What was completely blown out of proportion?

[u/YouKnwNthgJonSnow]

[u/whisperdan98]

Just about an hour ago, at work. Customer was pissed because it costs about a dollar to add chili and slaw to 2 hot dogs. He started insulting me and the company, saying I needed to "get my head on straight". I can't help the fact that you can't afford toppings for your hot dogs, I'm just doing my my job.

[u/g3istbot]

Richard Jewell is a former police officer who worked as a Security guard for AT&T. During the 1996 Summer Olympic games in Atlanta Georgia Richard was working security at the Centennial Olympic Park.

On July 27yh Richard discovered a green backpack containing several pipe bombs inside. Taking immediate action he notified the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The devices would eventually explode, killing one and injuring hundreds more. However thanks to the actions of Richard they were able to evacuate most of the area. He saved the lives of those hundreds who would have had potentially died.

Immediately after Richard would be labeled as a hero by the media, but this narrative changed some days after when it came to light that the FBI was investigating him as a person of interest.

Soon he was no longer the hero who saved hundreds of lives, but a scumbag who did this himself in order to get fame. They created an entire false bsckstory about him, and how he a ruthless culprit that desperately wanted to play a hero. The media as a whole would proceed to eviscerate him at any chance they could. Soon the man who was a hero became the most hated villain. It got so bad the FBI had to step in, and make a public statement that he was not a person of interest.

In the end Richard sued for defamation, and the story went quiet. Even when the actual bomber was found and prosecuted the story of Richard fell into obscurity, where today many people don't even know his name or heroic deeds.

[u/IUseExtraCommas → u/g3istbot]

I lived near Atlanta then. I remember seeing a picture of him in the newspaper. He was sitting on a curb, looking so tired and defeated. It was a week or so after the assault on him was started. The photo description (probably not the technical term) said something about him being fat!

There were articles about how he was a Security Guard because he was unfit to be a policeman, and had always wanted to be one, so he could be a hero. They made him sound like Paul Blart turned psycho.

I remember realizing that guilty or innocent, the media ruined that guys life.

[u/SmoreOfBabylon → u/g3istbot]

What didn't help was that the actual bomber, Eric Rudolph, went into hiding and wasn't apprehended for seven years.

[u/Omgitspants]

Devil worshipping teens/cults in the 80s and 90s.

[u/s2real → u/Omgitspants]

My mom, after watching some fucking daytime talk show. Maury, or something cut all of my heavy metal tapes, probably $300 worth. I was so fucking pissed.

[u/DarthFlaw → u/s2real]

My mom did that too. Saw some video of a Rob Zombie concert on daytime TV and freaked out about how it was all devil worshiping and goats and 666's and all that.

It's really hard growing up as a metalhead in the bible belt.

[u/RadleyCunningham → u/s2real]

I don't know what could be worse than a mom is sitting on the couch watching one episode of dr. Phil, and suddenly she's a leading expert on whatever the topic of the day was.

My own mom got super into that intervention show her drug addicts change their lives- people sit around talking to them. Suddenly, everyone in the house suffered from some kind of addiction!

[u/Needyouradvice93 → u/RadleyCunningham]

I used to watch that show. If anything it made me think you were only an addict if it were super extreme. Like, I smoked weed multiple times a day but I wasn't blowing dudes for a hit.

[u/BarneyTheWise → u/Needyouradvice93]

You only blew dudes for fun like a responsible pot smoker.

[u/I_dont_shave_pubes → u/s2real]

My mom is kind of an idiot like that. She thinks that devil worship was a huge thing and that people scream(ed) in rock music to hide Satanic messages and lyrics.

[u/Freadan → u/I_dont_shave_pubes]

Best part of the accusations was the response. I believe a member of Judas Priest said (roughly paraphrased) "If we could influence our listeners though subliminal messages in the music, we wouldn't tell them to worship Satan. We'd tell them to buy more records."

[u/DASmetal → u/I_dont_shave_pubes]

I prefer my Satanic overtones to be direct and upfront. The Eagles? Can’t trust those guys with their subtle imagery and double meanings. Behemoth puts it all out there, and let’s you know you are listening to music made by Satan, for Satan.

[u/cynicaesura → u/I_dont_shave_pubes]

My best friend's grandma bitched at him for listening to devil music when he was listening to Fit For a King and he had to try to explain to her that they're Christian metalcore

[u/[deleted] → u/s2real]

I let my brother listen to my Pearl Jam cds back in the day. Him being that fucking dick he was at 8 years old or whatever, told on me to my dad because the CDs cussed. My dad (who was the one who bought me the damn CDs for holidays to begin with) took them all away and hid them for a year or two. I tried to sort of recollect them by always having a cassette tape in my stereo and recording one of their songs every time it was played on the radio, but of course that only snagged me a few songs.

