This Online Page Showcases How Weird Our Ancestors Were, Posts 30 Pics As Proof

We reached out to one of the creators of Vintage Weird, Lisa Barrow, to hear a bit more about how the page came to be. "Vintage Weird started in 2018 when my friend Paul and I started talking about how cool a group about weird stuff would be," Lisa told Bored Panda. "Though he later had to bow out of running the group, it grew very rapidly and now has a membership of over 400k. The growth was immensely gratifying, but also presented a huge challenge as the admin team worked to verify that information in posts was correct and that members were treating each other with decency."

When asked why she thinks Vintage Weird took off, Lisa told us, "Across the board, people love vintage things. I think it's because there are so many ways to approach the past, whether through nostalgia, amusement, curiosity, or a desire to better understand why the present is the way it is. What I do think is underrated is a sense of responsibility about posting factual information," Lisa noted.

"The small, hardworking admin group of Vintage Weird (aka, my Weirdmins) spent huge amounts of time tracking down the original sources and dates of images, stories, articles, anecdotes, and other claims. As the group developed, we became pickier about the accuracy of what we allowed to be posted, because we could see that a group like VW had an opportunity to be a real resource for the genuine weirdness that is to be found in the past," Lisa explained. "But if we didn't take that opportunity, if we weren't careful, we'd just end up perpetuating the same phony, photoshopped, mis-labeled, inaccurately described nonsense that is so widely shared on Facebook and the rest of the internet. We were never after growth for the group—we wanted truthful, accurate posts that would show how weird reality really can be. The growth took care of itself."

Lisa also noted that Vintage Weird is currently on hiatus, and she is unsure if she has plans to bring it back yet. "So many things about it were an absolute joy, especially working closely with the Weirdmin team, the many smart/kind/hilarious/brilliant members, and the constant wonder of discovery. But we also faced challenges on many fronts, most especially a heavy workload in verifying the accuracy of submitted posts. So for almost three years the Weirdmins volunteered hours and hours every week, but it got to be too much."

"I'm happy to see there's still interest in the group, though," Lisa added. "And the many fantastic, strange things people posted there. I loved running it, and I do miss it. Maybe there'll come a time when I can pull together a larger team of Weirdmins that can better handle the kind of nuanced behind-the-scenes work needed to run a group like that."

We also reached out to vintage fashion expert and creator of the blog It's Beyond My Control, Dominique de Merteuil, to hear how she got into vintage fashion. "My interest in vintage fashion and art was initiated by my mom, a real style icon. The only films we would watch together were from the 1930s-1950s," Dominique told Bored Panda. "I was about six years old when I first watched The Women (1939) and The Philadelphia Story (1940). From that moment on, Hollywood glamour became my inspiration. The stylized hair and those magnificent gowns created by costume designers such as; Adrian, Edith Head, Travis Banton, Orry-Kelly helped transform every bland-looking actress into the most beautiful woman in the world. I so wanted to become THAT woman. I've been wearing vintage pieces since my teenage years. At the time, it was mainly accessories borrowed from my mom's closet. I started buying vintage clothes in my early 20s. At first, my wardrobe was a mix of contemporary designers and 1940s pieces. Now, 95% of the clothes I wear are from the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s."