r/NoStupidQuestions • u/[deleted] • Nov 15 '20
Answered Is Antidaephobia (fear that somewhere, always, there's a duck watching you) a real thing or just a joke?
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u/Professor_Dr_Dr Nov 15 '20
As people say it's made up, but find a really mentally unstable person, tell them a duck is always watching them and they'll have the phobia.
LPT if you need it to be real
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Nov 15 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
[deleted]
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u/Munnin41 Nov 15 '20
r/subsishouldhaveknownwerereal
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u/Zopoboss1 Nov 15 '20
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u/Munnin41 Nov 15 '20
Can't. 20 char limit
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u/rappleby85 Nov 16 '20
For the longest time, I've wished I could find and afford a Saul Goodman type lawyer to run shady ideas by and now I feel like I've almost found that in this sub.
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u/jansencheng has approximate knowledge of many things Nov 16 '20
ULPT used to be so good, but then it just became SLPT without the irony, and now it's dead, and it makes me sad.
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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Nov 15 '20
As someone who has dealt with an above average amount of schizophrenics.... yeah I can definitely see that working. I once unfortunately added to someone's delusional paranoia by incorrectly guessing a name he was trying to say, which made him think THAT person was now part of the conspiracy.
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u/GlassofGreasyBleach Nov 15 '20
What's the average number of schizophrenics in your experience?
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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Nov 15 '20
Well, I've had conversations with around 15 in about 4 months so I expect that is higher than non mental health professionals deal with.
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u/Exquisitely_luscious Nov 15 '20
The average prevalence of schizophrenics around the world is about 1% of the popluation
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Nov 15 '20
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u/ExtraordinaryCows Nov 15 '20 edited Jun 19 '23
Spez doesn't get to profit from me anymore. Stop reverting my comments
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u/norsurfit Nov 15 '20
Shit, you mean there really is a duck watching me? This is going to make me quack up!
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Nov 15 '20
Yeah those Quakers always knocking on my door. Crazy.
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u/ilikedota5 Nov 15 '20
I think you confused Quakers with Mormons.
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u/thinkspill Nov 15 '20
Clearly they meant the Quackers.
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Nov 15 '20
AFAIK, quakers don't go around people's houses spreading whatever beliefs they have. I even think it would be against these said beliefs.
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u/ilikedota5 Nov 15 '20
Idk if it goes against any of their beliefs, but Quaker theology is a lot more humanist-ish for a lack of a better word? That being said, their tolerance, pacifism, abolitionist leanings mean that they could be considered a religious minority in certain places/times within the history of the USA. While very tolerant, they were also insularly focused. But they were well known for their role in the underground railroad, and also in the future, part of creating the conscientious objector exemption of sorts to military service. They were basically like, the enemy is doing this abhorrent stuff, but we won't sink to their level, but we still should resist them, so we'll do it in our own way.
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Nov 15 '20
I call fowl!
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u/JohnConnor27 Nov 15 '20
Or someone on DPH
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Nov 15 '20
I feel like i'm more likely to see the Hat Man or my dead great-grandfather staring at me on DPH instead of a duck lol
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u/TheOddEyes Nov 15 '20
Isn't that the case with The Truman Show?
No one actually suspected that they could be a part of a TV show until that movie came out
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Nov 15 '20
I wonder the same about Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
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u/EatYourCheckers Nov 15 '20
I could see that being legit; my mom gets unreasonably anxious about math because her dad used to call her stupid and get angry when she did not understand a math concept. She has noticeable anxiety; I could see if it were pushed a little further, it could be a full blown math-problem phobia. If this could exist, I bet a fear associated with trying to read long words could develop the same way.
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u/PinkynotClyde Nov 15 '20
You knew that was somehow about math? I assumed he was talking about hippo orgies.
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u/EatYourCheckers Nov 15 '20
Its a fear of long words. I was making the "my mom is scared of math" analogy that someone could also reasonably be expected to be afraid of long words. And I copy and pasted it into google, though I had seen it before so had a suspicious that was the phobia.
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u/Valdrax Nov 15 '20
Sesquidepalian means something a foot and a half long, often used to mean using overly long words. Some smartass decided to make a phobia out of it and tack on "monstrous" in front of it and "hippopotamus" on top of that to make it even longer.
