I figure this out? Is possible not to be attracted to anyone?"
"Asexuality is s lack of sexual attraction. Aromantic is a lack of romantic attraction. You could be either or both, there's also demisexual/romantic, where you don't feel attraction without building a strong emotional attachment. They're all LGBT+, they're all valid and there's subreddits for all of them if you want to explore."
Friends?
"For lesbians/bisexual women (? idk if that's the right term sorry)—how do you know you're sexually/romantically attracted to women vs just interested in being friends? Because whenever I see a woman I think is attractive, I honestly can't tell if I'm sexually attracted to her or if I just want to be like her lol."
"It's been really fun and enlightening to read about everyone's experiences. Definitely comforting to know a lot of people have this dilemma too regardless of orientation! PS: I feel like I am definitely biromantic 😂 (Cannot decide on bisexual because I really cannot imagine the sex without experiencing it)."
May I?
Confused Where Am I GIF by OriginalsGiphy"Are you annoyed when people ask you a lot of questions? Or any at all?"
"Depends what the question is, but I'm usually very open and I'm always happy to help."
The Bi-Way
"Closeted Bi-guy here. I don't know anyone who would give me grief over it, but is it weird that I just have no interest in "coming out"? I mean, I'd obviously tell family and friends when required (I.e if I was to start dating a guy) but unless I had to I just prefer to keep it to myself."
"You don't need to come out. Both my parents are bi. They are in a monogamous, hetero relationship and have been married for 32 years. I only learned they were bi when I was in my teens and we were watching a documentary about bisexuality together. They never talked about it before that point and have rarely mentioned it since, and they don't need to because it doesn't significantly affect their lives."
to be the rock...
"My 15-year-old daughter came out to us a month ago. How do I best support her as her dad, knowing that her life will have additional challenges that I'm not experienced in? Many of my best friends throughout my life are LGBTQ, and I'd hope that I had been (and still am) a supportive and loving friend, but wasn't necessarily in the role to be their shoulder to lean on or a mentor."
"With my daughter, I want to be her rock. I want to be able to give her comfort that I will do anything to help if things are tough. Perhaps this is the same as being a supporting father in any child's upbringing. However, I know she'll have more challenges. Am I overthinking this? I just want to be the best dad for her."
- redtray
Decisions. Decisions.
Tell Me More Jeff Goldblum GIF by National Geographic ChannelGiphy"Who decides what goes into LGBT+ and what doesn't? Who decides in the order of, don't know what to call them… sexualities/sexual identities?"
Out of the Box
"So i'm a rural bi-guy it's rare that I bump into others like myself but it's such a relief when I do, being rural and bi is interesting i'd say, there's not that big of a gay scene and it's still a bit shunned sadly. I've never been to a city and experienced the culture, but can safely say I like penis and I like vagina."
"I told my dad this and he just laughed and called me greedy and good for me, he liked my first boyfriend as well good man. Anyway i'm rambling I guess my question is are all these labels important? honestly I don't really understand it too much i'm just like, let people love who they want to love do we need to put everyone in these neat boxes?"
- Gaunts
For the Wife
"My wife didn't really accept herself as bi until after we were together. We are monogamous. I do my best to support her. She really wants to be part of the community and participate in things like pridefest but I think she feels uncomfortable. I've offered to both go with her or let her go alone."
"She doesn't want to go alone but also doesn't want to be seen as straight either. I think it's awesome who she is and want her to not feel left out and I also think it's important that she helps represent her sexuality to help combat bi-erasure. Are people really judgy about things like this? Is it ok for me to go with her? What can we do to make her more comfortable?"
- fuzzthed
Support Issues
"What do you think about pride and moment when every company changing their logo to rainbow?"
- Cup4ik
"I personally have two different opinions that coexist in my brain:"
"A) It's nothing but transparent virtue signaling meant as a marketing ploy, these companies do not truly care and often are actively harming the LGBT+ community behind the scenes."
