The saying “give it the old college try” comes from none other than Babe Ruth, better known as one of the most proficient athletes of his era. Sometimes even one of the greatest out there feels they have to try even when it might not work should be inspiring, since more often than not, we try and try and the only thing we get is a lesson on what not to do next time.
The “there was an attempt” internet community is dedicated to showcasing some of the best fails people have documented out there. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section down below.
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To Describe How Socialism And Capitalism Work
To Provide Healthcare
To Paint Portland Protesters As Dangerous Thugs
From America's Funniest Home Videos in the 1990s to modern internet communities like "There Was an Attempt" and viral TikTok compilations, fail content has proven to be one of the most enduring forms of entertainment. These videos showing people slipping, stumbling, and spectacularly messing up simple tasks generate billions of views across platforms, but the reason for their popularity goes far deeper than simple humor. The psychology behind our love of watching others fail reveals uncomfortable truths about human nature and the way we maintain our sense of self worth.
The primary psychological mechanism at work is schadenfreude, a German term that translates literally to "harm joy." This universal human emotion describes the pleasure people feel when witnessing the misfortunes of others. While the term originated in German, similar concepts exist across cultures, demonstrating that this is not merely a Western phenomenon but rather something fundamental to human psychology.
To Say You Wont 'Interfere With The Current Building.'
To Blame Obama
Because they don't think before they speak; in fact, they don't think at all..................I think they are totally incapable of intelligent thought.
To Remove It But That Only Made It More Iconic
It wasn't removed for political reasons but because the building is a listed public monument. Banksy is a very clever man and knew that this stunt would get him the attention he craves.
Social comparison theory, developed by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, explains that people constantly compare themselves with others, and watching someone else fail can make us feel relatively better about our own competence and status. Research suggests a connection between schadenfreude and self esteem.
To Control The Narrative
To Identify The Agents
To Express Grief Authentically
Studies demonstrate that self esteem has a negative relationship with schadenfreude, meaning individuals with lower self esteem tend to experience this emotion more frequently and intensely. When people with fragile self images see others fail, especially those who appear more successful, they experience stronger self threat when confronted with high achievers, and witnessing these people's misfortunes increases their schadenfreude. This suggests that fail videos serve as a form of psychological self medication, temporarily boosting the mood of viewers who may feel inadequate in other areas of their lives.
To Cry For More Money
Because Erika Kirk is a *censored* *censored* *censored* Also the Turning Point USA Youtube-channel is failing hard right now
To Protest Hiding Your Face....whilst Hiding Their Faces
To Understand Nature
The popularity of fail content might also have evolutionary roots. Psychologist Richard Smith suggests that our delight in others' suffering may stem from knowledge that we are getting a competitive advantage, as Darwin proposed that all life is in constant competition for resources and mates. In this framework, watching someone else struggle represents a relative gain in social standing, even if only psychologically.
To Use Correct Spelling And Grammar
To Provoke The Us Into Civil War
To Get A Barista Fired And Drum Up Social Media Hate
Fail videos also serve as a welcome counterpoint to the carefully curated perfection displayed on social media platforms. While social media sites like Facebook tend to feature content showing people in their best light, which has been shown to cause envy and low self esteem in heavy users, fail videos show vulnerable people who do not have it together.
To Take The Bank Teller On A Date
To Have Freedom Of Press
To Be Body Positive
The editor in chief of Fail Blog, one of the internet's largest repositories of such content, explicitly acknowledges this function with their motto of helping people feel better about themselves every day. However, there are important limits to what counts as entertaining failure.
To Represent Different Cultures
To Alienate Millions Of Customers
Amazing what people can do when they stand together in the face of adversity!
To Make A New Friend
There appears to be a threshold where empathy overrides schadenfreude, as videos containing gore or intense violence appeal to different psychological mechanisms more related to how people cannot look away from disasters. The most popular fail content features relatively minor mishaps where people are embarrassed but not seriously hurt, maintaining the delicate balance between amusement and genuine concern.
