I don’t know about you, but I feel like we’re living an increasingly paranoid time. So these Reddit users have decided to fact-check some of the old wives tales that keep making the rounds. There’s plenty of things to freak out about, but you don’t have to worry about any of these.
People pretending to be transgender so they can enter a bathroom and sexually assault people.
SleepNowMyThrowaway
The worst thing about this is that people honestly think a different sign would thwart a serial rapist. Its one of the most ludicrous, desperate arguments I’ve seen being brought up by apparently serious people.
JohnMCFabulous
To top it off, it only perpetuates the stereotype that rapists are creepy strangers. In reality AT LEAST 80% of sexual assault cases involve a perpetrator who knew the victim on a personal level. We teach our kids “stranger danger” but we don’t teach them that their coaches, teachers, relatives, and friends are much more likely to harm them than strangers.
If they’re so concerned about their child being assaulted, maybe they should start by looking into what’s going on in their immediate circle. Maybe stop excusing those high school athletes and well-liked teachers because “she was asking for it” or “we need him for the big game against Lakeview City on Friday!” Stop brushing off Uncle Ricky’s pervy behavior as, “Oh, classic Ricky!”
MaddiKate
Remember the paranoia about “rainbow parties”? There was a big hubbub in the news a few years back about teens having get-togethers where the girls would wear different colored lipstick and go around performing oral sex on all the guys until their junk was rainbow colored. There is not a single confirmed case of this ever happening even once. Didn’t stop people from panicking.
elianapeck555
Why do people still think there might be drugs in Halloween candy?
MofongoDeYuca
The only documented case was a man that poisoned his and his neighbors children for the life insurance.
risky-biznu3
I think there was one where a guy’s nephew got into his heroin stash so they made it look like a Halloween poisoning.
Here’s the Snopes fact-check on Halloween poisonings if anyone wants it.
shypster
Keep reading on the next page!
My parents warned me for years to watch out for strangers selling drugs to me. Come high school, the ones trying to sell me drugs (usually just weed) were my friends.
Actually, one other time in Seattle it was about 2 AM and I was walking through the “bad part” of town. A guy on the street corner asked if I got high. I said no, and he said, “Thats cool. Stay that way bro.” And I walked off. A guy a block later asked if I had any drugs and I referred him to the drug dealer I had just met.
Logic_85
I’ve read stories about people (women) yelling at men for holding the door open for them.
I don’t know if that’s never happened, but where I am I’m willing to bet it’s never happened.
I’m a woman, and I hold doors open for everyone. Most people I know do. It’s common courtesy.
brokendowndryer
People keep claiming that the president will hijack democracy and stay president when their second term is over.
Some claimed that George W. Bush would do this. There were similar claims about Obama. If Trump manages a second term, most likely someone will claim the same about him.
jm51
I remember my good friend’s dad believed this whole-heartedly about Obama. He once said, “That [expletive] came out and said on live TV that he wouldn’t give up his power after his second term!” When I asked him to show me where Obama said that, he just acted like it was erased from the internet to prevent an assassination attempt.
skoolboyjew
There are so many dangerous trends that bored and paranoid stay-at-home parents spread around. Like syringes in ball pits.
Maybe it’s happened once, but that’s not something worth spreading around the internet as if some international super villain syndicate is banding together to drop syringes into all of the ball pits around the country.
Kapwned
Keep reading on the next page!
Stop claiming that vaccines cause autism.
jennytopssky
Even if this were true. Isn’t autism better than having a dead child from an easily preventable disease.
GoMinii
Im an autistic guy here. Yeah, it’s better than being dead. I don’t get why people are so scared of the disorder. It’s not a mental disability, it’s a neurological condition. If they’re so affronted by the possibility of autism, why aren’t they scared of people who have it and walk amongst them?
(And yes, I completely understand that autism is a big spectrum and there are highs and lows. I don’t mean to generalize. I know there are a lot of people out there on the lower end of the spectrum.)
LOLICON_DEATH_MINION
People are always worried cashiers will give them a weird look because of an item they bought, or that theyll comment on items they’re buying together.
Ive never worked as a cashier but I’m pretty sure they don’t care what you buy. And Im pretty sure that “Hi how are you? Find everything you were looking for” is just code for “Hurry up and pay for your stuff then get out.”
b8le
I used to work at a computer tech support firm. Held the job full-time for three years. Heres my confession. The truth is that most people arent nearly as technically illiterate or rude as my colleagues and I made them out to be. Actually, 99% of our customers were kind and just wanted help.
I guess “exaggerated stories of the call center” just made for good smoke break conversation; its like a rite of passage in the phone support world.
We sometimes received a rude caller, but chances were that they had just been worn down from an earlier call with an inexperienced employee. Rarely did we get an entitled jerk, and when we did, he/she was always pretty easily taken care of.
squeeeeenis
Keep reading on the next page!
I live in Colorado where people, news agencies, and clueless law enforcement constantly fear-monger over marijuana laced candies being given out to trick or treaters for the entire month of October.
