Brands That Abandoned Their Core Audience And Paid Dearly For It
Reddit user Fflewddur_Fflam_ asked: 'Who abandoned their core audience and paid the price for it?'
As the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Nonetheless, several brands and businesses will sometimes make noticeable changes, be it to reach a wider audience, or simply to shake things up a bit.
In some cases, the effort pays off, like Dunkin' Donuts, who decided to stretch beyond simply selling doughnuts and coffee, eventually even dropping the "Donuts" from their name, but losing none of their popularity.
Other times, things don't go as smoothly, such as when IHOP (an acronym for the International House of Pancakes) temporarily changed its name to IHOB (International House of Burgers), which turned out to be nothing but a weeklong publicity stunt, but was met with anger and vitriol from it's fanbase during that controversial week.
Redditor Fflewddur_Fflam_ was curious to hear what other brands the Reddit community thought betrayed their core audience to disastrous results, leading them to ask:
"Who abandoned their core audience and paid the price for it?"
Humans Are Technically Animals...
"Animal Planet."
"Their tagline became 'surprisingly human.'"
"Nobody wants to watch ANIMAL Planet for people."
"They have other channels."- rainbirdmelody
You Could Say Their Mission Slipped Through The "Cracks"...
"Cracked.com."
"There were a couple years there where they transformed from a second rate Mad knockoff to some of the smartest, funniest stuff on the internet."
"Then the people who held the purse strings decided listicles and photoshop contests were more profitable than a writing staff."- MichaelMyersResple
"StumbleUpon."
"It was a small website giving you randomized internet pages which I used to browse for hours as they were so fun."
"Now it turned into Mix and I have no clue what it is."
"Pretty sure no one uses it and it makes me sad."- MightyDaisy
Working On It GIF by KAT BALLGiphyLess Handcrafted, More Hand-Me-Down
"Etsy."
'Used to be a fairly cool place to buy and sell mostly handcrafted stuff and items to make handcrafted stuff."
"Now it's basically shady Amazon with worse shipping."
"Everyone seems to be drop shippers and a lot of the more niche crafter/artisan things are pushed out and overwhelmed by cheaper, mass produced goods."- THIS_IS_MY_JOYSTICK
The Dreaded Paywall...
"Photobucket!"
"Back when forums were still a thing, Photobucket would host your images for free."
"Then one day they decided EVERYONE would have to pay monthly, no free tier, nothing."
"We all collectively agreed we would not be paying, and that was that."
"I feel like it may have contributed to the death of forums."
"Ruined a few of my car build threads, that's for sure."
"To this day they still send me emails a couple times a year threatening to delete all my photos if I don't come back."-pr0b0ner
Arguably, All For The Best?...
"Yik Yak."
"It was a way to have conversations with people in the area anonymously (really popular on college campuses)."
"They made an update to create user profiles and pretty much everyone just stopped using it because anonymity was the whole point."- Fakjbf
episode 16 moe GIFGiphyChocolate Lovers Revolt!
"This is incredibly niche, but in Norway there used to be two providers of chocolate powder, the kind you mix with hot or cold milk to make hot chocolate or chocolate milk."
"They were O'Boy brand and Nesquik, equally loved and enjoyed a healthy fanbase 'rivalry'."
"O'Boy is a Swedish product sold in Scandinavia and the Baltics since the 50s, Nesquik is of course Nestlé brand and sold all over the world."
"Sometime in the 2010s Nesquik decided to change the formula of the choco powder."
"I imagine to save money."
"And for making hot chocolate the new recipe was fine."
"What Nestlé underestimated, however, is that most Scandinavians drink their choco powder cold to make chocolate milk."
"The new recipe had a different type of sugar in it that wouldn't dissolve in cold milk, leaving a crunchy powder in the milk."
"Norwegians outraged, Nesquik was deemed useless, nearly everyone in the Nesquik camp migrated to O'Boy, and Nestlé lost almost all its market share overnight."
"A few months later, Nesquik is gone from the shelves nearly everywhere, never to recover from the blunder."- -Yngin-
Tornados Filled With Sharks Are Not For Everyone...
