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How many times have you found yourself saying, "I was today years old," and then immediately having to sit down and process the implications? Because there is a deep humiliation that comes with discovering something that was apparently common knowledge to everyone except you. It is a shame that isn't easy to shake.
Whether you just mispronounced something or didn't actually know how babies are made, the cringe factor is equal. These people were brave enough to share their shame, and the results are both hilarious and profoundly comforting. Because nothing in this world is quite as reassuring as realizing that everyone is quietly walking around not knowing something they absolutely should.
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#3
Stephanie A Mutti 5 hours ago
My brother was maybe 20 at a christmas parade with real reindeer and he turned in all seriousness and said "so do they fly?" Genius level
One of the most confidently repeated pieces of trivia in human history is also completely made up. The idea that humans use only 10% of their brains has been cited in classrooms, on motivational posters, and in at least one film starring Scarlett Johansson, and it is entirely false. But reading some of these confessions will make you wonder...
Brain imaging technology shows that virtually all areas of the brain are active at some point throughout the day. Millions of people spent decades believing they had ninety percent of untapped mental potential sitting dormant. They did not. We are using all of it. This is as good as it gets.
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A survey of 2,000 Americans over 65 found that 36% wish they had known earlier in life what they know now about love, finances, and health – and that same percentage believes they would have made genuinely different decisions if they had. When asked which decade they would most like to relive, the majority chose their 30s, with their 20s coming in second.
This makes you think, because most people in their 20s and 30s are convinced they are doing everything wrong. The seniors, looking back at those decades, remember them as the best years of their lives. Time, as always, has impeccable comedic timing.
In 1999, Australian director Baz Luhrmann released a spoken word track called Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen, built around a fictional commencement speech written by columnist Mary Schmich. It is essentially a list of life advice set to music, and it contains more genuinely useful information per minute than most formal educations manage across years.
Wear sunscreen. Do not worry about the future. Keep your old love letters. Stretch. The song was a global hit and is still shared at graduations decades later, because it turns out the things people learn too late are remarkably consistent across generations. Mary Schmich figured them all out in a newspaper column in 1997. Most of us are still catching up.
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Did I say that out loud? 5 hours ago
Well, if you're bored and wasting time, there are worse things you could be doing.
The idea that blood turns blue without oxygen is one of those facts that lodged itself into an entire generation's brain during a school science lesson and has never been questioned since. It is also completely wrong. Human blood is always red.
Deoxygenated blood is simply a darker, deeper shade of red rather than the bright crimson of oxygenated blood. The veins visible through the skin appear blue because of the way different wavelengths of light penetrate and reflect through tissue, not because of anything happening inside the blood itself. Nobody's blood has ever been blue. It was never blue. We were all just sitting there nodding.
The most expensive lesson in business history was learned by a Blockbuster executive who sat across the table from Reed Hastings in the year 2000, listened to a pitch to acquire a small DVD rental company called Netflix for $50 million, and said no.
Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Netflix is currently valued at over $200 billion. The executive who passed on that meeting has never been publicly named, which is either a mercy or a missed opportunity for the greatest "I told you so" in corporate history. But one thing is for sure, he probably wished he had known a little earlier what the power of the internet would bring us.
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Bill Swallow 4 hours ago
Honestly (looks at current administration) it would seem to be more fitting.
#17
Spellflinger 4 hours ago
Canadian here and Lay's chips have added "made with real potatoes" on the bag because 42% of people did not know potato chips were made from potatoes. IT'S RIGHT IN THE NAME FOLKS!
In 2013, Welsh IT engineer James Howells threw away a hard drive during a home clear-out. On that hard drive were 8,000 Bitcoin. By the time he realized what he had done, the drive was buried somewhere in a Newport landfill under thousands of tons of waste. What followed was a twelve-year saga of repeated attempts to convince the local council to allow him to excavate the site.
He made offers to share the recovered fortune, was involved in legal battles, and had a mounting pile of bills that would make anyone sit quietly in a dark room. The council said no every time. He has now given up entirely. He is probably still telling himself: "I was today years old when I learned not to throw things away without checking twice."
#19
Don't listen to me 4 hours ago
Parents are supposed to notice this kind of thing, while you're a child still in junior school ffks.
