‘Mildly Interesting’: An Online Group Exploring The Weird And Wonderful Side Of Everyday Life (50 New Pics)
The internet is awash with content designed to provoke a harsh reaction. Whether it’s spite for celebrities and their drama, anger from sensationalist reporting, or one of the latest cringe compilations, consuming all this can leave you with a bad taste in the mouth.
That’s why we’ve decided to help you with a little palate cleanser. It’s time to put on your slippers, grab a glass of room-temperature tap water and make yourself comfortable. When you’re ready, enjoy a few of Bored Panda’s latest entrées of ‘Mildly Interesting’ morsels.
The name of the Reddit page that collects these photos is a bit of a misnomer. Although /r/MildlyInteresting doesn’t post jaw-dropping content, there’s always something fascinating and it injects a little wonder into the everyday. We love the page here at Bored Panda, that’s why we’ve written on it once, twice, thrice and uh… four times before. So, be sure to check them out after this one!
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My Hotel Phone In Iceland Has A Special Button That Will Wake You Up If There Are Northern Lights In The Sky
/r/MildlyInteresting has captured the intrigue of over 19M people, so it goes to show that the content is more than just a little bit interesting.
Bored Panda spoke with one of the moderators, RedSquaree, on the continuing success of the page. They said, "I think we've done an amazing job of curating a subreddit that is still niche despite being hugely popular."
"The content is roughly the same today as it was almost a decade ago. Most subs change (for the worse) as they grow, but we've kept things mild—just the way people want it," they explained.
My Dining Room Table Houses A Secret Spiral Staircase
My Apartment Complex Rented Out 200 Goats To Eat Away At The Overgrown Path And Riverbed Behind Our Buildings!
New career goal: owning a Rent-a-Goat business ("No Job Too Shrubby")
Missing Cat Owner Posted A Follow Up Where The Previous Missing Posters Were
I always wonder when I see lost posters, what the outcome is. This is nice.
That's a nice thing to do. I cant get missing people or pets off my mind once I see the flyers so I am constantly looking for them. I also wish people would take the flyers down if they are out of date.
i wish more would do that you see the missing posters but never know if the pet has returned or been found
I wish we'd done this when our cat came home, though nothing restores your faith in humanity like getting calls saying "Hey, I think I saw your cat!" a month after she's already home.
Everyone needs to do this, seeing these makes me so paranoid and its be nice ti know the animal is safe and back home
That is so nice. So happy for Bella and her peeps! Many people care deeply.
When you see a cat, on the street, it may have an owner, so look into it, be a hero !!!
When I was young our cat ran away. About three weeks or so later down the hill from our house someone put up a “cat found” sign. Taped it to a huge road closed sign while they were widening an older street. I saw it and begged my parents to pull over so we could look at the sign closer for days. Finally they relented telling me not to get my hopes up. Any guesses if it was our cat?? 😼😽 (Answer: it was!!)
I Came In My Kitchen To Find A Lizard Using A Sponge As A Raft In The Sink. (I Live In New Mexico)
Woo Hoo - this is fun!!!! Come back in 10 - I'm enjoying myself here.
I Gave My Wife LEGO Flowers For Her Birthday
It's hard to define what makes something 'mildly interesting' but in my opinion, there’s a certain theme running throughout. The images shared usually go against the grain of what we consider as “normal”. Or, they highlight some bizarre coincidence that we would never have expected.
However, everyone sees it differently. Since RedSquaree has been moderating the page for some time, I asked for their views on the secret formula behind the photos posted and how they would define them. They said, "Everyone probably has a slightly different interpretation or idea of what is mildly interesting." But they believe that the concept of relatability is most important—it has to be "nothing spectacular but something novel".
But this can also make it difficult to moderate the content being posted on the page. They explained further, "Sometimes we see users post to /r/mildlyinteresting first (because if they didn't, it would break rule 3 of our page). Then, they go on to crosspost to /r/damnthatsinteresting. And we're thinking to ourselves, '/r/HolUp, it can't be both'."
This Incredibly Detailed Picture I Took Of A Bonfire
When I Went To Switzerland And Happened To Look Exactly Like This Random Wood Statue
Miniature Traffic Playground In Copenhagen Where Kids Learn To Bike In Traffic
So, should the content be strictly regulated before posting? RedSquaree doesn't think so, at least for now. They said, "Many people have recommended we make a Rule 7, so content must be mild or it gets removed. But it would be so problematic to enforce that we haven't gone that far... yet."
They also told us about their personal favorites handpicked by the moderator team. RedSquaree said, "We have a 'Quality Post' link flair which we use (sparingly) to tag on submissions we find particularly mildly interesting. Everything we've marked 'Quality Post' can be considered officially mildly interesting."
A Supplier Of Ours Now Fills His Packages With Air-Cushions Made Out Of Paper Instad Of Plastic
How much does a packet of air cost? Because I want in on this ASAP.................
How Well Our Movers Tetris’d Our Stuff
Dang, that is genius level! it should never be touched again: a monument to perfection.