"B) The fact that huge corporations feel confident enough that their pride messaging will garner a favorable public opinion to go through with it is a great litmus test for how society as a whole is starting to warm up to the whole concept, and that in itself is heartening, even if the companies themselves are focused solely on profit."
Difficulties...
"Is it difficult coming out of the closet? Like, for very religious families?"
"Honestly, I don't even have a religious family and coming out is still difficult. It's important to realise that yes, you "come out" to your family, but there's never one big "coming out" where it's like noted on your file that you're gay and everyone knows you're gay after that?"
"I still have to "come out" to my coworkers, and yes, it looks different from the "mom, dad, I'm gay" conversation (i.e simply using "husband" instead of wife, or talking about my partner as "he/him"), but the feeling of anxiety is still the same. Am I going to be suddenly shunned? etc."
Left Out
Trans Day Of Visibility Lgbt GIFGiphy"Do trans men feel left out of the conversation on trans rights at all? It feels very focused on trans women."
- Hcmp1980
"Extremely. And trans women are choked by it, on the opposite end of the plank. Trans men get less positivity, trans women get more negativity. It's a huge lose-lose."
"People don't seem to think trans men exist, which is probably because transitioning seems nefarious and sexual and only "men" are those things. But that means every time you see "trans person evil blah blah" it's never a trans male athlete on a men's team or a trans man in the men's bathroom."
That wasn't so bad. Was it? We all learned and grew as humans, I hope. And nobody was offended or ridiculed, I'm hope even more. Let's keep dialoging, it's the only way.
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Companies and products rebrand for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes they want to revitalize a dying brand.
Or stay fresh and modern.
Other times they're trying to put a negative public image in their rear view mirror.
And sometimes, someone somewhere in a company has low impulse control.
Anyway...
Reddit user PulakHasan asked:
"What's the Weirdest Rebranding of all time?"
Weight Watchers
"Weight Watchers abbreviated their name down to 'WW' and in doing so, increased the syllables needed to pronounce their new company name."
~ hambone10
"You burn more calories uttering the extra syllables."
~ jungl3j1m
waitr
"Waitr was an extremely successful delivery service here. They had full time employees and you could get food delivered in 30-45 minutes."
"Then, they made everybody an independent contractor and started calling themselves ASAP."
"'As slow as possible' caught on and they lost the majority market share within a month."
~ bravesgeek
GiphyHBO
"I still don’t understand HBO dropping probably the most prestigious name in cable tv/streaming."
~ stoneman9284
"Right?! Also it literally means Home Box Office - that’s the best name for a streaming service????"
~ oreos_in_milk
Nordic Choice Hotels
"Nordic Choice Hotels rebranded to 'Strawberry'."
"They have to mention their old name all the time, because Strawberry could be absolutely anything."
"If only it were 'Strawberry Hotels' but it's not. It's just Strawberry."
"They removed the part that explains what kind of business it is."
"Madness."
~ WoodSheepClayWheat
GiphyUSWest
"USWest-->Qwest-->CenturyLink-->Lumen I don’t care what your name is."
"Can I have more than 10mbps DSL at my address?"
~ Trickycoolj
"In Europe, and it's now Level3--> Centurylink--> Lumen--> Colt."
"I'm sure they rename in the hope people forget the incompetence."
~ ConsciousValence
"My mom has worked for them since 1977 when they were Northwestern Bell."
"She's been through a billion name changes."
~ CorporalBB
Circuit City IQ Crew
"Circuit City rebranding their PC technician division from IQ Crew (which predated Geek Squad, by the way) to..."
"Firedog."
"I worked at a Circuit City from 2005-2008 and we all thought it was a prank when we saw the announcement."
"'The intensity of fire with the loyalty of man's best friend'."
"I sh*t you not—that was the marketing."
~ Tiberius_Jim
GiphyBritish Petroleum
"When after a major oil spill, BP changed their branding to Beyond Petroleum for an ad campaign showing how they were investing in renewables."
"Logo change too."
