"What villain was terrifying because they were right?"
Deep Down, His Mission Was Noble
"Magneto is my favorite villain of all time."
"Every time his motives are brought to light I get that 'yeah, I kinda get it' moment."- IdentifiesAsATroll
"Magneto."
"The holocaust survivor, not wanting his species genocided."- Chasingtheimprobable
Progress? How Awful!
"None of you said the most terrifying one."
"Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff girls."
"He wanted to bring free energy and advanced technology to the people."
"And in one episode he actually did."
"He made the world an amazing place."
"And then the Powerpuff girls ruined it all."- TheMustardisBad
cartoon network GIFGiphyCan A Hero Really Be A "Menace"?
"Mr. Wilson from 'Dennis the Menace'."- Monsterenergyboi
Sharing?!?! How Awful!
"Stevie from Wizards of Waverly Place."
"Her entire goal was to stop families from giving up their magic to just one person in the family."
"Like…we’re really supposed to be rooting against her?"
"It just seemed super out of character for Alex to go against that plan."- LunarRabbit18
A Lapse In The Force...
"Count Dooku just straight up told Obi-Wan that the Sith control the Senate."- dmatred501
christopher lee GIFGiphyEven More Ironic Today...
"Red Queen 'Resident Evil'."
"I have locked down this facility to prevent a world ending virus, please could you 'good guys' pay attention and not blow holes in the doors."- Not_invented-Here
Bees Have A Way Of Riling People Up!
"Ken from 'The Bee Movie'."
"I too would go absolutely berserk if a talking bee stole my girlfriend and gaslit me into thinking I was crazy."- _shes_a_jar
Villain, Or Just Responsible Parents?
"Aria’s parents on 'Pretty Little Liars'."
"They’re villanized for not letting their high school daughter date her teacher?"- clarabelle220
Pretty Little Liars Love GIFGiphySeriously, She Broke Into Their House And Damaged Their Property!
"The bears from goldilocks and the three bears."- throwaway_0x90
Sometimes the best part of rewatching your favorite movies, particularly after a significant lapse of time, is noticing things you didn't notice before.
Such as the fact that Ferris Bueller''s Ed Rooney might have only been making sure that a mischievous socio-path didn't get away with constantly feigning illness.
Or that The Parent Trap's Meredith Blake's anger might have come from the fact that she was nearly drowned by a pair of 11-year-olds.
Making one question, who is the real villain here?
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Nbc Jump GIF by SuperstoreGiphyHave you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
Season 8 Teacher GIF by FriendsGiphyThe dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
spelling GIFGiphyNo, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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Reddit user TheCheeryStranger asked:
"What 'Crazy' Person is history was right the whole time?"
Here's Reddit's ode to the "crazy" ones who were right all along - and the equally insane circumstances surrounding a lot of these stories.
Dingos And Racism
julia louis dreyfus seinfeld GIFGiphy"The 'dingo ate my baby' lady."
- 5kyl3r
"She was screwed over so hard because the government refused to believe dingos would eat people."
"Even when local aboriginal tribes flat out said they have seen dingos eat children the government went 'well no Australians have seen it, so it doesn’t happen.' ”
"Had the government not been so racist about aboriginal tribes, they might have found that baby's clothes years before and saved that family some suffering."
- Radthereptile
"It took the death of someone else for them to find the baby's jacket, which was near a dingo lair. And the couple didn't even recoup their legal fees!"
"When they were exonerated, they were awarded less than a quarter of what they spent."
"They were the punchline for jokes on so many shows, even the Simpsons! That poor family."
- shewy92
"Lindy Chamberlain."
"Her daughter, Azaria, was taken by a dingo when I was in late primary school (I'm Australian), and I vividly recall how she was horribly attacked and judged by the public."
"It destroyed her marriage, she spent time in prison for 'murdering' Azaria (and delivered a child whilst incarcerated, she was pregnant when found guilty)... not Australia's finest moment how it treated this grieving and traumatized mum."
