Human innovation sure is amazing. We’ve managed to figure out how to count, tell time, use (and abuse) nature’s resources to our advantage, and develop complex social structures… so complex that it boggles the mind to look back and try to imagine how we did it. Much like the way looking at your nose in the mirror for too long will make you feel like a surreal assortment of fleshy blobs, thinking about our longest-unquestioned customs will make you wonder just how our ancestors decided on that over the generations.
But who has the patience to think about such existential questions? Not you, you may think as you get up to get a snack, contemplating the impressive variety of salad toppings, sandwich fillings and sweets we’ve also managed to come up with as a civilization.
Here are some tweets cursing and praising the ingenuity of the "inventors" of the simplest concepts we take for granted. There may not be much historical accuracy to be found here, but sometimes it’s easier to blame some hypothetical guy.
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Autocorrect is always ducking around with us, may it's inventor rust in peas.
There are a lot of funny stories throughout history of how these old inventions came about, but it’s hard to tell which ones are rumors and which ones are true sometimes. While there’s a widespread legend that potato chips were accidentally invented in 1853 by a cook who felt like he couldn’t please a customer who demanded improbably thin fries and sent out what he thought were ruined crisps in frustration, investigation of the historic restaurant that claims this legend turns up some inconsistencies.
Historians did manage to find a New York Herald article praising an unidentified woman who worked at the restaurant and had a knack for frying potatoes a few years earlier than that, so it may be more likely that this great idea came to a potato pioneer who knew exactly what she was doing.
Monopoly was invented by Quaker women to teach their children the dangers of greed and amoral business practices.
yeah, I hadn't though about this thread as sexist until I read this one that I know was invented by a woman and realized everyone is assuming all inventors are guys. I know it's just a comedy thing, this micro-aggression on it's own doesn't mean much but they do add up
Load More Replies...I hate to break it to you, Monopoly was first designed as the Landlord's Game, and it was intended to show how rent enriches property owners and impoverish tenants. The game has lost its lesson, but retained its meanness.
Monopoly was invented during the Great Depression by a guy who needed to make money to feed his family. He made all the boards and cards by hand, and carved the buildings out of wood.
Load More Replies...I've never actually finished a game of Monopoly. My cousins always made the mistake of making my brother or I the banker and the other the real estate person...of course we cheated. I think the last time we played my cousin ended up throwing the board out of the window (we were all around 10 or so, I'm 37 now) and we still randomly find little houses etc outside, it's become a family joke.
Mmmmm a bloody Mary with some salt, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco is soooooo good
Thomas Midgley Jr. Invented leaded petrol and CFCs in fridges/aerosols. It would be interesting if you could quantify his impact on our world.
With cooking i always imagine someone accidentally dropped something in the fire/water/stood on some grains, tasted it and was like mmm!
Its called I wish this really tough meat was edible, lets boil it to death and try to make it palatable by adding potatoes and other veg
The inventor of the wheel is still alive. His name is John Micheal Keogh, from Hawthorn in Australia. On 24 May 2001 he had the audacity to file for a provisional patent for a wheel with the Australian Patent Office. It was published on 2 August 2001 under the name "Circular transportation facilitation device". For this application the 'inventor' received the IG Noble prize of 2001 (together with the patent office).
Ew.. Living in britain i had to look these up. They look like they taste mostly of food colouring...
He invented time? ... Like now the sun is this bright we call it noon!
It was lady. Guy copied it, because he thought it would look good at him :D
I know this isn’t an invention but I have always wondered how and why someone thought that making coffee from the beans a civet shits out is a brilliant idea and then the person who decided to make it the most expensive coffee in the world. And there are people that actually pay for that s**t.
Back in the eighteenth century when Sumatra and Java were part of the Dutch colonial empire in the East Indies, Arabica coffee was introduced as a cash crop, using plants brought in from the Arabian Peninsula. The Dutch plantation owners forbid the indigenous workers from sampling the fruits of their labor. But the locals noticed that the palm civet also ate the coffee cherries that they were harvesting, and that the coffee beans appeared in the animals’ excrement seemingly unchanged. The locals then cleaned and roasted the beans, and began to brew their own coffee from them. Eventually, the plantation owners caught wind of the local’s superior brew, tried it, and were swayed that it was indeed the better coffee. https://theexoticbean.com/blog/coffee-types/history-kopi-luwak-coffee-from-civets/
Load More Replies...Guy who invented bandaids: This finger is cut, maybe infected, so let's go for a trifecta and cut off all circulation to the blood as well.
they're more to contain the mess than about the wound.
Load More Replies...WAIT... why are we so sure these are all guys inventing this stuff??? ;) (just poking the bear)
Historically, probably. Yeah or at least some dude took credit for it (often times not even maliciously, but because it wouldn't have been taken seriously if people found out that a woman invented it. Female rights have come a LONG way, thankfully).
Load More Replies...The guy who invented the ability to write computer code using plain English--was actually a woman who I'm sure is rolling in her grave that she went through all that trouble only for "the GUY who invented" to become a twitter trend.