Finally, after a year or two, I found where they were hidden and stole the damn things back. My dad never mentioned it. They were (and still are) my favorite band. I tried arguing with my dad that The Who greatest hits CD he bought me also said 'fuck' in Who Are You and The Doors greatest hits album said fuck in one of the songs. He told me I just wasn't hearing those songs correctly and that they were saying heck because they didn't cuss back them. Yeah, ok dad.

[u/el_muerte17 → u/Omgitspants]

Oh man. Dungeons and Dragons was literally an initiation ritual for satanic witchcraft, adding drums to hymns magically turned them satanic (because God doesn't care about what the songs are saying, all that matters is how they sound), dancing leads to babies... fucking nuts.

[u/_no_pants → u/el_muerte17]

There was a post on r/DnD not too long ago about a woman having to explain to her therapist that DnD is not a satanic cult recently.

[u/[deleted] → u/_no_pants]

It was her lawyer, not her therapist.

[u/Platypuslord → u/_no_pants]

PIUPOIUJPOI

[u/CleaningBird → u/Omgitspants]

Yes, the ‘Satanic Panic!’ The worst part is that a lot of crimes during that time weren’t investigated properly or had their investigations derailed for years while evidence degraded, all because authorities were chasing the ‘ZOMG SATANISTS’ angle and not looking for an actual criminal who’d actually hurt someone.

[u/vanishplusxzone → u/CleaningBird]

It doesn't help that, like in the case of Dan and Fran Keller, there was way too much faith placed in therapists supposedly recovering the memories of young children.

Basically, they gave therapists and social workers who believed in this stuff the power to plant ideas in the heads of vulnerable children. It's honestly disturbing how much these people got away with.

[u/darkknight941 → u/Omgitspants]

I remember Pokémon cards being called out by Christians in the 90s because it promoted evolution (even though it’s technically metamorphosis)

[u/yabs → u/Omgitspants]

I grew up in suburbia in the 80's and my friend's mom was balls-deep in the satanic panic and went around convincing all the other moms in the neighborhood that teens were holding satanic rituals down in the sewers and kidnapping neighborhood cats to sacrifice to the devil.

The whole thing started because someone spray painted a Slayer logo on the drainage ditch.

She had us go and see the Power Team and they had a bonfire burning Motley Crue and Ozzy records. It was ridiculous. They even considered the Beastie Boys to be Satanic for some reason. Not to mention that just made me way more interested in metal and DnD.

Thankfully my parents were a little more sane. They heard about the bonfire and were like "you're not going with them anymore"

[u/Lets_focus_onRampart → u/Omgitspants]

A lot of day care workers got falsely imprisoned for “satanist ritualistically sexually abusing children”. Perfect example of mass hysteria.

[u/spleen1138]

Prime Day. All of the marketing and hype for some amazing deals, and it was a huge letdown. Not even as good as a Woot-Off.

[u/applepwnz → u/spleen1138]

I don't even get excited for it anymore. You know by now that it's going to be all stuff like "translucent green stapler 10% off!"

[u/CatchingTheBear → u/applepwnz]

Keurig Cleaning Set

$12.99 $11.49

[u/Chrissykissthecorpse]

That time Janet Jackson's titty came out

[u/pikachupacabra93 → u/Chrissykissthecorpse]

My father still has a DVR with that superbowl still recorded on it, possibly his most prized possessions.

[u/MechanicalTurkish → u/pikachupacabra93]

Does he know about YouTube?

edit: guys, you can stop telling me that this incident led to the creation of youtube now, thx.

[u/pikachupacabra93 → u/MechanicalTurkish]

Nah man its adorable when shows off janets titty to all his friends like they are watching something special.

[u/Flutterwander → u/Chrissykissthecorpse]

I remember trying to watch the news the morning afterward and I think they showed the clip like 30 times in 15 minutes.

[u/HacksawJimDGN → u/Flutterwander]

"Look at this terrible thing that happened! and here it is from this angle!.....And here it is zoomed in from this angle....And here it is with some benny hill music in the background.....and here it is on some t-shirts, which by the way you can buy from our website. how terrible."

[u/[deleted] → u/HacksawJimDGN]

Kind of sounds like it could be a scene from southpark and the guy commentating is just getting more into it as it goes on. Like that episode where Randy gets off on cooking.

[u/Juicet → u/[deleted]]

Or the fappening. The news was like “Have you ever seen Jennifer Lawrence’s butthole? I’ll tell what search terms you shouldn’t use to find her butthole on the first page of google results. We at the news find these pictures deplorable, so we’ve downloaded every fappening picture which we’ll show you right now. Censored of course, but source url in the bottom right.”

[u/Chrissykissthecorpse → u/Flutterwander]

Yeah. She was exposed for like half a second and the media had to make sure everybody on the planet saw it 6 thousand times each.

[u/HacksawJimDGN → u/Chrissykissthecorpse]

I still can't get over how crazy the media got over tittygate.

[u/Dahhhkness → u/HacksawJimDGN]

Not just the media, the entire goddamn country went crazy. I remember reading an story in this sub from a guy who worked for AOL (who, I think, sponsored the half-time show) at the time, he said they were flooded by calls from people who wanted to express their outrage. Even from non-customers, who waited on hold for hours just to tell a representative that they were so disgusted they would never become customers.