"Sci-Fi Channel."
"At some point there was no sci-fi on it."- AlienBeingMe
Tara Reid Storm GIF by SYFYGiphyNot Everyone Can Keep Up With The Times...
"RadioShack."
"They went from selling electronic components, little gadgets, and interesting tech bobbles to nerds to trying to sell expensive cell phone plans and sh*tty batteries to a different audience."
"We saw that the customers who came to RadioShack shifted from middle/upper-income engineers and tech geeks to lower income people in a six year period."
"Then we saw the geeks stop coming in at all because they would come in for some capacitor or breadboard, and the person there wouldn't know what that was."
"If it wasn't a phone, they didn't know."
"Even if it was a phone, they probably couldn't tell you anything about it."
"Old RadioShack employees were knowledgeable and well paid."
"New RadioShack employees didn't give a sh*t about technology."- 001235
Seems FittingThat Their Old Audience Is "History"...
"Anyone else remember when The History Channel was about history and not about aliens?"- rienjabura
Found Footage Video GIF by Eternal FamilyGiphyThere's A Reason They're Not So Well Known For Their Food...
"Every restaurant that opens in the UK goes through the cycle:"
"New and interesting food."
"Very different from most British food."
"Becomes very popular."
"Owners sell to a large company."
"Large company decides that being popular isn't enough, they want everybody to eat there."
"Make the food more British."
"Looming failure is hidden for a while because they attract new customers at exactly the rate they lose old customers."
"New customers have tried it, realize they can get that food anywhere, stop going."
"Chain closes and is replaced by a Greggs or Nandos, depending on the size of the location (not dependent on how far away the nearest Greggs or Nandos is."- skztr
Money Doesn't Solve Everything
"Quora."
"There were excellent groups with intelligent discussions."
"Then it became monetized and people submitted 100s of questions a day."
"'What time does the Walmart close in Boise?'" "
"'My 16 yr old came home with an A- so I took away their phone for 6 months'."- JanuarySoCold
Bored Sales GIF by EGiphySuccess can be a very dangerous thing.
As it can make you think about nothing but getting bigger, often resulting in your leaving people behind along the way.
A cautionary tale for young entrepreneurs.
Brilliant Ideas That Were Poorly Executed
Reddit user thespacecowboyy asked: 'What was a brilliant idea but poorly executed?'
The key to being a successful entrepreneur is having one brilliant idea.
A catalyst to spark inspiration and creativity, something you know that everyone in the world will want, that corporations will try to buy, and competitors will try to mimic.
Of course, the other key to being a successful entrepreneur is having that idea successfully executed.
No matter how brilliant your idea was, if it falls short on execution even the tiniest bit, then its chances of success are all but doomed to failure.
"What was a brilliant idea but poorly executed?"
$10 A Month For $4 Thousand Worth Of Movie Tickets... How Could It Go Wrong?
"Moviepass, i.e. a monthly subscription service to see as many movies as you want for a flat fee."
"The core concept is actually solid."
"The big risk with unlimited subscriptions is induced demand, where people consume more of your product because their unit price drops."
"Movie theaters are mostly fixed costs, however, they don't really care about induced demand outside of opening weekend for big blockbusters (which you can make special rules about)."
"As long as a movie isn't sold out, you'd basically take any amount of money for the empty seats."
"Even if someone sees ten movies in a month, you're still probably making money even if you only charged them two movie's worth, and that's before potential concession sales."
"That said, the theaters have to be on board, and Moviepass launched without first getting them to agree to such a system."
"Instead, Moviepass had to pay full price to the theaters for every single movie seen."
"Their prices were not fixed, and as a result the induced demand absolutely crushed them."- Notmiefault
Microsoft Clearly Didn't Read The Book Of Genesis...
"Microsoft Zune."- TheDadaMax
"Great product, poorly marketed."
"But it was (imo) vastly superior to the iPod."- EnigmaCA
technology rip GIF by gifnewsGiphySo, So, Sad...
"Recycling."