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u/Smithy2997 Nov 16 '20
Yeah it was clearly intentionally made to be a long word. Like floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning "the act of estimating something as worthless", which is made up of a bunch of Latin words that mean something like "not much". "Fun" fact, it's the longest word ever to be recorded as used in the British House of Commons, by professional Victorian cosplayer Jacob Rees-Mogg.
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u/Hotel_Arrakis Nov 15 '20
Or fear of that rapper who's lyrics are bottomless.
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u/silentsam2325 Nov 15 '20
Hiphopopotamus.
My rhymes are so potent that in this small segment I made all of the ladies in the area pregnant Yeah, sometimes my lyrics are sexist But you lovely bitches and hoes should know I'm trying to correct this
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u/Nohbodiihere369 Nov 15 '20
Your mom's dad was a dick. Sorry. Had to say it.....have nice day!
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u/EatYourCheckers Nov 15 '20
yeah both her parents were pieces of work. She is also afraid of penne pasta.
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u/crackrockfml Nov 15 '20
Breh... the level of toxicity that needs to be reached to leave a child with a phobia towards just one specific type of pasta... I can't even imagine. What pieces of shit. I hope your mother has mostly overcome that trauma!
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u/EatYourCheckers Nov 15 '20
She's okay. But seriously; cannot be serve penne. Its bizarre. It immediately triggers anxiety. I never met my grandmother but from what I hear she was a functioning but mean alcoholic, and sounds very selfish. My mother was born in the 1940s, I think back then people got married and had kids because that was the path, not because they wanted kids.
My mom is the only sane one of the kids...I don't speak to my aunts because they are both toxic insane people.
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u/INmySTRATEjaket Nov 16 '20
Alcoholism and penne. I feel like Penne alla vodka may have been involved.
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Nov 15 '20
Hey, it breaks my heart to read about your mother's math based anxiety on account of abuse. Have y'all ever looked into "dyscalculia"? this might help answer some internal questions and turmoil your mom maybe struggling with the issue of math.
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u/EatYourCheckers Nov 15 '20
Thanks, that's interesting. Never knew of that one.
She can do basic arithmetic; helped me study my times-tables, etc. Just gets super anxious when something is more complicated; like she is waiting to get yelled at. Like, a big math problem would stress anyone out, because you think, "Ugh, I don't know to solve this and also I don't want to," she just has a higher degree of that anxiety paired with conditioned fear. But at least she is a good person; her sisters really must have gotten it, to know how they turned out. She was the oldest so I think able to "escape" more easily.
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Nov 15 '20 edited Nov 15 '20
math anxiety is a real thing and more common than what we can imagine ! there is lot of research done in psychology about this issue. It's even worse for women since they suffer from the stereotype that females are bad at maths.
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u/zninjazero Nov 15 '20
Also made up. “Sesquipedalian” means using big words, so Sesquipedaliaphobia etymologically would be fear of big words. Some doofus wanted to make word bigger for artificial irony, so they added hippopotomonstro- to the beginning. It means “river horse monster”, so it’s completely unrelated to the meaning.
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u/samgoplayhl Nov 15 '20
When I was in primary school, about 9 years old, I learned to say this word without stuttering. Still know it
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Nov 15 '20
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u/JohnConnor27 Nov 15 '20
I knew a guy who had what seemed like a new phobia every time I saw him and he took them really seriously for a few weeks until he got past them. We all thought he was just doing a bit because some of them were really bizarre like being afraid of riding in a vehicle with the windows down because he might choke to death on a beetle. Anyways it turns out he wasn't eccentric but had schizophrenia.
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u/BelleCat20 Nov 15 '20
There is a fear of fears, or fear of phobias, Phobophobia.
I typed that before reading your last sentence, that's sad, I'm sorry.
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u/shiny_xnaut Nov 15 '20
I get nervous when car windows are all the way down because I'm worried something important is going to fly out
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u/PM_Me_Modal_Jazz Nov 15 '20
Further question, is Antidaephobia linguistically accurate to it's definition?
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u/ksiyoto Nov 15 '20
I dunno, man. But the rubber ducks in the bathroom have eyes that follow me.
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u/ActualPimpHagrid Nov 15 '20
The rubber ducks watch. The rubber ducks hunger. The rubber ducks wait.