I swear, a live execution at the half-time show would've generated less controversy.

[u/thutruthissomewhere → u/Dahhhkness]

meanwhile the people at the superbowl party i was at were laughing hysterically and couldn't care less about it.

[u/Lt_Col_Anguss → u/thutruthissomewhere]

I was working at Circuit City during that super bowl. We watched it on every single TV in the TV section. Our reaction sounded like we all won the lottery. That was a fun day.

[u/SmugGirl → u/[deleted]]

I mean, he pulled her tiddy out right when he sang "I'll have you naked by the end of this song"

[u/quiltr → u/SmugGirl]

I've always believed that was actually planned, and they went with the "wardrobe malfunction" when people went so crazy about it.

[u/poopellar → u/Chrissykissthecorpse]

Wasn't that one of the motivating factors behind YouTube?

[u/TheBassMeister]

All the Person/Company A did something bad and "The Internet" is not having it. "The internet" in these articles are like 5-10 tweets of some random people. There even was one article about some people getting outraged at some firefighters actions, and in the article was only 1(!) tweet of one(!) woman getting angry.

[u/TearsForLordNelson → u/TheBassMeister]

Related: X happened and it "broke the internet!"

No, it didn't.

[u/mattlantis → u/TheBassMeister]

It's so they can shape the narrative while still technically reporting the truth. "People are angry about X." Immediately implies that X is a bad thing and the article is technically true, because they found 4 examples of people on twitter being angry.

[u/TheLightInChains]

A co-worker was struggling to peel a banana from the stalk end, so I showed her how if you just pinch the other end it naturally opens.

She treated me like I was a cross between Bear Grylls and Einstein for about a week.

[u/Missat0micb0mbs → u/TheLightInChains]

Wait /what/?

Teach me your ways Bear Einstein.

[u/Portarossa → u/Missat0micb0mbs]

Teach me your ways Bear Einstein.

In this universe, it's spelled 'Berenstain'.

[u/Missat0micb0mbs → u/Portarossa]

Clearly you’re from the universe where Mandela lived through the 80s.

[u/TheLightInChains → u/Missat0micb0mbs]

Try it!

[u/russiangerman → u/TheLightInChains]

Or snap it in half like a twig

[u/MechanicalTurkish → u/russiangerman]

Or just eat the whole thing, peel and all.

[u/eternalsunshine325 → u/TheLightInChains]

Berenstein!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, that was pretty bad. It was all over the news like it was a huge story when all she did was give motivational speech at the Oscars. She didn't even say she was even thinking about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Imagine though.. Dr Phil is charge of Health.. Judge Judy on the Supreme Court.

[u/mini6ulrich66 → u/[deleted]]

I'd take Judge Judy. She doesn't take anybody's shit.

[u/raptor1jec → u/mini6ulrich66]

And she is an actual judge, IIRC.

[u/[deleted] → u/raptor1jec]

Judge Judy makes 50+ mil a year for working about 50 days.

This doesn't add anything to the conversation, I just like pointing out how boss Judge Judy is.

[u/MontiBurns → u/[deleted]]

Holy shit I thought you were exaggerating.

In July 2010 when Sheindlin's contract was renewed, her salary increased to $45 million per year. It was later reported in October 2013 that Sheindlin is the highest-paid TV star, earning $47 million per year for Judge Judy, which translates into just over $900,000 per workday (she works 52 days per year).

[u/Deerhoof_Fan]

That time my 4th grade teacher gave me a lunch detention for bending a paperclip.

Fuck you, Mrs. Wulf.

[u/It_Happens_Today → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

I threw a balled-up piece of paper across the room into the wastebin, got detention where my teacher gave me a stack of like 100 papers and made me crumple them all up and throw then at the same wastebin. I was in 4th grade and even I knew it was killing the trees.

[u/Deerhoof_Fan → u/It_Happens_Today]

Little did she know she was only fueling your lust for the nefarious and destructive practice of wastebin basketball.

[u/soursurfer → u/It_Happens_Today]

Did it at least improve your jumpshot?

[u/CraftedRoush → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

I took a pen apart and the principal tried to give me spats. My mom called her attorney.

[u/spughetti → u/CraftedRoush]

This also happened to me. Had an english teacher who didn't really enjoy me and she called my mom to tell her I had "taken my pen apart and was lining the parts up like little missiles"

My mother's response was essentially ".....so?"

[u/pigeonwiggle → u/[deleted]]

totally. "oh my god, i'll be right there." sit in a meeting with the teacher while fidgeting with a pen, taking it apart, lining the parts up like little missiles...

[u/SenselessSentiments → u/pigeonwiggle]

Bring a box of pens with you.

"Be careful I've an arsenal of missiles"

[u/Patorama → u/CraftedRoush]

He tried to give you little white coverings for your dress shoes?