- jmkul
Hemmingway
"Hemingway talked about the FBI following him prior to his suicide. They thought he was paranoid."
"Decades later some papers get released, turns out the FBI was following him."
- ArchieBellTitanUp
"If I recall correctly, when his wife sent him to have electroshock therapy, the doctor performing the process was actually a member of the FBI."
- Omegus_Blue
"I mean, near the end they were literally going in his house to move his sh*t around to gaslight him into madness."
- HazardMancer1
Germs
"Ignaz Semmelweis- he pioneered hand washing in a time where the medical professionals were in favour of the 'four humours' theory."
"He was essentially laughed out of the field of medicine and died in an institution."
- MatManatee
"He specifically tried to get doctors to stop performing autopsies and then jumping right to delivering babies without washing their hands."
"He even provided hard data to prove that it was harmful. They locked him in an asylum and beat him so badly he died 2 weeks later."
- Damn_Dog_Inappropes
"Ignaz Semmelweis was openly mocked for suggestions that doctors should wash their hands before assisting with a birth, as he noted that maternal death was significantly lower when midwives washed their hands."
"He died in an asylum after suffering a nervous breakdown, and was only vindicated decades after his death when Pasteur and his contemporaries work on germ theory gained traction over the prevailing “miasma” theory (diseases and infections were caused by bad air)."
- Royally-Forked-Up
No Love
Kurt Cobain Rage GIFGiphy"Courtney Love calling out Harvey Weinstein."
"When asked if she had any advice young actresses, she said: 'If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a party at the Four Seasons, don't go.' "
"She was immediately banned by the biggest Hollywood agencies…. A lot of them who today talk about being all about #metoo but helped Harvey Weinstein keep up his sexual predation back then."
- Vegetable-Double
"If Courtney Love, of all people, tells you to not go to a party, DO NOT F*CKING GO."
- Wet_Socks19
"Courtney was very lucky. She had money from her own music and Cobain's money that was still rolling in."
"It didn't matter that she was blacklisted and couldn't really get a real acting gig again, even though she did such a great job with 'The People vs Larry Flynt.' "
"She already had her own."
"I love when people have f*ck you money - but she would have spoken up even without it"
- jayforwork21
"Courtney Love was right about LOTS of things."
- Rimbosity
Fused Labia
"The lady who sued McDonald’s for hot coffee."
"Everyone treated her like some ridiculous entitled Karen, but she was 80 and the coffee was so hot the skin on her legs fused together and he was hospitalized. She wasn’t crazy at all."
- [Reddit]
"If I remember correctly it was her genitals that fused together, not her legs."
- rawgreenpepper
"As I've said before....you only need to know 2 words from that case to see it wasn't frivolous: 'fused labia.' "
- FlappyBoobs
"We did a case study on this."
"She suffered, if I remember, 3rd degree burns from that coffee. THIRD DEGREE. That should tell you that coffee is WAY hotter than it should be."
"The McDonalds had been fined NUMEROUS times for their coffee being way hotter than what policy dictated."
"That whole thing could have been avoided if McDonalds had done their jobs right. They deserved to get sued for their negligence."
- dsmbr17
"I did some law modules in college and the lecturer did an entire series on what he called 'being a complete bastard to make yourself more impressive as a corporate lawyer'."
"The point being that the legal team at McDonalds could have used any number of methods to defend the case, but they chose to deliberately defame this woman that their company maimed."
"Someone had to come up with the idea of dragging the press into it, and someone else had to sign off on it."
"He said that you can remain 100% within the law on technical terms and just because it's legally right doesn't make you any less of a monster for doing it."
"What McDonald's did while trying that case was technically legal, but they were monsters for it."
- Wind_Yer_Neck_In
Not My Son
"Lessie Dunbar."
"Her four year old son went missing and one day the cops 'found him' and brought him home. Except it wasn’t her son and everyone tried to gaslight her into believing it was."