"I wish it was great everywhere."- Glitchykins8
Biking Without The Peddling
"The Segway."
"It was hailed as what the car was to the horse and buggy."
"Built by a famous inventor it never took off."
"One of the most hyped inventions of all time."- Swimming_Stop5723
Way Too Soon... (On So Many Levels)
"Selling tickets to dive in a sub to see the Titanic."- nullrecord
Titan Submarine GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphyNot The Right Prescription
"Google Glass."
"I remember when people were talking about how it was gonna be the next 'big thing' and it failed."- LouisTheFox
When You Can't Help But Miss Used Car Salesmen...
"Carvana."
"Loved the idea of putting more control of the car-buying experience back in the hands of the buyer but myself and my wife both had a harrowing experience buying through them and their 'hassle-free' return process was absolutely riddled with hassles."- Grand-wazoo
It Literally Had People Seeing Red...
"Nintendo's Virtual Boy."- TailsxCream4Eva
"Nintendo's Power Glove."- mezz7778
"RoB the Robot."- DiscussionLoose8390
One Of Many Failed Ideas In US Education
"I think No Child Left Behind was a good concept."
"But basing school funding on standardized tests just crushed anything good out of it— the rich schools with funding for equipment and higher-end teachers got more money, and the schools that needed financial help got probation and threats of funding withdrawal."
"As a former teacher, I loved the idea that a kid could move to another school mid-semester and be learning the same concept in each subject as the school they left, but instead any kid who wasn’t immediately grasping concepts was forced to fail upwards."
"Failing upwards hurts all of us."- bp_516
Ha!
"Fyre Festival."- Old_Army90
"I’ve always thought that it could have worked if it had been planned years in advance."
"I have to admit, the idea of a music festival on a Caribbean island still intrigues me."
"The problem is that the island location alone presents major logistical hurdles."
"By definition, everything on an island is harder to acquire, from food to land."
"Add to that the issues of promised catered meals and guaranteed luxury lodging and you have serious mountains to climb to pull off the festival."
"With enough lead time to construct the bungalows and hire enough food services to prepare the meals, it is feasible, but trying to pull it off in a few months time made it impossible."
"Sure, Woodstock ‘69 was planned in less than a year, but festival attendees weren’t promised lodging and food."
"They knew they’d be camping and would have to get their own provisions."
"Even then, there were logistical hurdles, such as the New York State Thruway succumbing to complete gridlock."
"Still, as far as festivals go, it was a relatively simple set-up."
"A better approach would have been for Fyre, the music booking app company behind the festival, to start small, such as on a beach somewhere with no inclusion of lodging or catering in the ticket packages."
"Concertgoers would know what to expect, and the festival would have been a lot more successful."
"If Fyre had done that for a few years, they would have built trust in their name brand, so when the time came for an actual festival on an island, Fyre Festival could have booked enough contractors to build lodging and hired enough vendors to make food for the whole weekend."
"Unfortunately, Billy McFarland’s hubris was enough that he wanted to skip ahead of the build up and go straight for the opulent."- Brunt-FCA-285
ja rule fyre festival GIFGiphyMore Like Great Leap Backwards...
"China's Great Leap Forward."
"The idea was to improve the country, but it ended with one of the worst man-made natural disasters in history."- Kartoffelkamm
While a good idea always requires imagination, we must also remember it's very easy for our imaginations to get the better of us.
Reality often has a way of bringing us back down to Earth and making us realize what looks good on paper doesn't always deliver.
(But seriously... who actually thought the Fyre Festival was going to work?)
We're human, and we can acknowledge that we all make mistakes.
But there's a limit to how much grace any person can be shown for their slip-ups.
In fact, there are some mistakes that a person could make in a single day that could ruin the rest of their lives.
Redditor TunaSaladWithBeans asked:
"How did somebody you know ruin their life in one day?"
Second Chances Included
"Not a barn burner but still pretty bad considering the 'adult' involved. TLDR (Too Long; Didn't Read): So-called adult failed to adult after numerous warnings and went off a metaphorical cliff."