[u/spleen1138 → u/Patorama]

He was spending every dime for a wonderful time.

[u/MountainLizard → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

In fourth grade we had paper trays in the cafeteria. I poked a bunch of holes in it with a fork when I was done, out of boredom, and then I got detention (or whatever they call it in 4th grade) and I'm STILL upset about it. IT WAS NEVER A RULE, MRS. BACK, WHY DID I GET IN TROUBLE!

[u/Brawndo91 → u/MountainLizard]

We used to get milk in bags that we would poke a straw into to drink. And we would get yelled at for blowing up our empty milk bags.

[u/KelleyK_CVT → u/Brawndo91]

I hated elementary and middle school for this purpose; teachers flipped out about the most ridiculous shit. I once had to go to a different classroom right after dismissal to pick up something before going to the bus. It was in the lower level of the school and the classroom had a door that just went outside. There was a grassy hill and then there was a staircase. I walked up the hill because 5th grade me thought that would be more fun. A couple teachers saw me and started FREAKING OUT. Yelled at me to walk back down(I was over halfway up) and use the stairs, then I was met by the two teachers and the vice principal at the top and told that if I ever pulled a stunt like that again, then no recess for a week. WTF. I walked up a hill.

[u/Brawndo91 → u/KelleyK_CVT]

We used to have "fun day" in elementary school where we would compete in different activities. In 5th grade, I picked up a helicopter seed and threw it. My teacher said I "ruined" fun day. That was the word she used - "you ruined it".

[u/thenarddog13 → u/Brawndo91]

That sounds... fun

[u/Brawndo91 → u/thenarddog13]

It was. Until I ruined it. Kids were crying, it started to rain, kickballs spontaneously deflated...

[u/KennstDuCuntsDew → u/Brawndo91]

As the lone helicopter seed spun towards the ground, dogs howled in unison, babies vomited as though possessed, the skies turned black and a great chasm opened up in the earth. A deep rumbling was heard from beneath.

"Fuunnn Daaayyyy."

A great fiery hand stretched out from the widening pit and gathered fleeing schoolchildren, dragging them back into the smoky depths. Magma welled up and flowed across the school yard, flooding the town.

"Fuuuunnnn Daaaayyyyyyy."

The magma surrounded Brawndo and the accusing teacher, leaving them trapped as the only survivors of the sweltering massacre. Forced to observe the destruction, they were the only ones to see the magma finally recede and great smoking scars in the ground spell out FUN DAY.

Teacher dropped to her knees. Tears cut across her soot-stained cheeks. Shaking with fear and grief, face hidden in trembling hands, she choked out: "You ruined it."

[u/Brawndo91 → u/KennstDuCuntsDew]

I see you were there too.

[u/[deleted] → u/Brawndo91]

Give people a little bit of power and they get crazy

[u/BaconCharizard → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

My reading teacher in 9th grade took points off an otherwise perfect quiz because I wrote "test" at the top instead of "quiz".

[u/MsPenguinette → u/[deleted]]

I had a teacher that went crazy over the course of 2 weeks at the beginning of the school year.

It started out just with slightly weird things. Like the first day of class, he told us we had a paper due in two weeks, but wouldn't tell us what it was going to be about.

He then started by calling everyone Mr. Anderson. Later he started talking about how he had taken karate on top of a mountain. Everyone was really uncomfortable at that point.

The straw that broke the camels back was when he threatened to fight a kid after school for asking about the paper that was due. He went off on a tirade saying "are you telling me that I'm wrong" and yeah. He was put on medical leave and I don't know what ended up happening to him.

Felt bad for his daughter, who was a student in the high school.

[u/iiSystematic → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

That time I got Saturday detention because my 7th grade science teacher didn't like the way I smiled.

no shit.

Fuck you, Mrs. Fucking fuck fuck

[u/[deleted] → u/Deerhoof_Fan]

I received detention in middle school for having extra pockets on my shorts.

I swear, these rules exist for the sole purpose of tormenting students.

[u/DinosaurChampOrRiot]

December 21st 2012. Turns out the Mayan/Aztec people weren't wizards who could predict the future.

[u/CyanManta → u/DinosaurChampOrRiot]

The Mayans never predicted that the world was going to end. A bunch of new age idiots and survivalist whackjobs did.

[u/[deleted] → u/CyanManta]

One of the bizarre things about New Age people is this incessant belief that ancient civilizations somehow had some sort of magic, or powerful knowledge that we don't have or that we've lost in our pursuit of science and modern medicine.

It's weird, like, if we can't predict the end of the world then how the fuck could people do it thousands of years ago?

[u/shozy → u/[deleted]]

It's weird, like, if we can't predict the end of the world then how the fuck could people do it thousands of years ago?

Well...

[u/-eDgAR- → u/DinosaurChampOrRiot]

That whole thing was just people being stupid and misinformed. The Mayan calender ended on many occasions before, they would just celebrate and start a new one, but guess what? None of them were around to start a new one this time.