"They also arrested her for 'trying to make the police look bad.' "
"Eventually she just decided it must be her son and the boy lived the rest of his life as Bobby Dunbar. Well she was right in the first place and no one knows what happened to the real Bobby Dunbar to this day."
- anniemanic
"Worse, actually."
"Julia Anderson, the ACTUAL mother of the little boy the police 'found' came forward saying 'wtf that’s my kid you took' and the Dunbars agreed w/ police that it was their son."
"The actual parents couldn’t afford lawyers and it wasn’t proven until decades later after their grandchildren took DNA tests."
- CaedustheBaedus
"To make it even worse - multiple people confirmed in court the man with the little boy had him long before Bobby Dunbar disappeared and they still f*cking kidnapped that poor woman’s kid and gave him to the Dunbars."
"Just ridiculous."
"I’m honestly surprised Julia Anderson didn’t straight up murder the Dunbars and take her son back because I don't know if I could stop myself."
- emiiyaa
"When Lessie Dunbar told a cop that the child they brought her wasn't her son, the cop whispered to her to 'just take him and see how it feels.' "
- rachface636
"The boys real mother was an unmarried single mom working as a farmhand. She occasionally worked a farm run by the handyman and became friends with them."
"She'd left her son with them for a while because caring for a child while working farms was nearly impossible. She'd already had two other children die at that point, and was trying to put her last child somewhere a bit safer."
"When the police found the boy with the repairman and discovered that he wasn't his son, they assumed that it was the kidnapped child."
"The mother found out about the mix-up and came forward a couple of days later, but she was attacked by both the police and the press."
"One newspaper infamously said that, even if her claim was true, the fact that she was an unwed mother and already lost two children meant that she didn't 'deserve' to get her boy back. She was a 'sinful woman' and unfit to be a parent."
- codefyre
"The family was so committed to ignoring the evidence and deciding that this new child was Bobby Dunbar that decades later, his grandchildren took DNA tests to prove it. Their DNA didn’t match with their Dunbar cousins."
- CaedustheBaedus
People In The Jungle
watch board GIFGiphy"I don't know that guy's name but he basically from 1541-1542 travelled across South America - the first European to do so."
"While he was on his journey he said he saw millions of people and large cities with a lot of life in them in an area that, today, is the middle of the Amazon rainforest."
"He had told the stories of those cities when he got back to Europe. About a hundred years later when explorers visited the place there was nothing. No cities, no people, just jungle."
"So they thought he had made all that up."
"But modern technology has shown that there might have actually been a lot of cities there! And that those people died out with smallpox and all cities were covered by the jungle within the course of 50 years."
"So basically people thought he was crazy and made everything up, but modern science has proven that he was right all along."
- softredina
"You're talking about the Spanish expedition that went from Peru to the beginning of the Amazon and then floated down."
"They passed a thriving town about once a day - and they brought small pox and influenza with them."
"I think only four out of 30 Spaniards survived the trip. The diseases they already had, plus tropic disease and parasites, wrecked them just about as badly as the plagues they brought with them wrecked the civilization they went through."
"The population of the Americas dropped by at least 70% in the century after 1492."
- dieinafirenazi
"It seems impossible for a single boat of 30 people to be responsible for the near annihilation of an entire civilization of millions, but it actually happened."
- Forgive_My_Cowardice
"And the jungle took those cities back like the humans were never there at all. That's ... humbling."
- [Reddit]
"Vague"
"Sinead O'Connor jeopardizing/ruining her career by forcing a spotlight on the Catholic church protecting pedophile priests."
- enriqed
"You have to remember - she didn't explain or give a context."
"She just walked out, and attacked a beloved and respected Pope. And something seemed off about her when she did it - watch the video to see what I mean (I saw it when it happened.)"
"Yes - in hindsight, it's easy to understand why she seemed off; because she was about to do a huge and brave thing, that she knew was going to cause a lot of blowback."
"But at the time it seemed vague and random to a lot of people."