~ RandomAmuserNew
"An oil spilled followed by a huge effort to cover it up, including dumping Corexit into the water to mix with the oil and make it sink."
"So it was no longer visible from aerial shots, but it did far, far more damage mixed with a dangerous chemical and sitting on the sea floor than slowly evaporating or being soaked up on the surface."
~ LurkerOrHydralisk
Amoco
"When BP purchased Amoco, they quickly rebranded all the stations to BP."
"Not sure if it is everywhere but Amoco had a lot of brand recognition in the Midwest and a lot of people just didn’t like BP."
"Eventually, they started rebranding some of their stations back to Amoco to cash in on nostalgia."
"I always thought it was dumb but never realized that so many people hated it until after I worked for BP (very briefly) and was told the story of how much pushback they got."
~ anitabelle
British Petroleum (BP Oil)/Paul Sableman
Overstock.com
"Overstock.com I think qualifies for weird rebrand."
"Bed Bath and Beyond went out of business and was bought out by Overstock and then Overstock just rebranded everything to Bed Bath and Beyond."
"If you go to overstock.com it’s just BBB."
~ WhatsABuckland
Snoop Dogg
"When Snoop Dogg (temporarily) changed his name to Snoop Lion to make a reggae album."
~ RomanOnARiver
"Snoop’s original name on Death Row was 'Snoop Doggy Dogg'. When he left Death Row and went to No Limit, he had to alter his name (which might have been his original name) to 'Snoop Dogg'."
~ GotMoFans
"Snoop’s mother used to call him Snoopy as a nickname which is the origin."
~ OpanaMan
"The Charles Schulz people would have had a field day."
~ GotMoFans
GiphyBooks-A-Million
"Books-A-Million to 'BAM'."
"I was in a parking lot with one and had no idea it was a bookstore, as I was a bit too far out to see more than 'BAM' from where I was parked."
~ lynnyfox
KIA
"Everytime I see the new KIA logo I assume its a NIN [Nine Inch Nails] fan."
~ vinyalwhl
"I thought it was KN for an embarrassingly long time."
~ VulfSki
"KIA changed their logo on their cars and Google showed an uptick in the searches for 'K N cars' because people liked the look of them but didn’t realise it was a KIA."
~ User_Deleted_Content
Mark Chan on Unsplash
Royal Mail
"Royal Mail deciding Consignia was the way to go forwards."
~ PonITdude
"They wanted to go international but they lost so much money that year they had to stay national and reversed the name back."
~ ShinyHead0
"Twitter to X."
~ sandiercy
"And then everyone still refers to it as Twitter."
~ Safety_Drance
"'A user on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted…'.”
~ tommyk1210
"Rather like to see 'A user on Twitter, erroneously known as X, posted...'."
~ SagittaryX
"'A user on twitter, largely unknown as X, posted...'."
~ Pinksters
"A few days ago, I saw an article that said 'Twitter, which Elon Musk incorrectly thinks is called X for some reason...'."
"That was pretty funny."
~ temalyen
GiphyCity Landmarks
"In Chicago we still call it the Sears Tower [renamed Willis Tower in 2009]."
~ baccus83
"And in Pittsburgh, it’s still Heinz Field [renamed Acrisure Stadium in 2022]."
~ NoVaBurgher
"And in Toronto, it’s still the Skydome [renamed Rogers Centre in 2005]."
~ nonanarchist
"And in New York when you take 287 across the Hudson it's still the Tappan Zee Bridge [renamed Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in 2017]. "
~ keytarin
"A lot of LA people still call it Staples Center [renamed Crypto.com Arena in 2021]."
~ New_Simple_4531
"In Denver we will always say Mile High Stadium [renamed Empower Field at Mile High in 2019]."
~ SheBrokeHerCoccyx
Some rebrandings make perfect sense to the public.
Others are utterly baffling.
What would you add to this list?
Reddit user b-secret asked:
"What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever Googled?"
How Much?
"what's the alcohol percentage in 70% rubbing alcohol?"