To Erase More History For A Ballroom
To Get Away With It
To Sell Soybeans To China
Research has shown that experiencing schadenfreude can actually enhance satisfaction of basic psychological needs including self esteem, control, belongingness, and meaningful existence, particularly when another's setback occurs in competitive circumstances. This helps explain why fail content remains so consistently popular across different platforms and generations. It is not just mindless entertainment but rather fulfills genuine psychological needs for viewers seeking to maintain or boost their self concept.
To Hire A Photographer
To Pretend To Be The Party Of Free Speech
To Stop Government Censorship
The enduring appeal of fail content ultimately reveals something both troubling and deeply human about our psychology. While we may feel guilty about laughing at others' mishaps, these moments of schadenfreude serve important psychological functions related to self esteem maintenance and social comparison. Understanding this mechanism does not make the enjoyment disappear, but it does illuminate why these videos continue to captivate audiences generation after generation.
To Sleep On Their Eight Sleep Mattress
To Make You Feel Stupid By The FBI
To Rise Above Poverty
This story has been blown out of all proportion. People want you to believe a poor woman on food stamps baked a few cakes to earn a little cash on the side. She was running a business and defrauding the government. She was caught stealing $20,000 in total but was offered a deal where she admitted one count of stealing $1800. Had she taken the plea deal she would avoided jail entirely. But she refused and now she's going to court to face all the charges where she could be given a maximum of 10 years but in reality will get nowhere near that.
To Ask A Friendly Question On Threads
To Get Me To Try To Eat 90 Lbs Of Cheese
cosmological speaking a day and a year aren't that much of a difference
To Not Idolize And Implement North Korea’s Authoritarian Regime
To Intimidate A Sitting Mayor
To Correctly Calculate A 10% Pay Increase
To Not Be A Complete Hypocrite (Brendan Carr In 2022)
To Appear Competant
To Uphold A Supreme Court Ruling
To Defend Tom Homan
To Make A Tasteful Design Choice
To Teach Some Math
To Uphold The First Amendment
To Grieve
Three Nigerian Men Were Arrested At An Airport In Algeria After Trying To Board A Flight To Dubai Dressed As Arab Women
To Extort A Media Personality Into Capitulation
To Celebrate Free Speech And Cancel Culture At The Same Time
To Confuse Protesters
I just saw a news story about the junta in Myanmar b3ating dissidents while restrained. So many of the group are resisting now due to the harsh treatment of prisoners. The absolute cruelty of the ones in power against their captives is going on here in the US, with much less frequency, but even one person hurt like this is so wrong
While this is a clear case of whataboutism, indeed the world doesn’t seem to care by far as much about the Rohingya as it does about the Palestinians, and demonizes Israel to a much greater extent than it does Myanmar.
I agree that it is terrible what is going on in Myanmar. However, its my tax dollars supporting a genocide. To compound this, if I complain, I am branded anti-Semite.
Load More Replies...To Do Damage Control, After An International Incident
Good grief! No wonder this buffoon is such an utterly incompetant "businessman", he clearly hasn't the first clue about basic trade & commerce!
To Pretend It Wasn't His Signature
To Show Off Your Tattoos And Get Compliments
Get those storage devices out again—I've heard video and music piracy is back in fashion. Seriously, kids—save as much as you can, or you'll get ripped off. Not just movies and music—save history as it happened, before the internet forces a different version on you—VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Moronic felon worshipping cultist
Load More Replies...Moronic felon worshipping cultist
Load More Replies...Get those storage devices out again—I've heard video and music piracy is back in fashion. Seriously, kids—save as much as you can, or you'll get ripped off. Not just movies and music—save history as it happened, before the internet forces a different version on you—VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Moronic felon worshipping cultist
Load More Replies...Moronic felon worshipping cultist
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