- Squigglepig52
"I will never understand how anyone thought that was vague."
"I was a 14 year old Protestant child when I saw her do that, and I thought her message was as clear as day. I recently rewatched it and I feel the same way."
- SonicBoris
"She tore up the picture after singing a Bob Marley song (War) with some changed lyrics. She literally mentions child abuse during the performance."
- sbrockLee
"THIS is the answer I came here for."
"No one stopped to even ask WTF. They just labeled her 'that psycho bald bitch' and her career got torched in five minutes with literally not one person stopping to ask 'wait, what?' until the story broke big a decade later."
- TheImageworks
Wacko Oprah Guy
"There was a wacko looking guy on Oprah who stopped his vanilla presentation to tell the audience that plastic causes cancer, stop using it to store food and water."
"Oprah cut to commercial and whisked him off the show."
"Dude was right. BPAs were outed that day, but it took another decade for that info to become public knowledge."
"I literally stopped watching her after she cut off plastic cancer guy. I subconsciously knew he was right."
- Firethorn101
Troy
"Heinrich Schliemann."
"He 100% believed that ancient Troy had really existed. So he armed himself with a copy of the Iliad, and actually managed to find and excavate the city."
"He'd told everyone and their sister that Troy was a real place for 40 years before he found it, and everyone thought he was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."
"Not so much, it turns out."
- ChaoticForkingGood
"There is a fascinating and informative book called Finding the Walls of Troy by Susan Allen."
"It’s about how Schliemann stole the credit for finding Troy from Frank Calvert. And about Schliemann’s shameless self-promotion and lack of care excavating the city destroyed much of the archaeological evidence."
"There’s also a book called Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit that I have not read but purportedly also exposes him as an unscrupulous liar and distorter of history."
"That said, I’m really not sure if people thought he was crazy before Hisarlíc was discovered and he was right that Troy was indeed a historical city, so might still be a valid answer to this post. Just didn’t want to see him portrayed as some sort of archaeological hero."
- TheBlueFacedLeicestr
Did you know these stories?
Are there "crazy" people you want to add to the list?
Let's rant in the comments.
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So how the heck are we ever supposed to let anyone know when they're factually incorrect without being seen as major jerks? Honestly, we probably don't. Even the most innocent and well-intentioned fact check has the potential to truly hurt and offend.
Still, reddit user Gallon-O-milk asked a question we all want to know the answer to:
How do you fact check someone without seeming like a jerk?
There are some really useful tips and tricks here, we will admit. But we're also not in the business of lying to our readers, so we're going to be honest. If a person is prone to being offended, then no matter how politely or tactfully you say something it's going to happen. They're going to think you're rude. They're going to dislike or dismiss what you say.
Just make sure you're braced for it if it happens. Choose your battles wisely. Prepare to be side-eyed.
Good Faith
Treat them as good-faith actors. They're not trying to be wrong... They believe what they're saying. Ask questions.
"I didn't know that. Can you explain it a bit more?" Then when you have a natural opportunity, say something like "I always thought... "
I Believe You, But...
At work as a foremen we use the phrase "trust, but verify" I believe you but it's my job on the line.
Yup, aircraft maintenance is the same way.
"I trust that's correct, but I need to verify. So if anything goes wrong we've both had eyes on it."
Us vs The Problem
Avoid telling people they are wrong and avoid telling them, "No, ...". People want two things: to feel heard and like they belong. Telling someone they are wrong doesn't accomplish either.
Provide evidence for a counterpoint and let them draw their own conclusions. You aren't trying to tear them down, you're working with them to find a solution to a problem. It just so happens that the evidence you have found supports a different solution than theirs. The minute you view it as me vs them and not us vs the problem you will have already failed.
This Nurse's Method
I once heard a visitor to the hospital where I worked make some outlandish claim, and a nurse simply responded pleasantly "It sounds like you need more information!"
- afmpdx
Just Don't
Choose your battles. Fact checks may be okay once a week, but not like twice a day.