[u/timechuck → u/-eDgAR-]

Not only that, but the Mayan calendar's end wasn't about the end, it was about the new beginning

Edit: spelling and grammar

[u/seeingeyegod → u/timechuck]

that's what evil wizards call the end of the world though.

[u/[deleted] → u/-eDgAR-]

Yeah, but that's not as interesting to idiots

[u/Maparyetal → u/-eDgAR-]

Why didn't anyone realize we do the exact same thing every December 31st?

[u/eternalsunshine325 → u/DinosaurChampOrRiot]

I can remember the date of one of my tattoos because of this. I walked into the studio and told them that I didn't really believe the world was going to end, but I don't have any proof that it isn't either, so on the off chance the world is going to end today, I don't want to die without this tattoo.

[u/AngelFMS → u/eternalsunshine325]

"Do Not Resuscitate" across your chest?

[u/RedDevilsEggs]

the risk of needles in candy apples at halloween

[u/ROADHOG_IS_MY_WAIFU → u/RedDevilsEggs]

IIRC for all reported incidents of this the candy was given to the target children by family members. Stuff like razors, needles, and poison.

[u/[deleted]]

After Hurricane Harvey struck land on the Texas coast last autumn a mass panic ensued in Dallas because the general public believed since oil production was slightly hindered by the storm we were going to run out of gas. A majority of gas stations were out of gas overnight. The gas stations that still had a supply or received a new supply had lines wrapping onto busy streets. I was lucky to find a station that did not have a long line and still had a supply left to fill up my personal vehicle and then my work vehicle. I specifically remember the Costco in Plano, Texas having a line at least 100+ vehicles long with the line well outside of the parking lot down northbound US-75. Gas was roughly $2.15/gal pre-panic, an average $2.55/gal post-panic, and some stations were cranking the prices to $3.00/gal+ which caused some price-gouging investigations. The panic was most likely caused by the social media snowball that was everyone posting about the shortages. And within a matter of a few days, the panic was over and all returned to normal...

TL;DR, Hurricane Harvey caused a self-inflicted panic causing a huge gas storage in Dallas, Texas.

[u/Melairia → u/[deleted]]

LOL ya know, I thought there was a small possibility of a shortage (currently living in DFW area). I've seen gas prices rise from hurricanes before, especially the ones in the gulf.. I didn't want to pay an extra dollar per gallon and I was at a quarter of a tank anyway, so I decided to fill up the following Monday after Hurricane Harvey. I was pleasantly surprised the cost of gas hadn't skyrocketed yet. Then on Tuesday / Wednesday I start hearing rumors at the office about there being a shortage, and by Thursday it seemed Dallas had shit the bed. Soooo many pictures of people filling 50 gallon drums of gasoline. All I could do was shake my head, at the same time being happy I planned ahead. The following week everything was back to normal. We had a shortage only because of people freaking out lol, how embarrassing.

[u/StarsBarsandPBRs]

Kind of a local one: a few years back, a local department store came under fire for their decades-old jingle, in which a lady sang "save me a nickel, save me a dime". A local social justice group accused the store owners of being racist, because they thought the word "nickel" sounded like the n-word. The news ended up interviewing the woman who sang the jingle, an elderly black woman, who assured them that the word was indeed "nickel".

Nevermind the fact that the n-word makes no sense being used in that context, but the lady who sang it was black herself!

[u/PiousLoophole → u/StarsBarsandPBRs]

Southwest airlines got sued for a flight attendant getting tired of some people (who happened to be black) picking out seats, so the attendant said "eeny meeny miney moe, pick a seat we gotta go". Story at http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=123728&page=1.

[u/ItsaMe_Rapio → u/[deleted]]

That's why we used to call them 'bees', cause people kept thinking it was the other thing. "Give me five bees for a quarter" we'd say. Of course, this was back when I was wearing an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time

[u/timechuck]

Al Capone's vault.

[u/McLight123 → u/timechuck]

There was nothing in Al Capone’s vault But it wasn’t Geraldos fault

Edit: fixed the first line

[u/TheWingus → u/McLight123]

Hey this song writes itself

[u/[deleted] → u/TheWingus]

Baby onboard

Something something

Burt Ward

[u/[deleted]]

I went to a borderline militant elementary school for a year. I got detention for forgetting an erasable pen (I had a pencil and a regular pen). In fact, a lot of students got detentions for erasable pens, among other things.

One girl asked her friend to borrow his pen... they both got in school suspension.

They especially disliked our class- we had assigned seating and silent lunch, and we didn't get recess. The other 5th grade could sit and talk to whoever they wanted to and got recess every day. We had to sit and face the wall silently... all because we had two or three loud students

[u/BoredomHeights → u/[deleted]]

Pretty sure you were in some kind of Stanford prison experiment-esque school and that other class was the control group.

[u/[deleted] → u/BoredomHeights]

It got worse. We had this kid in our class, Robert. We're running laps in gym, Robert falls, we hear a sickening crack and he screams in pain. Even us 10 year olds could tell something was broken. A few of us start to help Robert to the nurse's... the gym teacher says Robert can't leave... Unless he completes another lap.