No one ever has ever done that ever. Not only are edibles kinda pricey and come in limited, small servings (10mg servings and there’s normally 4 or 5 per container) but no one in the history of edibles has bought 500 of them, spent $1000+ and thought “let’s go drug some kids.”
BackInVietnomnomnom
I’m always wondering why the people most afraid of terrorism are the ones who live way out where the buses don’t go and almost certainly don’t regularly spend time with people who don’t look and worship like themselves.
PunchBeard
My cousin lives way out in the sticks. I mean, they have use for the phrase “the main dirt road” because they live on a dirt road that is off of another dirt road. It makes the front page of their weekly newspaper when the grocery store has a new manager.
But every second or third post on his Facebook is some macho nonsense about “being ready for ISIS.” He posts a lot of stuff about Muslims too, even though I’d be surprised if any Muslims lived within 20 miles of him, or if he’d ever even met one.
will_edit_comment
People need to stop claiming that theres a war on Christians in the US. No one is persecuting you.
undeniablybuddha
Jon Stewart put it best: “You have confused a war on religion with not getting everything you want.”
me_not_at_work
Exactly. As a Christian myself, this infuriates me to no end.
So you’ve spent decades physically and psychologically tormenting LGBT people, let millions die of a certain virus, kicked them onto the streets, and damned them to hell. And yet when these people are given some basic human rights, YOU’RE the victim?!
You’re not being persecuted. In fact, the law still allows churches to refuse to hold same-sex marriages. You’re not the victim. You know what you guys are? Spoiled. Rotten. Little. Brats.
MaddiKate
Keep reading on the next page!
Office workers complaining about how many hours they work.
Working a 55-hour week once or twice a year doesn’t mean you do that every single week. I sit next to all of you every day and watch you put in 40 hour weeks just like me.
But we still sit there interviewing job candidates and tell them about how we work hard here, usually 50-60 hours. Why are we lying to ourselves about this? It’s not a thing to brag about. When I hear people are working that hard, I just feel bad for them. They are either getting paid too little, have a crappy home life, are understaffed, or are bad at their job.
All of those are things that deserve pity, not praise.
CucumberMind
Im just putting this out there… Had anyone actually slipped on a banana peel?
Alalated
Video games directly causing violence.
Salvation_crucifix
I’ve been in more fights because of Monopoly than Grand Theft Auto.
Although, in fairness, Mario Party has caused quite a few as well..
Radioactive24
Gym bullies. Or people being really judgmental in the gym. I have worked out consistently 4-5x a week in a gym for over 10 years now, and have literally never seen or encountered this.
Its understandable if you are out of shape in one way or another and are self-conscious, but I think most people will agree that you are your own worst critic and its really all in your head.
To be honest, 99% of the time, people in there don’t care about you because they are too busy focusing on their own routine or checking themselves out in the mirror to look for gains or whatever.
Its like people think the in-shape guys at the gym are bad guys from a B-movie in the 80s who are waiting to call everyone smaller than them a dweeb. If you take the time to ask the really in-shape people for advice, tips on form, and things like that, you will find they perk up and are very helpful and willing to take out time from their routine to give you a personal training session.
Some of the friendliest people I have met in life were people you’d think were jerks, just because they’re in the zone and have an intense, focused look on their face, or are ripped.
If someone is staring at you in the gym, its probably either because you look good, are interested in an exercise you’re doing, or maybe you’re doing an exercise with poor form and they want to help.
JustinUti
Keep reading on the next page!
This is something my local community deals with: hysteria over the presence of Muslims and their “desire” to implement Sharia law in America.
I’ve seen countless blogs claiming that my city lives under Sharia now. But not one can cite an actual law (they’re “secret laws”). No one can point out a court case upholding such a thing (“yet…” they say). Theres no evidence of community leaders pushing for Islamic domination (“the Quran tells Muslims to lie”).
Some people have even cited an instance where a local Christian church was hassled for a civil property infraction… which the church admitted to, corrected the problem, done. But apparently that is evidence of “a war on Christianity.”
trebuchetfight
“America sends too much money to other countries.”
The average American seems to think that about a third of the budget goes to foreign aid. In reality it’s so small its hard to even measurable. Less than 1% of the annual discretionary budget goes to aid.
Scrappy_Larue
“Stupid selfish millennials living life for themselves and no one else, squandering all traditions…”
Yeah, uh, this doesn’t happen. We just keep to ourselves and we expect you to leave us alone with your 300-year-old nonsense. Just because we don’t want your traditions to apply to us doesn’t mean we want them to stop existing. Do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t affect me.
DestinyPvEGal
People like my parents getting all angry because they think that everyone is offended by something they are doing. No one cares that you say “Merry Christmas”, no one is offended by your flag, and no one cares if you believe in God.
They are constantly pushing back against this perceived oppression. It doesn’t exist. Stop telling me to share if you aren’t ashamed to say Merry Christmas. Theres a point where your certainty that other people care about your views becomes a form of narcissism.
Fancygribble