Walk away without "convincing" the other person. If you get argumentative, they'll often double down. My sweetest fact checks pay off hours, days, or even weeks later: "You know, I looked that up, and it turns out you were ..."
Just Play Dumb
Say, "Oh, really? I haven't heard that. Where did you read it?"
You disarm them by admitting you weren't aware of something they supposedly are, and ask them for a source. From there it can be easy to figure out if their source is a blog or scientific study, or whatever.
- culb77
I use this often. Generally Instead of offering an alternative viewpoint or facts of my own I simply keep asking question like I'm genuinely interested and uninformed; anxious to know more. Also if they make a number of false claims it's important to simply ask 1 question at a time. That essentially forces them to fact-check themselves and justify their viewpoint without giving them any options in terms of which questions of yours to answer.
Most of the time they'll at least come away with the realization that they don't know all the details or that their sources are sketchy, and hopefully will ask more questions themselves next time they're confronted with bad information. Which is a win in my book. And hey, if it turns out that I'm the one who's actually wrong, I also didn't go around making incorrect claims through this process.
The biggest draw-back to this strategy though is that this doesn't usually work in online discussions with other people trying to "help" you because they inevitably sandbag the process by asking too many questions at once, adding condescending facts of their own, and/or getting frustrated and aggravating the person you're trying to debate, at which point, everybody loses.
Missing Some Information
I had a student swear that her mom was a doctor and she became one because she knew somebody. I could NOT let her drop that and have other students believe that shit. I stated that there isn't a doctor in this country that hasn't gone to college and medical school. She insisted. After a couple of back and forths, I just finished it with 'I think we're missing some information'. Best line I ever used.
Turns out, her mom was an ultrasound tech for a doctor.
In The Most Polite Way
I was backpacking through Yosemite last week and was just corrected in the most polite way. We were looking out over an amazing view and I thought something was half dome. A nice English fella then said "I'll be honest with you, I don't think that is quite correct."
Realized I was wrong immediately, and then thanked him for correcting me. Really seemed effective, on me anyway.
GiphyIf I'm openly disagreeing with someone, after a minute I just go, "Duh! We can Google this!" It adds humor to the situation and implies either could be right.
Knowing When It's Important
Not always possible. Some people are offended by facts and data, and that's not an exaggeration. The real trick is knowing when it's important to fact-check and when it's not.
If my parents assert that only citrus fruits produce citric acid, I'm just going to nod my head
If my parents start telling me crime is through the roof and it's all black people's fault, I'm going to wiki empirical data to prove them wrong.
If they want to be mad at me for not taking their word at face value, even after they've been shown contradictory data from a reputable source, that's their prerogative. I've done nothing wrong.
It's on me at that point to recognize and stand by my personal values. I can't force immature people (even if they're my senior age-wise) to not "feel offended" for being presented a fact.
If you find yourself getting into debates with people who are like that, you should probably just tell them that if they're going to be offended by fact-checking that either they should check the facts themselves (then they can "offend" themselves so you don't have to) and then report them to you... OR they should accept your rebuttal without arguing because they're aware you're willing to look into the facts but you are also willing to refrain out of consideration for their (illogical) emotions, so long as they don't assert correctitude without proof.
Anyone who insists they're right but refuses to look at evidence is forcing you into an emotional battle in which you're tasked with overcoming their poorly-conceived yet deeply-held personal opinions, rather than an objective discussion using logic and reasoning to determine the truth. They have already made themselves "the jerk" at that point, even if people in their tribe feel similarly.
So in some cases there was a lack of tact, but a shocking number of responses came from people who were surrounded by folks who were just plain wrong. Yes, some fruits are green, snakes have spines, and then the engineer tells you to beef something up it's probably best to just beef it!
So this article is for you unsung heroes, brave warriors of rightness, who have gone ignored and mocked. We salute you.
