“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is one of the most incorrect sayings of all time. Idiotic opinions, fallacies, and outright untruths are all, unfortunately, broadcasted over the internet for everyone to see, meaning that all of us have to see, hear, and read the very worst words and ideas humans can put together.
The “Facepalm” internet group gathers all those moments when people really did or said something so unbelievable that it caused a visceral reaction to all onlookers. And through the magic of the internet, it can reach you too. So be sure to upvote your “favorites” and comment your thoughts below.
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In Fact, It’s Happened 7 Times
I DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO SPORTS, BUT THIS DUDE IS AMAZING FOR STICKING UP FOR THEM
The Rich vs. The Poor
Burnnnnnnnnnnnn
The oldest use of the word “facepalm” (but not the actual, physical action) dates back to the early days of the internet. In 1996, where the first netizens mentioned it in a variety of posts about everyday life. This points to the fact that this phrase was in the popular lexicon earlier, as the posters do not clarify what the word means and use it nonchalantly.
However, the actual post, of holding one’s face in your palm, is relatively old, and found in statues and sculptures going back hundreds, if not thousands of years. Normally, it was associated with more serious loss, like Henri Vidal’s Caïn, depicting the biblical figure mourning the death of his own brother, who he killed.
American Dream
“Muh Guns!!!”
Both my kids went through primary school, high school and university without ever knowing what 'Active shooter drills' are all about. I never had to wonder if they would come home alive everyday.
Now Your Own Decisions Belong To A Man You Havent Met
Due to the internet and the general ubiquity of this emotion, the facepalm remains popular, to such a degree that there is even a facepalm emoji (Unicode U+1F926) and a vast library of stock images depicting this action. While commonly reaction images of humans facepalming were used, one can now even find animals doing the gesture, most likely by accident, but it’s always fun to imagine a cat actually facepalming.
What A Shit Show
It absolutely did. We are such an embarrassment. Add in that I'm Texan and I want to hide my head in the sand these days. I'm no longer proud of my country or state and that's tough to say.
This Anti Vaxxer Trying To Stop Her Son From Getting Vaccinations Himself
"I can't wait until I turn 18, I'm going out and doing shots!" "But you have to be 21 to drink in the US" "I didn't say drinks; I said shots"
Just Your Average Pro Life Hypocrite
For those that see something not worth a full facepalm, as it is a bit dramatic at times, you can use the good old disappointed head shake, that one’s grandparents will tactically deploy when they see anything that confuses them. Over text, one can quickly and easily communicate their disappointment with the good old acronym smh (shaking my head) which is actually older than good old facepalm.
In Church For Blessing Ar-15's. But Blaming Others Than Christians
Spot On
High Iq Destruction
On the other hand, should one need to deploy stronger language, there is always the trusty face desk aka the head desk. While we do not recommend you actually do this, be sure to upvote the posts that go beyond a facepalm. This is a stronger emotion, one so visceral that the victim wants to physically bash the thing they just read or heard right out of their head.
Who Wants To Pay Our Bills
Not Bad
I once saw a guy in his car crossing himself before starting to drive at a green light. This was in Athens and traffic was hell (2003).
Show Me
The reality is that there have always been people who might cause us to facepalm. Bad decisions and horrible opinions are deeply human and probably existed before language. So it’s overall a net positive that we have methods to immediately “get it out of our system” when someone does something so deeply idiotic that it makes us feel bad by proxy. As long as we don’t facepalm too hard.
Who Needs Vaccines When You Have Miracles
It Was Media Control All Along
Why would your code name for something be a god damn anagram that's literally so stupid
Brain Damage: Cool, Vaccine: Nope, Thanks
Similarly, while the internet allows us to see more facepalm-inducing moments, on the flip side, it lets us publicly shame people with ideas this bad and it communicates to others who might have similar ideas that in reality, they are wrong and should keep it to themselves. Someone is not a bad person for being wrong but sticking by an objectively terrible opinion even when presented with contrary evidence is pretty childish. If you want to keep facepalming, Bored Panda has got you covered, check out our other article on this topic here.
Texas Be Looking Like Gilead
And too many people don't seem to realise how utterly stupid that sounds.
Lemme Ask You This
Having A Functioning Circulatory System
Don’t have a functioning circulatory system because it gives guys the ick. Got it
She Tried
Antivax Logic
Burn Victim
I can absolutely say I dont understand "human drivers of fire"what is that? Sounds scray! I need to read MCarthy et al 😄
Damn Son!
Awkward
Ummm all that stuff about the weed I’m just repeating what I have heard other people say.