"The clown was a senior married reserve Naval officer who also had a job at a nuclear power facility that required a Top Secret Clearance. He got deployed as a reservist to do classified work in Europe. Nothing James Bond but still not something the US wanted people to know about. It was plenty cushy too: living in a luxury hotel with lots of paid time off base to check out the sights."
"But the clown decided to hook up with a German woman and have an affair. The military doesn't care about that so long as you're above board with them about it so you can't be blackmailed. They don't even tell the spouse. This is spelled out once you get a security clearance."
"He didn't tell the military; they found out another way. But the unit went easy on him. His commander told him either tell his wife or stop seeing this German woman. If he did that, there'd be no consequences; if he didn't, there'd be h**l to pay."
"This warning was repeated to this clown on multiple occasions. The clown said he'd stop. Then he went off to Germany on vacation to, you guessed it, hook up this German woman."
"The commander took it personally that the clown ignored his warnings, disobeyed orders, and lied to him. Go figure. The commander fired him from the cushy job and revoked his security clearance, which ruined the clown's reserve military career."
"Because he needed a security clearance at his civilian job, he lost that too. And of course, his wife found out and divorced him."
"I suppose the clown recovered from this and is doing OK. But I imagine it's just as possible he's living in a van down by the river."
- Eric_da_MAJ
A Life-Changing Drive
"A dude I met was 18 and had been drinking. He was driving down a rural road when he lost control of his car, and flipped it. "He killed his passenger, who was his best friend."
"He was charged with a felony DUI and manslaughter. He was really messed up by this and knowing that he killed his friend haunted him."
"He was also an avid hunter and had to give that up because he was banned from owning firearms as a felon."
"He was in his thirties when I met him and he was pretty messed up."
- teaching-man
Over Before It Began
"Had a friend in college. We were both training to be Pilots. His dad owned an insurance company and gave him the company's credit card to pay for all his flight hours with."
"He got about two years in when he finished his first license. ($30k-50k) Got a DUI halfway through his second license."
"Pilot career down the drain. On top of that, his father's company will be paying for it."
- taylorman8181
Keep Checking In with Friends
"A childhood friend who relapsed from drug addiction. He ingested fentanyl and died all alone in a filthy basement."
"He had been looking healthier, we reconnected, and he was planning his life going forward sober. That hurt a lot, that hope being taken away in a few minutes."
"F**k opiates, fentanyl, and those who deal it. Too many lives are lost every day."
- TheBklynGuy
Hot Off the Press
"My boss had his dream job as a sports editor of the local paper, a nice family, and a young daughter. He called one day to say he wasn’t coming to work."
"Turns out he was busted trying to meet up with a girl he met online for sex, and the girl was actually a cop."
- esmerelda_b
Celebratory Loss
"My friend's wife was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors said she had about a 10% chance of surviving."
"She scheduled her surgery for a month out, and without telling him, took out several credit cards in just her name. She ranked up $100,000 in debt in that month flying around the world and doing everything on her bucket list."
"She had the surgery and chemo after and... lived. She was fine. That debt completely f**ked up their lives for about 10 years."
"The husband, my friend, knew she was traveling. He saw the roughly $10,000 added to their joint credit card. He did not know she had taken out credit and was hiding an additional $90,000 in debt."
"And his wife honestly thought she would die, and then the credit cards would close the accounts and the family would owe nothing. Which is not exactly how it works. So luckily that did not happen."
"It f**ked up a lot of things. He lost his DoD security clearance because of it (people with a lot of debt, can be bought). And he took a less-paying job as a federal contractor, where I met him. But he honestly does not regret it, and is happy to have his wife and kids all alive."
- Bug1oss
Serious Matters
"I knew a guy my freshman year of college. Easily the most socially awkward person I've ever met. Not necessarily a bad guy but a really weird one."
"He was expelled for making a bomb threat. No idea what happened to him after that but I can't imagine anything good."
- cfbethel
Mob Mentality
"Brother of a friend went out drinking with some scumbag 'friends' people had warned him to stay away from. Late into the night, there was an argument with one of them. My friend's brother ended up being part of a group that beat this poor guy to death. He won’t see the outside of a prison for a good 20 years now."