Green Fruit
"In kindergarten I drew a picture of grapes and colored them green and the other kids AND the teacher/caretaker were saying there are no green grapes, only purple."
"I had the same problem in Kindergarten, but I colored an apple green and was told apples were red.
"I was a polite kid so I was just all "No, they can be green too" every time the teacher tried to tell me they were red. My grandma had an apple tree that grew green apples. She used them in pies. I'd eaten those pies every single Thanksgiving and Christmas. When she picked apples, I was given them as an afternoon snack. In my kid mind, wasn't a matter of "Am I wrong? Are those not apples?", it was more of a "This teacher doesn't even know about grandma's apple tree!""
Who Bombed Pearl Harbor?
"Grade 7 (Canada), we were learning about medieval Japan in Social Studies class (basically history class). I made a comment that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a kid said it was the Germans and some people backed him up. Teacher said she forgot who bombed Pearl Harbor but it wasn't the Japanese. If only smart phones existed back then."
Snake Spines
Giphy"In 2nd grade I joined the robotics club. One day we were learning about how an animals bones affect the way animals move, and the teacher asked "Give me examples about animals with spines" I said snakes. She said snakes are like worms and lack spines."
"The whole thing is a spine. It's a spine with a head!"
Lo And Behold
"I was working on a team of people building a race car. I told them a particular part that was technically strong enough should still be built heavier to handle shock loads from bad track conditions.""
"I got told I was a moron and it would be fine; someone else ran the numbers to confirm and it would be fine. So I built the part as they specified, put them on the car, and lo and behold it broke and the car ended up on it's roof.
"You'd think that would be validation of my opinion, and people would agree that I was right. Not how it happened. I was the a-hole because I built them, so it was my fault even though I warned them and fought to build them stronger."
No Dirt In The Hole
"8th grade. Science class. Teacher was trying to be tricky or something, I guess. Gave us a word problem that was something like: "If you dig a hole 3 x 3 x 4 in the ground, how much dirt is in the hole?"
"I raised my hand and said none, there was no dirt in the hole otherwise it wouldn't be a hole. Her SPECIFIC question was how much DIRT was in the hole, not how big the hole was or what was left. I gave the right answer, there was NO freaking dirt in the hole."
"She told me I was wrong. I pondered her answer, decided it didn't make sense, then raised my hand again. I was a studious nerd back then, I actually wanted to impress the teacher. I gave the same answer and my reasoning: she said how much dirt."
"No, she told me, I was wrong and stop putting my hand up. The answer? Air. There was air in the hole. Just air, which is why it's a hole. I'm still pissed. Its 30 years later but I've still not forgiven her for embarrassing me and being wrong."
- TimeAll
Cold Water Troll
"I got downvoted like crazy for saying that a nurse told me that cold water and soap kills germs just as well as hot water when washing your hands. Linked some sources and everything. Then people started calling me a troll."
- Terriere
"Hot water and soap just feel good man."
"And this is the real answer. The mistake most people make when washing their hands isn't the temperature of the water, it's that they don't do it long enough. So the correct temperature to wash your hands at is whatever one makes you comfortable enough to not try to get it over with as quickly as possible."
Pastor-Cheetos
"I was once in a chorus in my community college and they had interesting social dymanics. It was primarily older white women, who were the alphas of the group."
"So we were doing a Latin american carol called "Vamos Pastorcitos" and there was debate between them about the pronunciation of the "c" I said the soft c is pronounced like an s, an old lady in the group said it was pronounced like the ch in cheese."
"I said "you're thinking of Italian, in Spanish it's pronounced as an "s" or in many European Spanish dialects like a "th"" The choral conductor went with her churchy old lady friend and they all pronounced it like "Vamos pastorcheetos" it still haunts me to this day."
The Lean-To And The Stupid Trip Leader
"I was on a canoe trip and had spent the first half of the day paddling down the river at a grueling pace. It was the mid afternoon and a lean-to site along the river was spotted and empty. Keep in mind, this was a fairly large canoe trip group (About 35 people). We had tents, but these tents could only accommodate about 20 people, so a lean-to was needed to accommodate the rest. Dark clouds were beginning to fill the sky, and I called out that it was a good idea to make camp at the lean-to sight."