The guy who invented 8 hours of school: "lets make it like jail, but for kids!"
Whoever invented the women's bra ---- and it was a man, IIRC ---- needs to wear one for, oh, all eternity. It should constrict, chafe, and fall at all the *in*correct places. B/c I swear the inventor was all, "Just sew two jock straps together, that'll work". ARGH.
Wasn't the modern version invented by Herminie Cadolle, a french lady? I'm not 100% sure I admit.
Load More Replies...The first Asian to make rice had to have had a really funny friend. "Dude this stuff I made is really good!" "Yah man, let's eat it with STICKS."
person who invented 8D audio: i wish the music playing in my earbuds weren't just like normal music, but like the music is traveling around my head and i begin to question my existe-
Guy who invented Slim Jim was drunk tryin' to drink chilli con carne with a straw...
Nobody stopped to think not all guys invented these, but many women did?
First person who opened a Durian Fruit and said "hey, this would make a great desert"
Haha. Durian in general though. 'It smells like beautiful vanilla mixed with a hint of garbage. Lets eat it!'
Load More Replies...What about the guy who broke in the first wild horse so it could be ridden? Like how many other animals did he try that on before he rode a horse?
There's a great meme video of two young/small monkeys jumping on the back of a wild boar and holding on as it runs around, like a rodeo. I guess it's in our DNA?
Load More Replies...The guy that invented Legos: - They will suffer... all of them... and i'll just watch... Then he rolls his wheelchair to the horizon
so… about the one who discover masturbation? what was he thinking… i need to pee but when i old it longer and move it it's fun...
As someone who has studies non-human primate behavior, let me tell you, masturbation has been around a LOT longer than we, as a species, have been...
Load More Replies...I know this isn’t an invention but I have always wondered how and why someone thought that making coffee from the beans a civet shits out is a brilliant idea and then the person who decided to make it the most expensive coffee in the world. And there are people that actually pay for that s**t.
Back in the eighteenth century when Sumatra and Java were part of the Dutch colonial empire in the East Indies, Arabica coffee was introduced as a cash crop, using plants brought in from the Arabian Peninsula. The Dutch plantation owners forbid the indigenous workers from sampling the fruits of their labor. But the locals noticed that the palm civet also ate the coffee cherries that they were harvesting, and that the coffee beans appeared in the animals’ excrement seemingly unchanged. The locals then cleaned and roasted the beans, and began to brew their own coffee from them. Eventually, the plantation owners caught wind of the local’s superior brew, tried it, and were swayed that it was indeed the better coffee. https://theexoticbean.com/blog/coffee-types/history-kopi-luwak-coffee-from-civets/
Load More Replies...Guy who invented bandaids: This finger is cut, maybe infected, so let's go for a trifecta and cut off all circulation to the blood as well.
they're more to contain the mess than about the wound.
Load More Replies...WAIT... why are we so sure these are all guys inventing this stuff??? ;) (just poking the bear)
Historically, probably. Yeah or at least some dude took credit for it (often times not even maliciously, but because it wouldn't have been taken seriously if people found out that a woman invented it. Female rights have come a LONG way, thankfully).
Load More Replies...The guy who invented the ability to write computer code using plain English--was actually a woman who I'm sure is rolling in her grave that she went through all that trouble only for "the GUY who invented" to become a twitter trend.
The guy who invented 8 hours of school: "lets make it like jail, but for kids!"
Whoever invented the women's bra ---- and it was a man, IIRC ---- needs to wear one for, oh, all eternity. It should constrict, chafe, and fall at all the *in*correct places. B/c I swear the inventor was all, "Just sew two jock straps together, that'll work". ARGH.
Wasn't the modern version invented by Herminie Cadolle, a french lady? I'm not 100% sure I admit.
Load More Replies...The first Asian to make rice had to have had a really funny friend. "Dude this stuff I made is really good!" "Yah man, let's eat it with STICKS."
person who invented 8D audio: i wish the music playing in my earbuds weren't just like normal music, but like the music is traveling around my head and i begin to question my existe-
Guy who invented Slim Jim was drunk tryin' to drink chilli con carne with a straw...
Nobody stopped to think not all guys invented these, but many women did?
First person who opened a Durian Fruit and said "hey, this would make a great desert"
Haha. Durian in general though. 'It smells like beautiful vanilla mixed with a hint of garbage. Lets eat it!'
Load More Replies...What about the guy who broke in the first wild horse so it could be ridden? Like how many other animals did he try that on before he rode a horse?
There's a great meme video of two young/small monkeys jumping on the back of a wild boar and holding on as it runs around, like a rodeo. I guess it's in our DNA?
Load More Replies...The guy that invented Legos: - They will suffer... all of them... and i'll just watch... Then he rolls his wheelchair to the horizon
so… about the one who discover masturbation? what was he thinking… i need to pee but when i old it longer and move it it's fun...
As someone who has studies non-human primate behavior, let me tell you, masturbation has been around a LOT longer than we, as a species, have been...
Load More Replies...