Just Because Of Freedom And Law
You'll Survive
My ex manager was a chain smoker, like every hour outside for a cigarette break, when we were discussing favorite soda flavors, he said’ yuck, do you have any idea what soda does to your body’
Yep That Sound Right
Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions
Immigrant Prisoners Are Lease To Be Slaves
Perfectly legal under the 13th Amendment. Former slaves were often arrested in the South to be used as (slave) prison labor. 13A is ironically part of the root of today's mass over-incarceration in the US.
What If We Made An App That Would Endanger Lots Of Women?
Tat
When You Try To Sue A Restaurant For No Reason And Lose
Yeah, Sounds About Right
Which One Of The Many Mass Shootings Are We Talking About?
You Had One Job
But My Country Is Not Happy Any More
Their secret is oil. Lots and lots of oil, which profits the government first, instead of individual companies or CEOs. They have so much money that they build very expensive bridges to teeny tiny islands, just because they can.
We Did Everything But
☠️☠️☠️ How Is This Possible
My Brain
She's a Trump. Her brain doesn't function like the rest of us
Just Another Normal Day
Virtue Signalling
I've written longer responses about this topic, but for now I settle for saying that calling everybody out for cultural appropriation has gotten out of hand.
Queen Elizabeth Is Asking For Money On Internet
Woman On American Airlines Plane Duct-Taped To Her Seat After She Tried To Open The Door Mid-Flight
These Darn Spoiled Kids Today, With Their "Need To Eat At Regular Intervals" Or Whatever, Smh My Head
Rich kids get free meals from their parents. These people must think that rich kids eat at their leisure because their little fellows somehow earned it. I know sometimes I feel entitled to my privileges, but this is a whole other level.
Instead Of Calling The Cops, The Museum Turned Off The Heating And Lights. Protestors Were Asking For Food And A Bowl To Go To The Toilet - No One Cared
Keep It Simple Stupid
Affect is a verb and effect is a noun, but sometimes effect is a verb as in “ to effect change,” (thank you to those who commented below, I genuinely didn’t know!), English is lovely, isn’t it?
Yahoo Answers Might Be Gone, But We Still Have Quora
Every year I ask two questions during the first days of school. 1) What is the name of our country? 2) What is the name of the language most commonly spoken in our country? 1) Most kids say America. All right, what is the full name of our country? America. Yes, that's part of our name. The continent we are on is North America. We share our connected land mass with Central and South America. What is the formal, official name of our country? 2/3 of the time I have to provide "United States of America". 2) Kids say we speak American. Yes, that is our dialect. Our vocabulary, spelling, and syntax are American. What language do we speak? American. What language am I speaking right now? American. Usually someone figures out that we are speaking English, before I have to provide the answer.
Bonus question: What language did Jesus speak? Or, in what languages is the Bible written? Because I am teaching English, which includes literature, we frequently find direct or indirect allusions to biblical themes or passages. Every year there are some students who are absolutely convinced that Jesus spoke English. And the Bible is written in English. Their proof? They go to church every week, and there the Bible is, and it's in English. // Jesus was 2000 years ago. English was literally not even a Language 2000 years ago. There are several living languages that the ancient speaker might recognize if they heard a modern speaker. The foundation of what we recognize as English didn't even start to coalesce until the time of Edward the Great, early 900's. The Jewish texts, which we keep in the old testament, are in Hebrew and Aramaic. The New Testament, which was scribed by early Christians, is in Greek. Most of the letters collected to create the New Testament were in Greek.
Load More Replies...Why do Americans think that Europe, a continent, is one giant country with one culture and language?
In a population of 336 million, there is going to be a percentage of that who are not well educated. Those are the people who believe this sort of thing. Those who are decently educated (and I believe that's the majority), know better.
Load More Replies...I can't even begin to unpack the stupid, so I'm just going leave it here on the shelf and hope someone else will deal with it.
Anyone else recall when Quora launched, it was going to be a “moderated space where intellectuals can record the answers to today’s big questions,” or something along those lines? And they achieved that by insisting everyone create accounts under their “real” names - like Facebook (teeheehee hahaha). And now it’s just another cesspit - or more accurately - it’s now the internet’s preeminent cesspit?
Not only are they that dense, they're loud and proud about it.
Load More Replies...Anna was attending the top academic high school in Chicago, Illinois U.S.A.in a foreign exchange student program. American boy, “Hey, you’re Anna from Spain, right ? They speak Mexican there, right” ?
Sounds right. I suppose 'they speak Puerto Rican there' was too much work for him.