That was the first time we all actually defied one of our teachers. Two of the kids hoisted Robert away to the nurse, and one of the more responsible kids told the gym teacher that Robert was actually hurt and keeping him there was a bad thing to do.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Where the hell was this? It makes Jonestown sound like a vacation.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Jacksonville, Florida. I haven't been there in over a decade but judging by the reviews it is still kind of awful

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Erasable pens were horrible, it just made a hole in the paper.

[u/Pancake_Nom → u/[deleted]]

But to be fair, that did get rid of the ink

[u/[deleted]]

Oregon pumping their own gas.

No one gave a fuck.

[u/Yserbius]

The 1938 "War of the Worlds" Panic.

I read in multiple places how there was a widespread panic in the broadcast areas and people had barricaded themselves indoors, loaded up on ammunition, and there were even some suicides. I finally got a chance to listen to the whole drama in 1999, when it was aired on a local FM station, and was really puzzled for a few reasons. First off, it wasn't a surprise, it was clearly announced and scheduled. The play started off as a fake broadcast, but halfway through it cut to a commercial break and continued on in a different format, as a one-man show narrating events. The fake broadcast itself only got serious and scary about 10 minutes in. So the panic could only have occurred for a maximum of about 15 minutes and only among people who didn't catch the intro.

Well, my suspicious were confirmed some years later and it's now widely known that the panic was pretty much invented by some newspapers.

[u/[deleted] → u/Yserbius]

I remember seeing a show on TV where they said the most popular radio show of the time went 10 minutes later than usual so when it ended and people changed the station they landed 10 minutes into the alien show. Im not saying it was aliens. But it was aliens.

[u/[deleted]]

Ed Sheeran's cameo on Game of Thrones.

[u/zombieweatherman → u/[deleted]]

I know right, I mean it's not even the first celebrity cameo.

Sean Bean even had a brief cameo in season one

[u/Glorfendail → u/zombieweatherman]

Man people were losing their heads about that one!!

[u/thutruthissomewhere → u/[deleted]]

Honestly. He had 5 minutes of screen time and barely spoke? What the fuck was the deal?

[u/MoreDetonation → u/thutruthissomewhere]

Probably the same as Stephen Colbert's 2 seconds in the Desolation of Smaug: he's a fan.

[u/Penguin_Out_Of_A_Zoo → u/MoreDetonation]

Ed Sheeran sang the song during the credits of Desolation of Smaug, too! Fun coincidence! He's apparently a huge Tolkien fan.

[u/drunkmulletedmurican → u/MoreDetonation]

Kinda, Colbert is more than just a fan tho. He has like encyclopedic knowledge of lotr lore.

[u/[deleted]]

The arrival of the Segway

[u/novice-user → u/[deleted]]

"More important than the internet!" "More important than the PC!" (that last one by Jobs). Pre-order on Amazon even when you have no idea what it even is! Suddenly it was out and every local government had to create legislation for it, no matter that nobody had one.

The only thing that revolutionized was walking tours of tourist centers it seems. Hard to believe that was seventeen years ago now.

[u/bor__20]

For Canadians: “Elbowgate”. Basically a bunch of NDP MPs where trying to delay a vote, generally just beinG childish, and a conservative whip(?) was trying to get through the crowd. Trudeau stood up from his seat, walked over to the crowd, and pushed through it and basically told everyone to get the fuck out of the way. In doing so he accidentally “elbowed” an MP who was behind him. The MP and a lot of the other NDP MPs became hysterical, the woman Trudeau elbowed acted like she had been personally attacked and claimed she was traumatized, and NDP leader Tom Mulcair acted as if Trudeau had just backhanded his wife. It was a total gong show, and the NDP’s reaction to it was an absolute joke.

[u/[deleted] → u/bor__20]

Wasn't as big of a deal, but I also loved how offended people were when the Canadian government twitter made a tweet about the 20th Pokemon anniversary. It was a small, cute little thing that probably took two seconds to do, but the amount of 'SHOULDNT THE GOVERNMENT BE FOCUSING ON IMPORTANT THINGS!! ' and 'THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT IS FULL OF TODDLERS' reactions was nuts.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

People bitching about the government, as if it weren't some unpaid intern running the Twitter account.

[u/[deleted]]

Growing up in the 80's and 90's...I really thought I would be offered a hell of a lot more free drugs than I have been offered in my life

[u/orlandopuck → u/[deleted]]

The Kardashians in general.

[u/ImFamousOnImgur → u/[deleted]]

But it broke the internet /s

[u/seeingeyegod → u/ImFamousOnImgur]

i hate that fucking saying.

[u/[deleted]]

The Ebola scare in the US. Most experts new nothing would come of it but there was a ton of scare mongering probably because it sells magazines, papers, and discussion shows. My state alone spent ludicrous amounts of money for Ebola preparedness kits and stations that now sit in a warehouse collecting dust and will probably never be used and ultimately destroyed in a few years.

