Before the school of hard knocks teaches us how to be truly mean, our insults are pure, chaotic poetry. It’s a world where the most devastating thing you can be is a "sentient raisin" or to "smell like a Tuesday." The logic is flawless, even if it makes absolutely no sense.
An online community asked people for the funniest kid insults they've ever heard, and the answers are a glorious gallery of failed takedowns that are accidental comedic masterpieces. They are a little mean, but mostly they're avant-garde and creative beyond measure.
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I have told this story before.
My little brothers are twins, seven years younger than me. M is the 'sensitive' one, very tempermental and prone to yelling or crying or fighting. P is a stone cold brute who doesn't engage often but ruins lives when he does.
They are nine, at the park across the street, I am sitting on my porch reading and keeping an eye on them. M gets into an altercation with some kid and I start to head over when I hear raised voices. Before I can get there, the kid tells M, very clearly, "your birth certificate was an apology letter from the abortion clinic"
Personally, it took every fiber of will that I possessed to not burst out laughing. This is immediately my favorite insult ever, but it was also aimed at my little brother. M is shocked. He knows what an abortion is, and this kid just rocked his world. He looks like he's about to cry.
Before I can intervene at all, P comes up out of nowhere with a flying punch to this kid's face. Kid gets knocked down and very quickly wants nothing to do with the pissed-off miniature bull standing over him. Kid takes off and I collar the twins to herd them back home.
On the way across the street, I remark that it was kind of P to defend his brother, though punching a kid was a little extreme. P glares at me and replies "I wasn't defending him; that's my birth certificate, too.".
My name is Caroline, and when I was in preschool, I had this bully who would call me Carrotline, rabbits eat you all day. I don't know why, but this SUPER upset me. One day I came home sobbing and explained to my dad that this kid was STILL calling me Carrotline rabbits eat you all day. So my dad asks what the kids name is. I tell him it's Daniel and he helps me come up with something I can call him. We settle on "Daniel Daniel cockerspaniel, go soil yourself in the yard!" So the next day, I'm at preschool and there he is, calling me Carrotline, rabbits eat you all day. So I put my hands on my hips and I say "Whatever, Daniel Daniel cockerspaniel, go soil yourself in the yard!" Turns out Daniel Daniel Cockerspaniel was a little crybaby, and I got timeout.
Yet another example of bullies are ignored and standing up to them gets *you* in trouble.
If I had a nickel every time I met a guy as stupid as you I would have a nickel!
It's so simple and pure, I really liked it.
The target of this remark could be very, very smart, and it would still be true.
Long before the internet was a thing, our collective obsession with the weird and wonderful things kids say was already a cultural phenomenon. The classic TV show "Kids Say the Darndest Things", originally hosted by Art Linkletter, was built entirely on this premise. It was a prime-time celebration of the unfiltered, unintentional, and often deeply bizarre things that come out of children's mouths.
The show was later taken over by Bill Cosby, and a modern revival put Tiffany Haddish in the hosting seat. But thanks to parents’ lightning-fast recording ability, we now also get more than our fill of toddler insults scattered inbetween our regular doom-filled scrolling sessions.
My siblings had a phase when “pinecone” was the worst insult ever. Calling each other a pinecone would result in screaming and crying. One brother tried using it on another kid at the playground and got no reaction, because....it’s not a real insult.
Edit: You’re blowing up my inbox, you buncha pinecones.
Anything can be an insult or a complement depending on context and intent. Y'all boopensteins.
Not another kid, but I was trading SFW insults with my friend's son who must have been like 5 years old at the time- I was in my thirties.
He told me, "I'm going to wait until there's three cars coming, and push you in the road."
Same family- Same vacation actually, but this was his younger sister- She had drawn a picture of me and titled it "Dumb." In the picture I had this happy little smile.
"If I'm so dumb, why am I happy?" I asked her.
"Because you don't know any better.".
Don't ask questions you don't want the answers for. Kids are BRUTAL
"I'm so jealous of all the people that haven't met you yet." My nine year old said this to my 12 year old.