- MargotChanning
Tragically Anticlimactic
"Guy I went to high school with was diagnosed with testicular cancer when we were about 25. For months, maybe years, I would see updated posts about the progress he was making with treatment."
"Then one day he posted on Facebook that he was cancer free. The next day he was dead."
"To celebrate, he'd gone out that night and got absolutely wasted and fell down a flight of concrete steps outside his flat in the early hours of the morning. By the time he was found in the morning, he was gone."
- vicki5150
Just Heartbreaking
"A friend of my parents was a good family man who loved his family. One day he was playing with his toddler and was playfully tossing her on the bed. She would get back up giggling and he would toss her again."
"In one of the tosses, he threw her a bit too far and she hit a bedpost. She lived but became bedbound, unable to even talk."
"He went to jail for child abuse. He lost his wife, his job, and his little girl would never be the same."
- IIVIIORTAL_K
Losing Roulette
"An old coworker went to Vegas, felt really good about his odds due to the liquor, and ended up betting his entire life savings on roulette and lost. He ended up losing his house, his wife, and kids, and from what I've seen he lives in a tiny apartment and works a min wage job."
- Dire-Dog
New Work-From-Home Fear Unlocked
"He ate dinner alone, choked, and died."
- waterloograd
Holy Debt, Batman
"Some kid in our senior year of high school pulled the fire alarm every day. He was getting away with it for a while."
"The school had town officials and the chief of the fire department and the police come in and talk about the dangers."
"The town would send trucks and be without them if there was another emergency. None of that worked."
"When they offered a reward the kid’s friends ratted him out. His family had to pay for all those calls, he was expelled from school and didn’t graduate."
- JediMasterPopCulture
Prescriptions Needed
"A week ago, my little sister slipped on the ice getting out of her car and hit her head. She didn’t think much of it when she had a pounding headache later, figuring she just whacked herself good."
"Her friend told her to just sit down and take it easy until she started slurring her words roughly 10 hours after the fall."
"They called an ambulance for her, but she was going into cardiac arrest. Turns out she’d stopped taking her blood thinners she was supposed to be on for clotting issues. The headache wasn’t the fall, it was the clot in her leg cutting off blood to the brain."
"At the age of 26, she never recovered and leaves behind a four-year-old and two-year-old."
- KearneyZzzyzwicz
Hero Status
"A day horribly altered my life. I was a teacher and coach. For a field trip, the principal 'could not afford two busses,' so I had to walk about ten girls to the field trip location, and back to school, while the one bus was filled with the rest of the junior high students and faculty."
"It would be about a mile each way. I chose the girls of my team because they would listen to me outdoors, unlike lots of middle school kids."
"While crossing the street in the crosswalk, with the walk signal in our favor. All the kids went first, and like girls, they were clumped together and chatting while walking."
"I noticed a woman made a left turn into our crosswalk and never saw us as she tried to accelerate to beat an oncoming car. I knew she was going to run right through the girls."
"I pushed the kids forward, very forcefully. Most of the girls fell onto the pavement in front of other vehicles waiting at their red light. (They were badly scraped up, like road rash from me pushing them. But no hospitals or doctors were needed for their scrapes.)"
"I don't remember the impact. I remember seeing a Pontiac symbol between the headlights. I came to, and I was in a whole different lane, facing where I had just come from. I could not get up. They say my body went up the car, and off the driver's side, tearing the side mirror off the car and breaking her windshield."
"Horror and sobbing from my student-athletes. The girls raised me onto a backboard when the ambulance came, which must have been traumatic."
"Now, 20 years later, I am still an ambulatory wheelchair user. I can't teach or coach. I can't work at a desk. I have chronic pain. Yes, my life can be really sucky, but I would not change what I did that day."
"When I get low emotionally from all my limitations, I remember those girls. I watched them go to college, get married, grow into mothers, and hold impressive jobs in their fields. And when they show a photo on Facebook of their happy moment, it recharges me to know they are safe, healthy, and happy. And it reaffirms my decision to save them from harm."