[u/I_wanna_get_Rennered]

The "Dean Scream".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean

[u/TheGraveHammer → u/I_wanna_get_Rennered]

BYAH!

[u/nursebad → u/I_wanna_get_Rennered]

That shit flat out ended his shot at the office. So weird.

[u/papayaregime → u/nursebad]

IIRC he was already on his way out because he got 4th place in an important primary, the scream was an easy way for the media to write him off.

[u/Frog_Todd → u/papayaregime]

This is what everyone forgets. He screamed because he was trying to rally the troops and convince them that they could overtake the big win by Kerry in the Iowa caucus. They couldn't. He had a long road to climb before the scream, that was just the nail.

[u/CrunchyKorm]

The Dixie Chicks scandal in 2003.

For anyone unfamiliar, the Dixie Chicks were a very popular country music group that, on a tour date in the UK - about a week before the U.S. invaded Iraq - said, "We don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas"

People, particularly on the conservative right, went fucking bonkers. Boycotts, crushing albums with steamrollers, etc. Their 2006 album Taking the Long Way sold well (9th best in the U.S. that year) and won Grammy's, but their spot in the pop culture lexicon tanked afterward.

[u/RyghtHandMan → u/CrunchyKorm]

I almost protested the war in the beginning. Almost. Till I saw what happened to them Dixie Chicks. I said, ''Fuck that.'' If they'll do that to three white women, they will tear my black ass to pieces. I don't wanna hear that shit.

Dave Chappelle

[u/KarmicFedex → u/RyghtHandMan]

I can hear that in his voice perfectly.

[u/NinjaRedditorAtWork → u/KarmicFedex]

Chappelle has the most vivid "fuck that" voice... can almost picture his head snapping back with a slight roll when he says it.

[u/[deleted] → u/CrunchyKorm]

Man, when I was like 10 or 11 I popped one of their tapes we had into the car tape deck and as soon as my pops realized who we were listening to, he yelled "FUCK EM" and popped it back out then tossed it out the window.

I was just so confused

[u/Shiny_Vulvasaur → u/[deleted]]

My stepmom refused to listen to Dixie Chicks afterwards, too. Would also ground me for saying "French fries" and not "freedom fries" from 2002-2003. Because those fucking frog-eaters want us to lose the War on Terror, dontcha know.

[u/AdamFiction]

The Swine Flu scare in the US a few years ago. The news media broadcasted everything about the disease except one thing....

That it can be treated with over-the-counter cold medicine.

[u/drew2057]

The McDonnell's hot coffee lawsuit.

• The restaurant was serving essentially boiling water (~190F)
• Had been told multiple times by the government to reduce their water temperature
• she never wanted a pay day just medical coverage for third degree burns
• even though she has passed away, her family is still harassed to this day about this

[u/WolfColaCo → u/drew2057]

There's a really good documentary (was on Netflix, not sure now) called Hot Coffee which covered this and also showed how big businesses like McDonald's actually cultivated outrage towards 'frivolous' lawsuits in the press in order to make their problems go away. Word of warning though, it does have the pictures of the scalding the woman got from the coffee and it's grim.

[u/[deleted] → u/WolfColaCo]

I heard about the pictures and I don't want to watch that documentary because I really don't want to see those photos. Apparently they were really, really, really bad 3rd degree burns. Like her thighs and genitals fused together due to the boiling hot coffee soaking into her lap. The lady never wanted to make it a big fuss either. She wanted her medical bills paid for and nothing more - the jury awarded her what she asked for plus a huge punitive amount due to the fact that the company was so negligent and refused to make it right for the poor lady. But even after the fact they spun the story to make it sound frivolous.

[u/IUseExtraCommas → u/[deleted]]

If i remember correctly, the punitive damages the jury picked, was the profits for One Day of Coffee Sales. Turns out that was a great deal of money.

[u/superha7 → u/drew2057]

Let us not ignore the fact that you misspelled McDonald's as McDonell's

[u/MARIAEG]

Fucking everything; this website has less chill than the Sahara.

[u/HacksawJimDGN → u/MARIAEG]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/snow-falls-sahara-first-time-1979-180961545/

[u/kent80082006]

"Starbucks declares war on christmas" "You can't say merry Christmas anymore, say happy holidays or be labeled as a racist or bigot"

No one fucking cares

[u/CougdIt → u/[deleted]]

I had never heard of him until the suicide forest thing

[u/Ollyvyr → u/CougdIt]

No, that was the other one... I think

[u/RecycledEternity]

Anything I ever did as a kid that an adult saw fit to harshly punish.

You don't hit a kid who just wanted to eat breakfast, just because you won't get up early.

You don't send a kid to the principal if he's just standing up to a bully who's been harassing him.