Author Johanna Stein brilliantly compiled a series of the "insults" her four-year-old daughter delivered to her in a single day, and it's a masterpiece of unintentional roasting. The comments are a series of drive-by verbal onslaughts that are as brutal as they are hilarious and their sting is captured by the first-person view camera angle on the poor mother’s face.
Some of the gems include, "Your tummy looks like a bagel," "Did you take a shower? Because it didn't work," and the soul-crushing question she wakes up to, "Are you going to make yourself pretty today?" It's a perfect encapsulation of how a small child's observations can be both incredibly pure but somehow leave some stinging scars in their wake.
About 14 years old at te time. "I could've been your dad but the dog beat me climbing the stairs".
Kind of tangential to the question, but I was babysitting my niece (7 at the time), and we were play-arguing. Out of nowhere she says, "You're a silly little boy, and you'll never go to space."
I was 26 at the time and I've never felt so personally attacked.
So, are these kids actually being mean, or is something else going on? According to experts at Romper, the answer is usually honesty. Young children are famously literal and are still developing a social filter. They are basically tiny, walking truth-tellers who haven't yet learned the art of the "white lie."
So when a kid says, "Your breath smells weird," they're not trying to be malicious, they are simply making a factual, sensory observation. The line between honesty and rudeness is all about intent, and most of these budding comedians have no intention other than to state what they perceive as a fact.
Not kids, but sufficiently childish. I am disabled and wheelchair-bound. I don't mind, and roasting/being roasted are two of my favorite hobbies, so it's all good.
One time I started to tell a story to a close friend, "so I walked into the room..." and he interrupted me.
"No, you didn't ."
I laughed for like, three minutes while he just grinned smugly.
I have a friend who's a quadriplegic and he just rolls with these things. "Stand by." "Can't." "Oh, hang on." "Can't." "Um, sight tight?" "That I can do!"
*"The only thing your Dad lifts is a bottle."*.
Not quite "kids" per se but I remember in high school listening to a bunch of the special ed students roasting each other when of of them said this to one of his friends: "You're a toilet Steve...it's time to flush the handle." The whole table erupted into laughter.
I still consider listening to a special ed roast session to be one of the great privileges of my life.
Then, something shifts. Vanessa LoBue Ph.D. explains that around the age of four or five, kids start to figure out that words are powerful tools that can get a reaction out of people. This is when the insults become a little more intentional, but their execution is still delightfully clumsy because their understanding of the world is so limited.
This is the birth of the "you're as funny as a turtle" era. It's a clumsy, verbal science experiment: "If I call my brother a 'Do Si Do,' will he cry?" The goal is to be mean, but the result, thanks to their bizarre choice of words, is accidental poetry.
"You look like something that came out of a slow cooker!"
We had no clue what that meant, but we had to stop and take a moment of silence for that roast.
- Kid A - You're adopted!
- Kid B - I know. Mom decided to keep the stupid one.
I laughed out loud. Some cold stuff from a 7 year old.
My cousins and brother telling me I was a test tube baby and failed the test. I was about 9 and still remember that clearly.
Two toddlers were trying to open a heavy door and one gave up out of frustration and just yelled "DAMMIT" and the other, mortified by the "bad" word started to cry. Toddler one says "I'm not dammiting YOU, I'm dammiting the DOOR!".
Lol. Toddler 1 doesn't feel it's a bad word, unless he uses it on the other
At the end of the day, these insults are a precious, fleeting form of accidental genius. They are a magical cocktail of a limited vocabulary, a developing brain, and a complete lack of a social filter. They are funnier, weirder, and more creative than any insult an adult could ever come up with.
So let's all take a moment to appreciate these tiny, unintentional roast masters. Cherish this bizarre era, because it's only a matter of time before they learn how to be actually mean, and that's far less entertaining.
What is the most unserious insult you have ever heard from a kid? Let’s all laugh together in the comments!
One kid went "Yo momma so dumb, she plays Counterstrike with a steering wheel!"
And the other, without thinking for even a second, replied "And she's still beating YOU!".