Last Night My Wife's Uber Had A Duck In It
When we’re so accustomed to seeing something in one way, our thoughts are suddenly shaken up when it suddenly appears differently or juxtaposed with something else. It’s a great reminder to rethink what we know and open ourselves up to new possibilities. But there’s a reason why we build these cognitive biases in our minds.
I Was Trying To Take A Picture Of The Guy In The Costume And A Person With With Opposite Colors Walked Into The Frame
My Butter This Morning Looks Like A Happy Naked Man
My Local Library Has Cake Pans Available To Check Out!
A research paper called the Theory of Cognitive Pattern Recognition seeks to find out how and why we build these links in our minds. The paper defines pattern recognition as “a process of inputting stimulating (pattern) information and matching it with the information in long-term memory, then recognizing the category that the stimulation belongs to. Therefore, pattern recognition depends on people’s knowledge and experience.”
Found An Arrowhead In A Dried Up Stream!
The Banisters At My Hotel Were Held Up By Little Metal Men
Townhouse In Dc Has A Cute Little Model Townhouse In Its Front Yard (And The Model Has Its Own Model!)
My Fiancé Capped The End Of A Cut Banana With Banana Skin
Before It Was Sprouted, This Tree Went To The Moon
This Ornamental Hand At My Local IKEA With The Middle Finger Ziptied Down
The Tailgate Of This Truck Is Painted To Look Like There’s A Bulldog In The Bed Of The Truck
This Group We Came Across In A Forest Casually Hiking In Medieval Outfits
A Cast Iron Cauldron I Found Buried In My Forest
There Was A Massive Pirate Ship Driving Around My Neighborhood
This Shopping Cart Has A Spot For Kids To Stand On While The Parent Pushes
The Way My Wife Eats Cheetos Without Messing Up Her Mouse
Brilliant! No need to have a mouse that looks like Donald Trump's face
One Of Our Local Libraries Moved Into An Old Marsh Supermarket
Feels like one of those dreams where you see familiar places but get confused too.
My Cat Fell Asleep Looking Like He's Standing Up
Saw A Knight In The Park The Other Day
The Gap In My Bedroom Window Became A Pinhole Camera
Color Coordinated Wristbands For Back To Work Post Covid
Bought 2 Different Sizes Of Shoes, But The Boxes Align Perfectly With One Another
A Century Old Suit
Found An E Than Survived The Recycling Process On The Cardboard We Use At Work
This Jeep’s Break Lights Are Jeeps
60 Doses Of Pfizer Vaccine Ready To Go
The Crack In The Door Splits My Grow Light Into Different Colors
My Wife And I Had Plane Snacks That Matched Our Books On Our Way To Our Honeymoon
Lowercase Stopsign
The Air Filter I Just Took Out Of My Lawnmower vs. The One I Replaced It With
This Pressure Washer Looks Like Mike Wazowski
The Hallway To My Dentist Office Looks Like A Stanley Kubrick Scene
It does! So does the hallway outside my floor. Every single time i see the twins. Every single time...........
The Door Into My Work Casts A Solid Rainbow For A Few Minutes In The Mornings
My Peas & Lentils Look Like An Ishihara Test
The Inside Of My Inflatable Air Mattress
This Is A Truck Carrying The Signs You See On The Interstate
Really gives you perspective on how big they are (obviously I know they’re huge but you can’t always tell how big while driving in a car)
This Egg Has No Yolk
A 130 Year Old Crypt Found While Renovating A Church In Sc, They Put A Glass Window On It So You Could See The Face
My Mom Still Has Napkins From The Original Space Jam
Note: this post originally had 89 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
So do I, Stephanie. I usually scroll through the new articles to see what they have added, and this is the first one I read when I find one like this. More than "mildly" interesting to me.
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Very interesting! I love it. I never seem to find interesting things like that.
This sounds like an excellent real world mindfulness challenge
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Interestingly enough, while reading this I learned that my phones touch screen registers bread. So I can use bread to scroll down the list. Knowing how unhygienic phones are though, im not gonna do that
LOVED these images - surreal dada and expressionist moments in real life that prove we live in a beautiful world full of visual poetry if we just take a moment to ponder and enjoy the bliss.
I enjoyed this. I think the first thirty or so were moderately to extremely interesting, and after that, it hit a stride of mildly interesting.
So do I, Stephanie. I usually scroll through the new articles to see what they have added, and this is the first one I read when I find one like this. More than "mildly" interesting to me.
Load More Replies... Very interesting! I love it. I never seem to find interesting things like that.
This sounds like an excellent real world mindfulness challenge
Load More Replies... Interestingly enough, while reading this I learned that my phones touch screen registers bread. So I can use bread to scroll down the list. Knowing how unhygienic phones are though, im not gonna do that
LOVED these images - surreal dada and expressionist moments in real life that prove we live in a beautiful world full of visual poetry if we just take a moment to ponder and enjoy the bliss.
I enjoyed this. I think the first thirty or so were moderately to extremely interesting, and after that, it hit a stride of mildly interesting.