"But the cocky trip leader demanded we push on, and so did everyone else. I still tried to push my proposal, but it never got far. Everyone just talked over me and kept going."
"The next lean to site was another 4 miles upriver - 4 very tough miles. A massive thunderstorm came down upon us, and we got drenched before collapsing at the lean-to site that evening. Unfed."
"Surprise, surpise, the lean to site was already occupied by another camping group, unlike the empty one I suggested we stop at. And it was impossible to build a fire as all the wood was wet, unlike the dry site I suggested we stop at. So the entire group had to eat dehydrated spaghetti and meatballs cold and try to keep warm."
"I was forced to sleep outside with about 14 others in the rain. Adding to the troubles, upon waking up one of the tents got crushed by a fallen tree limb and broke the leg of a group member. The pickup destination was still another 16 miles away, so the entire grueling day was spent paddling towards the pickup destination while it still rained and while my canoe leaked badly after crashing into some rocks."
"All because of that stupid trip leader. And no, nobody ever acknowledged that I had been right."
Removed By A Mod
"On a different subreddit, I made a comment that said "males and females react differently to different medicines/anesthesia" and I was downvoted and told I was wrong, that the only deciding factor for medication/anesthesia dose is body mass.""
"I produced a link to a medical journal proving I was right, that with anesthesia like morphine, males require 40% more since the opioid receptors in their brains are less sensitive to it.
"My comment with the link was removed by a mod."
Sir Patrick Stewart
Giphy"Patrick Stewart being heterosexual (and married)."
"It was a stupid argument in the first place because who cares. It is Sir Professor Picard and how he spends his nights is his own business. I have zero issue with homosexuality and the whole thing had me sounding seriously homophobic, which pissed me off even more."
"It began as an insult as well. A group discussion at work turned to a collective theme for Halloween costumes. The X-Men were tossed out with "Randy" as Professor X. Nothing against him. He is tall, a full beard, and full head of hair. I, on the other hand, am short, BALD, and wear a suit everyday. People already call me professor X (or Lex Luthor if I say something snarky). I slowly raise my hand and suggest I might be better suited. A woman I already detested says, with a snort of disgust and a face that looks like she's smelled her own sh*t"
"Oh my god no! Uh...no offense," she says obviously offensively, "he's my crush and I don't want that ruined thinking of you."
"Ouch."
"Prepared to drop it and drop participating with them at all, she goes on..."
"I mean, he's gay so I have no chance but still..." and then she does a mock shudder and "yuck" sound."
"Mega wench."
"You're right about not having a shot," I couldn't resist saying, "but that has nothing to do with his orientation. He's straight."
"Eye rolling ensued with her lackies joining in about how "everyone" knows Patrick is gay. This included a gay man looking slightly uncomfortable."
"This was a while back so I'm not sure which wife he was on. I pointed out he's had a few marriages with the age gap increasing between them. I figure maybe they were mixing him up with his best friend, Sir Ian McKellon. I think their cute bromance makes people wonder. I thought he was gay for a long time until I read an article about his wife.Then I read up on all of his wives."
"Things got serious with me being accused of being bigoted and anti-gay. All I could say was "look it up."
"She later complained to my boss how offensive I had been and tried to register a discrimination claim. After explaining to him who Patrick Stewart was he was genuinely puzzled. Trying not to offend her, he tried to get to how my saying an actor was not gay was somehow discriminatory to her."
"She wouldn't drop it so there was a meeting..."
- Rmanager
Bedicorns?
"I once got into a conversation with a few other people about bed bugs, and then 2 of them turn to me and were like "bed bugs aren't real, they're fictional like unicorns" and I was fucking sure they were real. The other person there just wasn't sure and in the end figured they were made up. Smartphones weren't a thing yet so we couldn't just look it up. I looked it up later and was just elated that I was correct."