My eight-year-old granddaughter told her older brother the only way he'd ever hurt himself during an activity is if the TV exploded.
4 year old daughter yells "dad, Ian says I'm dumb". Dad whispers in her ear and then she yells "I'm not dumb Ian, I'm just slow".
Heard kids arguing whose parents has cooler cars one kid yells my dad has a BMW and my mom has a Murano. Without missing a beat other kid yells "Thats cuz your mom's a morono".
Younger son told older son "haha you're as funny as a turtle!"
Older son: "I don't get it, turtles aren't funny?"
Younger son: "Exactly."
They were like 5 & 7 at the time. I still laugh when I think about it...
4 year old to 4 year old: maybe your mum should have done a better job raising you.
New mom, unsure of how lenient/strict I should be. We had a sitting exchange group with other moms and I was watching a toddler in my house who decided that removing our couch cushions and jumping on them would be fun. I looked at it and thought - ok, seems safe enough. Naturally, he tumbles off and bumps his head. Crying, he says, "You shouldn't have let me do that!" Ok, point taken.
When my son was 4 at the playground to another kid:
"Get back here, ya' blender".
No idea why that was the word he chose.
One time I was on a bus and heard this exchange between two 12 year old boys:
Boy 1: Can I use your phone?
Boy 2: Sure. Who you calling?
Boy 1: My mom.
Boy 2: Oh. You can just hit redial.
Another time I was walking down the street behind 2 8 year old girls who were fighting. One girl starts to storm off and her friend goes "Wait! I have a present for you!" The other girl turns around and says "Yeah? Is it a life? 'Cuz you can keep that, I already have one!".
That's quick thinking for a twelve-year-old boy. He must have already had that mom on his mind.
I once heard a 7 year old tell another that no one liked him and the only reason he was still at the school was because his parents couldn't afford to put him up for adoption.
One day when I my daughter up from preschool she greeted me with "what do you have for me, daddy?"
I said an apple.
"What else do you have for me?"
Hugs and kisses. :D
"Can I just have the apple instead?"
.___.
My buddy had all his family over and his niece put her hand on his stomach and said "sorry you have such bad asthma" she thought asthma was the term to use for fat.
My son: "I have an Angry Birds shirt!"
My daughter: "You have two shirts. An Angry Birds shirt and a shut your mouth shirt."
Loved it because it only barely made sense.
Preamble - I work in IT for a school, so overhear chunks of lessons whilst working in classrooms.
One child, perhaps 7 years old, raises a hand and asks the teacher a question about tectonic plate movement, to which a neighbouring child loudly announces "You're a tectonic plate movement".
It would've been unprofessional to snort with laughter, but I wanted to...
I teach high school. We have a talent show every year. I encouraged one of my students to enter the talent show. His athletic friend sitting next to him boasts, “My talent is basketball and football.” The student I encouraged to enter the talent show responded, “And you’re not even good at that.” It was such a sick burn, I even laughed.
"STOP ACTING SO SPECIAL YOU'RE A DO SI DO"
Never have I ever thought my teenage years would be spent trying to comfort a kid crying hysterically over being called a girlscout cookie. Doubly painful, because no one in the troop liked do si dos.
My 6yr old daughter told my son that he was like a Christmas tree but without a Star.
There was a story on Reddit a while back about a kid getting into trouble for calling another kid a "Hanzo Main".
The teacher had no idea what it meant, but knew it was likely meant as an insult of some kind. I thout that was hilarious.
Many, many moons ago, more than I care to think about, when I was a kid, it was very common for kids to intentionally roast each other as hard as possible (with the caveat that it had to be clean; cuss words were an automatic loss because they lacked style). This was right around the time that the movie Hook came out (RIP Robin Williams, we still miss you) and the insult duel in that movie was on everyone's minds.
Many, many moons ago, more than I care to think about, when I was a kid, it was very common for kids to intentionally roast each other as hard as possible (with the caveat that it had to be clean; cuss words were an automatic loss because they lacked style). This was right around the time that the movie Hook came out (RIP Robin Williams, we still miss you) and the insult duel in that movie was on everyone's minds.