- CannaBeeKatie
Most of the subReddit shared stories of drug and alcohol use or negligent driving. But some of the stories were far more tragic than gross, and there were even some heartwarming stories thrown in.
But the conversation is an important reminder to be mindful of our actions since they truly could change our lives in a moment.
People Explain Which Things Were Meant To Save Lives But Instead Killed A Lot Of People
Have you ever tried helping someone with the intention of de-escalating a distressing situation but wound up making things a lot more complicated instead?
We all have good intentions to assist people in need of aid.
But even those good intentions can fall short of expectations and can make you wonder if it was better to turn a blind eye to the situation in the first place.
Now put any scenario on a much grander scale, even on a global level.
The repercussions of trying to intervene can have fatal and devastating consequences.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Para--Dise asked strangers online:
"What's something that was supposed to save lives but killed many instead?"
Careful what you ingest. These horrific incidents all started out with a plan that looked good on paper.
Not so much in real life.
Toxic Waters
"Charities dug loads of wells across Southeast Asia, mostly in and around Bangladesh, in order to provide people with clean drinking water. However, as the water level in the table dropped, the concentration of arsenic in the water increased."
"This led to the largest mass poisoning in human history. In all, between 33 and 77 MILLION PEOPLE were exposed to dangerous arsenic levels in the water. Today, it's been estimated that as many as 20 million people are still drinking arsenic-contaminated water in Bangladesh."
– Tin_OSpam
Dam
"Same with the efforts to 'control' The Nile to better irrigate crops. Areas that flooded seasonally were stopped from flooding but then more stagnant water came causing more disease bearing mosquitoes. Crops in certain areas grew less as well due to silt being kicked up. This caused more malnourishment which led to more deaths from malaria and other diseases"
– NemoKhongMotAi
Don't Drink The Water
"Remember when people used to think that radium is healthy and even drank radium-infused water for health? DON'T google it."
– skeletonintheattic
Occupational Hazard
"The Radium Girls. They were female factory workers who painted watch dials with radium because it glows in the dark. They were told to lick the ends of their brushes dipped in radium paint because it saved time and were also told the paint was safe so they would paint their lips, teeth, and nails with it and ended up suffering catastrophic health effects. Don’t Google that either."
– Vegetable_Salad86
Here are examples of urban planning gone wrong.
Cramped Quarters
"The projects. Thought of as luxurious, high rise architecture that would make affordable housing closer to where people worked and help put an end to ghettos."
"Didn’t work out that way, claustrophobic, terrifying towers where you had to know who controlled which stairwell."
– ThinkIGotHacked
Complicated High-Rise
"heard this from a police officer:"
"the projects in my city were all intended to be high-rise, but eventually it started working against law enforcement. criminals would take over the highest floors, so when police rolled in to do raids they were spotted from farther away. as the projects got older and switched owners, they tore them down and built town houses in their place. lower to the ground to take away the criminal advantage..."
– StockingCapStu
Asbestos
"Its such a good mineral unfortunately. It’s a great insulator, very heat resistant, fairly cheap. It was put into almost everything too."
"The amount of buildings in my city that were either abandoned or getting old they just ended up tearing down because the asbestos contamination was so bad it wasn’t worth saving is sad. We’ve lost a lot of landmarks in the last 5-10 years because of damn asbestos."
– CatsInSpaceSwag
It's not surprising the pharmaceutical industry gets scrutinized.
Dopesick
"OxyContin: It was definitely a money grab by the Sacklers but the scientist that created it and the people selling it to doctors in the beginning genuinely believed that they were giving people bedridden by pain a new chance at life. That was the biggest problem. The sales reps were brain washed into being die-hard believers and would go to any lengths to sell the drug. Many doctor's became die-hards too because of the promise that 'less than one percent become addicted.'"
"They went from under-prescribing pain meds to handing them out like candy. Sure, they eventually took bribes when it turned out the stuff was addictive; but they originally believed they were helping their patients and had no idea the fire they were playing with."