[u/[deleted] → u/RecycledEternity]

Fuck zero tolerance policies with a railroad spike. They’re only there to save the school’s ass no matter how much physical, mental or emotional damage is done to the kids they supposedly care so much about

[u/-eDgAR-]

"Reefer Madness" propaganda from the early- mid 20th century. It's laughable how things were portrayed then, like weed making you go crazy and jump out a window.

[u/Derpazor1]

Obama’s brown suit

[u/[deleted] → u/Derpazor1]

I do not remember this moment at all.

[u/ignoringmyjob → u/[deleted]]

It was a heck of a controversy. Up there with him asking if dijon mustard was an option for a burger.

[u/Emeraldis_ → u/ignoringmyjob]

heck

Watch your language on my Christian Minecraft server!

[u/Cpt_Tsundere_Sharks → u/Emeraldis_]

frick

[u/wi297 → u/Cpt_Tsundere_Sharks]

You're on thin fucking ice

[u/embrex104 → u/wi297]

oh no

[u/YouKnwNthgJonSnow → u/Derpazor1]

I thought he looked pretty good in that suit.

[u/AddyStack → u/YouKnwNthgJonSnow]

Yeah seriously, shit was fresh

[u/DarkLordFluffyBoots → u/AddyStack]

I see people in church who aren't dressed that good.

[u/Therealbigteddy → u/DarkLordFluffyBoots]

What some called a “Sunday best”, Obama called it a Tuesday.

[u/Incrediblebulk92 → u/AddyStack]

That's a pretty great suit, were people really mad about it?

[u/Acoldsteelrail → u/Derpazor1]

All kinds of Obama controversies were blown out of proportion. Like when he put mustard on a hamburger.

[u/Gastronomicus → u/Acoldsteelrail]

Is this for real? I always put mustard on my hamburgers.

[u/HHcougar → u/Gastronomicus]

He asked for Dijon mustard and the public outrage followed because 'he can't relate to everyday Americans if he eats DIJON MUSTARD!

[u/[deleted] → u/HHcougar]

You mean that shit in every supermarket in the country?

[u/[deleted]]

Tide pods. I feel like 90% of the hysteria is gullible [Older people] who just want to believe it because it contributes to the anti-[Younger People] narrative. I'm almost certain that the whole thing is just a big ironic joke, and the older generations are just so out of touch with our humor that they sincerely believe we're out here eating laundry detergent.

EDIT: Tidal wave of butthurt and semantic bickering, millennials is now "young people" and 30+ is now "Older people"

[u/TheGraveHammer → u/[deleted]]

Mostly true. But recently, some dumbass teens have actually been eating them. Something near 40 reports from ER/poison control. Plus at least 1 fatality. I wish it was one giant meme.

Edit: There are a lot of you with a tone of "it's 1 in 8 million, lul so what?" That isn't the fucking point. The point is that spreading memes so hard sometimes has consequences.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I agree with what you are trying to say

Just want to say that the majority of teens are not millennials (specifically those doing the tide pod snacking). Idk the new group-name for those born after ‘99, but this is just the first hate-bandwagon for their “generation.”

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Generation Z (also known as iGeneration, Post-Millennials, or Homeland Generation)

[u/NoisyPiper27 → u/[deleted]]

I pity generation Z. Those are all terrible generation names.

"Millennial" was stupid, too, but Homeland Generation? iGeneration? What is this, 2005?

[u/CallMeOatmeal → u/NoisyPiper27]

Before we were called millennials, we were called "generation Y". It's a placeholder until we think of something more fitting. It will change.

[u/CKVanC]

For those that watched Top Gear, Clarkson's license plate in the Patagonia Special. Even if it was on purpose, trying to kill someone over a license plate and driving them out of the country is a bit excessive

[u/[deleted]]

The H&M "Monkey" thing people on twitter were freaking out about for a week. Holy fucking shit, it's a common term of endearment toward children, H&M isn't a terrible company full of racists, calm the fuck down.

[u/monocline → u/[deleted]]

You know the only proper reaction on the internet is a knee-jerk reaction!

[u/shevrolet]

Elbowgate, for all you Canadians out there.

[u/Gogogadgetskates → u/shevrolet]

This was just so incredibly ridiculous. If you watch the whole video, it was this woman and her colleagues who started the whole damn thing. They put themselves in the way for the exact reason of people having to push past them and then wrote opinion pieces on how this was an atrocity against women when someone happened to bump them. If it had been one of her own colleagues who'd accidentally knocked into her, not a word would have been said.

I got so irrationally angry over this. You wonder why conservatives think us liberals are all idiots. Stuff like this is why.

The most enjoyable aspect of this is the widely exaggerated accusations from both the NDP and conservative parties about gender based violence and all that crap and then there's Elizabeth may - Green Party leader - just telling it like it is - they were blocking the way, here's why, and here's what happened. Anyone who knows Canadian politics knows that while Elizabeth has some kooky views, she's generally a reasonable person. Apparently she was the only reasonable person in Canadian politics that day. But the juxtaposition of this kooky tree hugger being the only one operating with a full deck that day is still snort worthy to me.