~ LightsJusticeZ
"55% alcohol, 15% rubbing"
~ FishOfFishyness
Who?
"I Googled my work because I couldn’t remember my boss’ name after working there for 8 months."
"I just blanked and couldn’t think of it."
~ HCxTC
Spellcheck
"I Google how to spell restaurant all the time."
~ ParkOk6450
"I'm like that but with Febuary."
"EDIT: February"
~ NeoNero_x
"I go into incognito mode to check spellings of words I should know how to spell."
~ LordCaptain
GiphyUm, No.
"I was trying to find the name of those signs where a word is written down the side and each letter is used for a descriptive word."
"Confusing I know."
"So here’s an example: False Evidence Appearing Real"
"I know it has to have a name. So I googled 'Sign where every word starts with a letter' and Goggle responded with 'Did you mean a sentence?'.”
~ Team_Lift
Looks Like...
"Googled green beans once, was super high and forgot what they looked like."
~ testies2345
"I did the same thing with beets."
~ Jjetsk1_blows
Gaby Yerden on Unsplash
That Movie, With the Guy and the Stuff...
"I'll forget the name of a movie and just type in random sh*t I think I remember. Usually it works."
"Like 'that movie where the kid sleeps and has weird dreams and flies on a bed'."
"Works like a charm."
~ fohsupreme
Did They Have Blue Feet?
"big boobies"
"I was only 10."
"I was surprised to find some."
~ PoopPower99
"I’m 39 and I Google this every day."
~ dekkact
"They're nice birds but are they really worth Googling everyday?"
~ redwolf1219
Blue-Footed Boobies
GiphyPredictive Text
"I used to search something like 'no clothes' or 'without clothes' or something like that when I was a kid."
"Then I learnt the word NAKED because of the TV show Naked and Afraid."
"Then searched it so many times that my autocorrect started to show that word first when I wanted to type something."
~ sniper8207
NSF...S?
"My favorite band growing up was 'The Barenaked Ladies'."
"When I was at school, I once Googled them and clicked on a link that said 'free shows!'."
~ BW_Bird
Good Description
"I forgot what a 'gondola' was called so I typed in 'Thing that carries you through the mountains in a basket'."
~ TheGreatJaceyGee
"I once forgot the word for 'door' so my brain reached for adjacent concepts, smashed them together and threw them out my mouth: 'house portal'."
~ Tail_Nom
GiphyIt Just Doesn't Translate
"I have to search a random word 'auf Englisch' or a random word 'auf Deutsch'."
"Every damn day."
"It took me a minute to realize that there was no way to translate Schadenfreude into English."
~ grammar_fixer_2
Ah, Memories...
"I found out that as long as you're logged into Google, all your searches are saved to your Google account (I'm not talking about browser history)."
"So I looked back, and the 1st thing I ever googled after getting a Google account was 'Can ducks fly'."
"I've no idea why I googled this. I know ducks can fly."
~ caca__milis
GiphyYou Ate What‽‽
"Once I was with some friends and I was telling them about how when I was a kid we only got to eat nuts as a special treat around Christmas."
"Then I mentioned how much I liked squirrel nuts and no one knew what they were. So I Googled 'squirrel nuts' with image search."
"Not at all what we ate at Christmas time."
"Finally found out what my family called 'squirrel nuts' were actually called hazelnuts."
~ 123fofisix
100% NSFW
"A few years ago my coworker and I were looking at the calendar at work. It had pictures of birds and we were trying to figure out what kind of bird was pictured for that month."
"I can’t remember what she thought it was, but I darned sure it was a Great Tit."
"We have a great relationship and have been working together for a long time but we tend to argue like an old married couple. So we went to Mr Google for the answer."
"Let me tell you that Googling Great Tit at work isn’t something I will ever do again."
"For the record, I was right. The bird was a Great Tit."
~ pi11bott
Great Tit holds an insect in its beak
A Perry on Unsplash
Hope some of these folks remembered to clear their browser and search histories.
So, what's your hilarious—or embarrassing—little Google secret search?