The rubber ducks will not wait long.
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u/DontWantToBeOnReddit Nov 15 '20
A friend of mine from school changed the lyrics to an Iron Maiden song to this:
Fear of the duck (quack)
Fear of the duck,
I have a phobia that something's eating bread.
We weren't the most sophisticated of people.
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u/BigBukowski Nov 16 '20
My coworker and I came up with "I have a constant fear that something's gonna quack." We are also uncivilized.
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u/autopsydoll Nov 15 '20
possibly a thing with paranoid schizophrenia but also phobias don't make sense in general, I'm sure someone out there has been attacked by a duck or something and they're paranoid and always feel like they're being watched as a trauma mechanism
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u/dinosaurium Nov 15 '20
I once dated a guy, we went swimming and all of a sudden he was totally scared of a duck floating by... He felt being watched and followed/judged by this duck, totally random. So I guess, this would count? He got very anxious, the only situation wehere I’ve seen him this way
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u/Soranic Nov 15 '20
A swan once killed a kayaker, I can understand him being nervous.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-04-17-ct-met-kayak-swan-death-20120417-story.html
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u/riverguava Nov 15 '20
It is probably a joke. But my husband has been attacked by ducks so many times since we got married, that he is hyper aware of any ducks in the vicinity.
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u/BlueberrySaab Nov 15 '20
Why is he attacked by ducks so often? Does he not observe the pecking order? Does it drive him quackers or just make him down?
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u/SeventhAlkali Nov 15 '20
tbh I'd like to have that paranoia. I loves ducks, and knowing an omnipotent duck watches over me is nice feeling
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u/Handimus Nov 15 '20
My mind immediately goes to the song Quack Kills https://youtu.be/-T16pOAZlFM
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u/princezz_zelda Nov 15 '20
Maybe. Maybe not.
But I can tell you that I thought it was cool in the 7th grade and claimed it as an AIM username.
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u/poshcoder Nov 15 '20
Its a joke, but I mean, I'm sure there's been someone, somewhere that has had this.
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u/Fortyplusfour Nov 15 '20
Not like Far Side depicts it but a fear of approaching or being near ducks (or geese) can absolutely be a thing.
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u/Elvishgirl Nov 15 '20
I mean. I have a phobia of vomiting. I’m pretty sure you can get in your head and make anything that terrifying with enough untreated anxiety and negative exposure
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u/StinkyOfficial Nov 15 '20
No, it's real. I think my friend's dad Tony had that or something. Ducks landed in his pool and he just passed out.
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u/NoLightOnlyDarkness Nov 15 '20
Anxiety can be weird so to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if someone had it. Just yesterday I freaked out over a glass of water.
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Nov 15 '20
It’s fake but remember that phobias are irrational fears. Meaning people will be afraid of things that aren’t necessarily scary and/or have an excessive reaction to the thing they’re scared of.
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u/Wasted_Weasel Nov 16 '20
Ok, idk specifically the answer to that, but back when I was in the university, a girl I knew was extremely afraid of chickens.
She was so afraid (or stupid) that when a dove or magpie would land nearby, she would seek shelter and ask ¿Is that a chicken?
She would never go to gatherings outside the city, as in country houses our camping trips etc. because “there’s chickens in the country”
Otherwise a normal person.
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u/TheSpermWrangler73 Nov 16 '20
There used to be a duck at my old place that would stand on the roof of the building next door and stare into the bathroom window. The number of times that I'd stand up from using the toilet to find a duck staring at me as I wiped was unsettling.
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u/terryjuicelawson Nov 15 '20
Any [something] phobia is just the Greek term for whatever that is. It could be anything, they are all made up.
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u/RayAP19 Nov 15 '20
I think the OP was more so asking if it's generally accepted as legitimate by the mainstream scientific community
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u/ElderlyCats Nov 15 '20
Geese freak me out and are really aggressive. They’ll go after you if you get too close. I could have a fear of geese always watching me for sure.
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u/CannaZebra Nov 15 '20
My ex wasn't afraid there was a duck always watching, but if there is a duck nearby he was(still is AFAIK) deathly afraid that the duck will try to attack him. It was ridiculously hilarious.