"Edit: Hey guys, I just wanted to apologize if I triggered anyone. I see that this was a harder topic for many of you than it was for me. My family's struggle has been with alcohol and mental illness. Most of what I know about this subject was in news articles published to argue against the deal the Sacklers and Purdue was receiving. I'm sorry that I approached it too lightly. Thank you to those that voiced memories. To many of you: may your friends and family rest in peace and I'm glad you remember them. To many others: stay strong because you are worth it."
– thenightscaresme
History Of Heroin
"Heroic strong a.k.a 'Heroin'. The initial plan was to provide it as a medicine/ prescribed drug which soon turned into an additive substance. It is now a Schedule I substance, which makes it illegal for non-medical use. Needless to say it has killed many!"
– JamesA58
Intended Purpose
"Actually it was specifically supposed to be a safe alternative to highly addictive morphine! So... big failure in other words."
– redkat85
Others Substances
"Lithium as a table salt...although it is a salt, too much is toxic! Great for managing mood disorders, though, as long as it is monitored and you don't stay on it too long....too long on it and it is harmful to the kidneys/liver!"
– JohnArkady
Behavior Of Mirror Molecules
"Iirc it was also the drug that taught us that mirror molecules act very differently. Before that, scientists thought the same composition meant same outcome. With Thalidomide, the mirror is a sedative and has no teratogenic effects. It’s unfortunately impossible to produce one or the other singularly, so there is no safe Thalidomide when administered to pregnant women."
– newhappyrainbow
The intentions in some of these examples are questionable. Were big companies actually keeping the public's best interests in mind, or were their proposals a guise for their self-serving needs?
The answer might be easier to determine for some of the circumstances, but others seem to be more complicated.
But at the end of the day, are companies really that nefarious enough to intentionally disregard the lives of others to advance their own selfish causes?
It's an ongoing discussion. What are your thoughts?
People Share Wedding Horror Stories That Made Them Think 'This Couple Is Not Going To Last'
Weddings are a beautiful celebration of love.
Giving one the chance to witness two people begin their new life together.
Be they family, close friends, or merely a friend of your date, it's unlikely you will ever see the newlyweds ever looking happier in their life as they exchange vows, profess their love, and share their first dance.
Indeed, if they don't seem to be enjoying themselves at their own wedding, it doesn't bode particularly well for their future.
Nor does it bode well if one catches the newlyweds engaging in behavior which doesn't suggest they've taken their vows of commitment seriously.
"What wedding moment made you think: 'They are not going to last long'?"
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
"As a wedding photographer I have been to more than my share of weddings."
"It was a REAL shotgun wedding."
"Dad didn't realize it would not stand up in court."
"Only time the groom was more excited to have photos than the bride."
"She wanted a limo, he thought a hearse would be better and kept doing Lurch impressions."
"From 'The Adams Family'."
"Her friends took turns motorboating her, females, and he said, get it out of your system as after tonight you never get to do that again."
"Was a good sign also when she dove into the pool with her bridesmaids at the reception, in her wedding dress."
"Don't know what happened."
"Sat down with bride and groom, filling out the contract."
"Got the deposit."
"He stood up, said forget it, and walked out."
"2 months later I get told the wedding is off, 3 months later she calls to rebook, different groom."
"Day of the wedding I am at the church."
"Got the final payment the week before."
"No one shows."
"No one, just me and the DJ."- TexasTiger70
Some People Just Aren't Meant To Be Married...
"Not the couple getting married but the Best Man and Maid of Honor who were married to each other."
"Best Man's speech was all about how hard it was to be married. "
"'I've been married for a year and it feels like 100 years'."
"Maid of Honor stands up to give a speech and just says 'Ditto'."
"It was so awkward and really brought the whole room down."
"Brother of the bride stood up and gave a nice impromptu speech about teamwork and having a partner to go through life with."
"How happy the family was to have the groom join their family."
"Best Man and Maid of Honor were divorced within a year."
"Couple who got married are still married 30+ years later."
"I sometimes wonder if the speeches actually were helpful in how not to act as a couple."