#20
Did I say that out loud? 5 hours ago
I've never thought they were attached to the hat, but I do still wonder if they grow like that naturally? If I let mine grow, they would give Amos Brearley a run for his money.
#21
We all have one common enemy: Worcestershire. So let's once and for all learn how to order a Bloody Mary without making a fool of ourselves. The correct pronunciation is, and has always been, Woos-ter-sheer. Not Wor-chest-er-shire. Not War-sester-sauce. Not the creative phonetic interpretations that people have been inventing for decades.
The English language created this word, buried the pronunciation inside it like a trap, and then watched the world struggle for centuries. Worcestershire did not have to do us like this. And yet.
#24
Becky Samuel 1 hour ago
My autistic azz likes to call them on it. This is my trigger to pull out my phone and ask them when is a good time so I can put it in my calendar. It scares the doodoo out of them.
The beautiful thing about everything on this list is that none of it is actually too late. Yes, you spent 30 years mispronouncing a condiment. Yes, you probably only did use 10% of your brain most of the time. But you know now. That is the whole point.
The things we learn late are the ones that stick hardest, retell best, and connect us most instantly to other people who are also quietly walking around with their own version of the same story. You were today years old. Better today than never.
Are you brave enough to tell us what you learned way too late? Share it in the comments!
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#27
Elladine DesIsles 2 hours ago
Disappointed in OP's lack of knowledge, or disappointed because the clerk was hoping to be able to try something called "cowboy beans" himself? I feel like pinto beans would be a good on-theme alternative, though they aren't terribly exciting straight from the can.
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Bill Swallow 4 hours ago
But the original designer of the iconic Coca-Cola bottle made the same mistake, and patterned the bottle after the cocoa bean pods.
#39
Michael Largey 6 hours ago
The way birds and bees reproduce really doesn't resemble how humans do. Some sorts of mammals would have been better choices.
#40
Epona 1 hour ago (edited)
I sometimes think food allergy testing should be mandatory if you are a parent and have food allergies. Yes, I know that people can develop allergies as an adult and have nobody else in their family have any food allergies, but still. Maybe I am biased because I grew up with a mom who has a whole bunch of food allergies (and other allergies), so I have that knowledge base, but I get annoyed (I'm not proud of it, but I do) when I hear/read people saying "I thought everyone had *such and such obvious allergy symptom* because I have that symptom! No! There are almost 8.3 billion (a billion is sometimes defined as a million million, so 8 billion is a HUGE number!) people on Earth! How the f***k would we all have the same reaction to eating bananas when some people don't have any food allergies! This is a topic that irks me greatly and I wish it didn't (yes, I know I chose to be annoyed by it, don't come for me!)
#44
ॐBoyGanesh 2 hours ago
I think many of those born before 1980 were erroneously taught this. - - Claude says: Many K–12 textbooks (especially before the 2000s) did show veins in blue and sometimes described venous blood as “blue” or “bluish” in simplified diagrams, especially in elementary and middle school science materials. That visual shorthand led a lot of students to come away believing that blood inside the body is literally blue until it reaches oxygen. There actually were some educational materials and teachers that oversimplified enough to say things like “veins carry blue blood” without clarifying it was symbolic. So people who insist “my textbook literally taught me blood was blue” are often remembering a real classroom experience.
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#50
Michael Largey 6 hours ago
Steely Dan was not a person, but there were people who were glad to see him because he was certainly glad to see them.
#53
Michael Largey 6 hours ago
They don't bump into each other because they use lightening as their brake lights and turn signals.
#57
That’s all I yam 6 hours ago
I wouldn't consider the thought that they like being in water completely wrong : - )
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Lily bloom 12 minutes ago
I'll continue to believe he did come alive because a shared trippy fever dream is even creepier
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Otto Katz 5 hours ago
Not stupid, but ignorant. Being ignorant isn't a bad thing, it just means you haven't learned something yet. Stupid means you have had the chance to learn something new, but either refuse to, or deny the information. (think 2020 election deniers)
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Otto Katz 5 hours ago
Not stupid, but ignorant. Being ignorant isn't a bad thing, it just means you haven't learned something yet. Stupid means you have had the chance to learn something new, but either refuse to, or deny the information. (think 2020 election deniers)
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