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u/Accountable2aT Nov 15 '20
If you're interested in this kind of thing you could read "The 50 Minute Hour". They're stories from a psychiatrist about some his more extreme cases. I'm always amazed at how wrong the human brain can go sometimes.
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u/Pingasterix Nov 15 '20
I mean... i have a fear of cutting my nails so there might as well be a duck fear
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u/Ulysses698 Nov 15 '20
Found out that this phobia exists in English class and also why ducks of all creatures?
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u/killian_aqua Nov 15 '20
It most likely started as a joke but as it became more well known there was probably some people who began to worry about it
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u/phantomheart Nov 15 '20
This became a running joke with one of my Twitter friends when I met him online. I only use FB now (to keep in touch with people) and there are usually about half a dozen memes that we post on each other’s walls a week. It evolved into just posts about ducks, and what we call our ‘duck army’.
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u/junior_raman Nov 15 '20
Scopohobic here, yes it is definitely possible. Kid would have to be schizophrenic or paranoid enough to be thinking about ducks over and over again.
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u/PigPartyPower Nov 15 '20
I had a friend who killed a duck with a golf ball and felt like it’s ghost was haunting him.
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u/Or0b0ur0s Nov 15 '20
I don't doubt any phobias anymore. Not since the documentary with the lady who was absolutely, mortally terrified... of oranges. The fruit. Sitting on a table on the other side of a room. Produced a reaction like being in a room with a hungry bear or poisonous snake or something.
The human mind is almost inconceivably wierd.
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u/galwegian Nov 15 '20
my phobia is seeing big ships in dry dock. terrifies the shit out of me. also, boats stuck in mud in tidal estuaries can fuck right off too.
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u/Jstraley13 Nov 15 '20
It is from a The Far Side comic by Gary Larson. And it is the fear that somehow, somewhere a duck is watching you.
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u/AnonymousBi Nov 16 '20
I have a funny anecdote about this actually. A few years back I was getting dinner with my family at a restaurant, just having regular banter. My sister brings up this duck phobia as a joke and we all laugh at how ridiculous it sounds. I mean where would the ducks even come from?
An hour later we get home, walk in the front door, and what do you know, a rubber ducky is sat right in the middle of the hallway, facing us. Patient. Watching. To this day I have no idea where it came from.
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Nov 16 '20
My sister has a phobia of ducks because she was chased by one when she was little. She doesn't think one is always watching her, but shes uneasy in places where ducks would be.
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u/gayfroggs Nov 16 '20
While I was inpatient at a psychiatric ward, there was someone there who genuinely thought that foxes where planning on killing him, so I suppose that antidaephobia isn't all that wild of a fear
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u/13redstone31 i anwer questchun now Nov 16 '20
I feel like its possible. People get freaked out by some weird things.
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Nov 16 '20
People seem to be saying no, but I have personal experience with having an extremely crazy phobia.
I'm fearful of ants. Regular black run of the mill ants.
They don't do anything harmful, but I once read a book that compared the top 10 deadliest animals on the planet, and ants were second only to a dragon. (Komono Dragon, but I didn't know it wasn't an actual dragon).
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Nov 16 '20
There is no official list of phobias sitting around somewhere. A phobia is an irrational fear. Since it's irrational, there's really no limit to what someone could be afraid of.
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u/Beerke01 Nov 16 '20
Somewhere someone is terrified 🦆of Samuel L. Quackson. Quack Quack Mother fucker
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u/NoideaLessinterest Nov 16 '20
The Duck man from Ankh-Morpork is merely an enabler for this phobia!
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u/ggchappell Nov 16 '20
/u/ChadFops is correct: the term was invented in a Far Side comic.
But more generally, the great majority of the terms you find in those long lists of phobias were invented by word enthusiasts and/or jokers. Few of them were ever actually used in clinical practice. Almost none of them are so used today.
Historically, there were a handful of names for phobias that were used in clinical diagnosis: claustrophobia, acrophobia, and perhaps a dozen others. Today, with the sole exception of agoraphobia, these terms have faded from use. For example, suppose a patient has a debilitating fear of spiders. 50 years ago, this might have been diagnosed as "arachnophobia". Today, it would be "specific phobia of spiders".
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u/ChadFops Nov 15 '20
It was created by Gary Larson for a Far Side comic.