"For me the complex backstory."
"Bride's brother is gay and has been in a longterm relationship for 40+ years."
"At the time he gave his speech about marriage he couldn't marry the man he loved and I think his passioned defense of marriage was born from that."
"When people would say they were against gay marriage because it makes a mockery of marriage I'd think of that night."
"The married couple who had no respect for marriage could easily marry, and did over and over again, and the man who stood up and defended marriage could not."
"He's married now and lovingly takes care of his husband as he battles health issues."- designgoddess
Money Isn't Everything... Or Is It?
"When they were doing the vows and the priest got to the 'for richer or poorer' part and she said 'for richer or richer and maybe for poorer'."
"The officiant was not pleased."
"I think they made it a year."- crm115
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
"My Wedding."
"We'll start three days before."
"The wedding was a ren-fair style wedding outside at a large gazebo and the Maid of Honor had promised to purchase a stylized dress for my bride that they had agreed on."
"THREE DAYS before the wedding she calls to tell us she had no money and was embarrassed to admit it."
"So we literally hand-sewed one together in 24 hours."
"IMO it turned out pretty nice for what we had."
"Brides mother was supposed to pick up the cake in ATX and drive an hour south for the wedding."
"She left her house 30 minutes before the wedding to pick it up."
"When she finally showed up, hour late, the cake was DESTROYED."
"She put it in the back seat and drove like hell all the way down, just slamming it against box with every turn."
"During the one hour delay, there was almost a fist fight between two groomsmen because, well the MoH showed up, IN THE DRESS THAT SHE WAS 'UNABLE TO AFFORD'."
"Obvious attempt to upstage the bride."
"The same MoH during her speech after the ceremony started it off by saying 'When we all met, I did not like Drakkarim411 at all, however I found that he grows on you, like a fungus'."
"Needless to say my entire side of the family was super cold to all of this."
"Since all of these issues were on her side of friendships or families, I was told to suck it up and we'll discuss later."
"I sort of assumed that a lot of these 'friends' had just shown themselves the door."
"Quite the opposite."
"In fact, two years later when I accepted my first well paying job out of college, it became an issue that it was an hour and a half out of Austin, so she decided to just stay in ATX to be with her friends."
"I mailed her the divorce papers and since she couldn't be bothered to even show up to the hearing, I've never seen her again."- Drakkarim411
Seriously, Does She Even Like Him?
"She told me two days before that she found her fiancé annoying and that she didn’t like him and that he was AWFUL in bed."
"She was visibly, endlessly uncomfortable at the rehearsal wedding/dinner combo."
"Then she sobbed the ENTIRE morning, day-of."
"She ended up not getting any makeup done cause she wouldn’t stop scream-sobbing and refused to get dressed, stalling the wedding 35 minutes."
"She then said 45 minutes of 'vows' that she had prepared ."
"9 pages of things like inappropriate vows to friends and family, his parents and sisters, none of them her husband, and then ALMOST didn’t say 'I do'."
"Managed to get a, 'uh, yeah, okay, yeah I do' out of her almost a full 60 seconds after she was supposed to say anything."
"I could go on for HOURS, but it was the most painful and awkward wedding I’ve ever been to."
"I distanced myself from them completely."
"She is really clingy and liked to gossip about how awful her husband is and I really don’t have the time."
"She’s also told me they were in couples therapy after I expressed negativity towards some extremely concerning things she said regarding their relationship and lack of communication."
"She believes it’s all his fault and truly believes his parents and sisters are exactly the same."
"News flash, they’re all lovely people."
"Last I heard they keep moving all over the country and fight non-stop."
"No more lovey-dovey images on social media."
"Seems to be right on track for a 10 month breakup."- brbdead
In This Day And Age, This Is Just Sad...
"A fun light-hearted dance with the groom followed by a close and slow dance with her male best friend."- codyish
There is an old superstition that "the worse the wedding, the better the marriage."
But when literally no one, including the supposedly "happy couple", is enjoying themselves, or committing to one person appears to be a burden, it's hard to imagine a happy marriage is in the cards.