Personal story time, folks!
As a child, my cousins and I would have speed-Waldo tournaments using the "Where's Waldo? series of books.
The winner would get a cold delicious can of Welch's grape soda. There were eight of us and I only ever won once, but let me tell you there was nothing more satisfying than finding that stripe-wearing sneak.
TikTok prankster @BlakeMessik is set to make sure at least one person is denied that satisfaction. We don't know what his beef with Waldo is, but it clearly exists.
Blake went to some serious lengths to pull a prank that's going to give someone, likely a child, a major frustration headache.
Blake's victim, probably.
So what did he do?
Blake bought a copy of The Great Waldo Search, took it home, digitally removed Waldo from every image in the book and then returned it to the shelf of the book store for some unwitting person to purchase.
He posted a short TikTok about the prank...
Lad learns Photoshop to edit a Where's Wally book... 😂 Credit- https://t.co/MSLGCYhJZW To use this video, Please… https://t.co/CS1biIVaah— TheCONTENTbible (@TheCONTENTbible)1581693061.0
We're not fans of putting the book back on the shelf.
That copy of The Great Waldo Search is likely going to end up in the hands of a child who is going to end up confused and frustrated thinking they're dumb for not finding Waldo anywhere. That child isn't going to know this is part of some internet prank done for likes.
Having said that, we'll admit that on some level this is downright genius. Evil genius.
If we had Blake's level of patience and skill, we would 100% do something like this and give the book to a friend...or enemy...or frenemy.
That video is only about 30 seconds long, which is common for TikToks, but we really want you all to think about just how much time and effort this must have taken. Blake had to purchase the book, take it home and find Waldo in every image.
That could have taken days in and of itself.
Once he found each Waldo, he had to then scan each image into his computer. Then he had to use Photoshop to digitally remove Waldo from each image.
If you've never done digital image manipulation you may not understand how time consuming that step is. You can't just delete Waldo, you have to then create patches for where he was standing.
Was Waldo in the corn? Well you're going to have to create more corn and match it seamlessly.
Once Blake was done removing and re-creating, he printed the pages out and glued them into the book. Again, you may not realize the time this would have taken.
This isn't a simple glue stick job. This required matching edges and texture of the book pages.
Blake is serious about this.
It seems funny haha in a thirty second clip, but the more you think about it the more you begin to suspect Blake has quite the interesting backstory. You can kind of imagine him hunched in front of his computer screen in the dark cackling as he furiously deletes Waldos, his eyes shimmering in the reflected screenlight while he matches corn.
This is some seriously next-level evil mastermind stuff. This is the sort of thing you do for fun if you happen to live on a volcanic island shaped like a skull. This is like "Ooh, I just thought of the perfect Christmas gift for my henchmen" kind of evil.
Blake...who hurt you, Blake?
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run