Load More Replies...I'm struggling to get my head round this one. I mean, the clue is in the name ...
I miss Y!A. I answered so many questions. I don't think I've ever ranked higher on any other platform.
Why does USA not learn their own language, English belongs to the English !
Bernard Shaw: "At some point it was decided that the language of the Americas should be English; nobody knows why this decision was never carried out,"
Not sure if this is an American who hasn't grasped the correlation between the Mayflower/Revolution/4th of July and England or if this is a confused resident of another country with a sincere interest.
I f****** hate quora. They're always sending me stupid s*** like this.
Every time I start feeling bad about all the flack Americans seem to get from the rest of the world I see a post like this and remember why. Yes I know there are many intelligent Americans who are more than a little embarrassed by people like this, but for some reason it always seems to be an American that posts s**t like this.
That's because we're the ones who get to hear it.
Load More Replies...When I lived in New England I had a visiting 40+ year old American family member ask me if New England was a state.
This was originally a joke post by a YouTuber who made fun of Quora. It was forever ago tho, so this may be a copycat.
Of course we speak English. He was just being a snob about her accent.
Load More Replies...Time To Hate White People For (Checks Notes) Walking In The Rain?
Note: this post originally had 159 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Can these be titled properly? Clicking on something with a general title of 'idiots' isn't the same as "hey all you xenophobic BP'ers out there, you can really get your bigot on with this thread!". Expecting to have a laugh only to see hypocritical after hypocritical post and comment is mind boggling.
My God I gave up got the stupidity was bugging me. Think I'll go pour another vodka and kill a Brain cell or two
A lot of BP just seems to be about illustrating how much Americans hate each other.
These threads make me so angry about America. You guys are living in a dystopia. You ok over there? Love and concern, Australia
I’m making a necklace from my craft book =D it says it’s a necklace that they make in Central Africa. I’m making it out of a paper plate lol. Our lives aren’t all death and despair.
Load More Replies...I'll probably get downvoted for this, but I remember when my left wing peeps were critical thinkers and skeptical of government motives and pharmaceutical companies. I don't understand why there's unquestioning support of every government decision and even the most innocuous questions about some vaccines are met with "MURDERER! SATAN! BURN THE WITCH!". You know, it's possible we were wrong about some things. It's possible that the same greed and corruption we criticize in pharma in other cases happened here too. The tribalism and othering will be the death of us.
She is why racism exists! Im so sick of dumb people bringing up race. Who cares what color someone is. Reverse racism
No it's just prejudice. Racism specifically arises from systems of oppression.
Load More Replies...When you decide to do or say something stupid you don't have to post it on social media. Just make it your little secret. I don't think anyone will mind.
Well this was... enlightening. Man there are some terrible people on here.
Well this whole article could have just been called "Let's S**t on America". I came expecting lighthearted funny idiot stories, not the darkest parts of our social politics.
I figured out how to block all the stupid posts on major social media outlets
Can these be titled properly? Clicking on something with a general title of 'idiots' isn't the same as "hey all you xenophobic BP'ers out there, you can really get your bigot on with this thread!". Expecting to have a laugh only to see hypocritical after hypocritical post and comment is mind boggling.
My God I gave up got the stupidity was bugging me. Think I'll go pour another vodka and kill a Brain cell or two
A lot of BP just seems to be about illustrating how much Americans hate each other.
These threads make me so angry about America. You guys are living in a dystopia. You ok over there? Love and concern, Australia
I’m making a necklace from my craft book =D it says it’s a necklace that they make in Central Africa. I’m making it out of a paper plate lol. Our lives aren’t all death and despair.
Load More Replies...I'll probably get downvoted for this, but I remember when my left wing peeps were critical thinkers and skeptical of government motives and pharmaceutical companies. I don't understand why there's unquestioning support of every government decision and even the most innocuous questions about some vaccines are met with "MURDERER! SATAN! BURN THE WITCH!". You know, it's possible we were wrong about some things. It's possible that the same greed and corruption we criticize in pharma in other cases happened here too. The tribalism and othering will be the death of us.
She is why racism exists! Im so sick of dumb people bringing up race. Who cares what color someone is. Reverse racism
No it's just prejudice. Racism specifically arises from systems of oppression.
Load More Replies...When you decide to do or say something stupid you don't have to post it on social media. Just make it your little secret. I don't think anyone will mind.
Well this was... enlightening. Man there are some terrible people on here.
Well this whole article could have just been called "Let's S**t on America". I came expecting lighthearted funny idiot stories, not the darkest parts of our social politics.
I figured out how to block all the stupid posts on major social media outlets