"Now I work at a hotel and know for a fact they're real."
Ancient Egyptian Helicopters
"During 3rd grade we were talking about the pyramids in Egypt and about how the bricks were huge and we don't know how they moved them. Some girl said "Maybe they used helicopters" and I said "Helicopters weren't a thing back then." and the teacher got mad at me."
- mmmmwhu
Height/Weight
"Some kid at school was trying to tell me that your height doesn't affect your weight, and said that even really tall kids (me, I was about 5'8) should weigh the same as really short kids (him, about 4'2). Was in 5th grade and knew that this was stupid, because a taller kid means a kid with more mass."
"This is a generalization, and other factors go into it, but this kid was trying to tell me that 2 kids with the same body shape, muscle mass, and frame size would weigh exactly the same, even if one was 2 feet taller. That's just wrong. What's worse is that the teacher agreed with him."
- LawlTHOR
Star Trek Is Fiction
"My roommate had a friend over once and he tried telling me he used to be a physics major (I was in my last semester of my physics degree) but realized he was too smart for it and switched to engineering, and then tried explaining to me that physical objects can go faster than the speed of light like tachyons. I said I'd never heard of in my QM class, and he told me "It's how they did it in Star Trek."
- hedins
The Green Gets In Your Eyes
"In science class. I was sick and didn't go to class one day. The next day I went to school and, in science class, they were doing a review of what they did the day before. And the teacher asks: "So, if a leaf is green, is the green light absorbed or reflected by the leaf?"
"and suddenly everybody said, at the same time, "absorbed".
"And I'm like: "Miss it's reflected."
"and everyone screams at me, like if it was a fucking religion, "IT'S ABSORBED" .
"And then I yell back "IF ITS ABSORBED, HOW THE F!@# IS THE COLOR GREEN GETTING TO YOUR EYES?"
"Everybody got silent."
Sun And Stars
"Told my friends the sun was a star, too."
"They said no, apparently a sun cannot be a star but a star can be a sun?"
- shinyrae
Vegan Adjustment
"All I said on Facebook was that a vegan lifestyle would take time to adjust to and research for general families and that some people will backslide and a few people jumped all over my case. I even shared the articles which showed that people do in fact backslide. I guess everyone needs to he hardcore vegan right friggen now with no research into how you will maintain you protein, iron, calcium and B12. I also mentioned that its nearly impossible to be totally animal cruelty free as many crops use commercial bees for pollination."
Sunscreen
"My colleagues after I said that sunscreen protects you from skin cancer."
"I'm in medical school."
Resembles = Looks Like
"I kept insisting that the correct phrasing was "until it resembles its mother," and the other people in my group insisted it was "until it resembles like its mother."
"Resembles literally means "looks like" so they were trying to tell me that the correct phrasing should be "until it looks like like its mother."
"No."
No Relation
"When I was in first grade there was a boy in my class with the same last name as me and we kind of resembled each other. We weren't related at all. The boy was absent one day and the teacher wanted me to 'bring his homework home to him'. Told the teacher I wasn't related to him. Was told to stop lying. Still told her I wasn't related to him."
"This escalated to the point I'm taken to the principal's office for lying. They call my mom. I then got the satisfaction of my mom yelling at the principal and teacher over the phone for calling her kid a liar and bothering her at work about a kid that wasn't hers."
"I don't even remember much about first grade beyond that day. I guess I was a bit of a vindictive kid. lol"
The Greatest Generation
Giphy"We will not be booed!"
"Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below. Saying that American soldiers were equally as cruel and evil as the Germans when it came to inhumane treatment of POWs during WWII."
"Winners write the history books, so they love to omit all the starving and raping going on in Japan after the war, for example."
"Boo me all you want, the greatest generation had some of the worst sets of values possible. They also pretty much perfected racism, misogyny and wage slavery."
We will not be booed!
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.