Jimmy Fallon Asks People To Name A Funny Or Weird Problem That Needs A Solution, 30 People Deliver
We live in a world where the things we do, go to, experience are somewhat taken for granted. Even when these do us little favor. Think of annoying daily problems, like magically increased volume when you watch commercials, double-headed sinks, uncleanable oven windows that collect grease, the dodgy ways airlines charge for luggage… The list is endless. So why don’t they get talked about enough?
Well, it’s finally time to change that and take our time to really reflect on some of the weirdest, funniest, and most frustrating little (and not that little!) nuisances that are proper problems in disguise. “It's Hashtags time!” tweeted Jimmy Fallon, and you know it’s going to be good.
“Tell us a weird or funny problem that needs a solution, then tag it with #TheyNeedToFix,” he announced, adding that “they need to fix movie theater tickets so there are two start times: one for the actual movie and one for the 30 minutes of trailers.”
Below are some more of the spot-on answers that should be submitted to whoever’s in charge of making our lives less miserable and more enjoyable. Psst! After you're done, be sure to check out our previous posts on Fallon's hashtag challenges on #BadLuck moments, #MyWeirdRoommate, #WeddingFail and #WhyImSingle.
Image credits: jimmyfallon
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I once lost a brandnew shiny spotless 2€ coin to a lazy vending machine, they are a trap
You don’t need to be a big fan of The Tonight Show to know about Fallon’s famously hilarious weekly hashtag challenge. As Jimmy frequently announces before he reads his favorite comments, each hashtag would usually become a trending topic on Twitter in the United States within a few minutes after its posting.
Although hashtags have become a pivotal point of our online presence, their origins date back way before Twitter days. In 1988, the first hash symbol was used on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to label groups and topics that were available across the entire network. Originally, the hash symbols were used for grouping similar messages and content so that users could easily find the information they were looking for.
And not pockets where you can only rest your fingertips or put a third of your phone but where you can shove in a purse, your keys, your phone and they wont stick out or fall out.
Bored Panda reached out to Wisconsin-based artist Bree Sweet, who goes by the handle @breesweetack, who shared a funny tweet in response to Fallon’s challenge. “Technology can read my face to open my phone, but the vending machine can’t recognize a dollar bill with a crease in it #TheyNeedToFix.”
Bree said it did air on the show but “they reworded it for some reason, as it wasn't word for word of what I wrote, but it was cool to have it on air.” The woman laughed that she “got her 15 seconds of fame, I guess” and added “I would have hoped it would be for something else.”
In reference to her hilarious observation, Bree had some great news which proved that the problem was indeed fixed after the #TheyNeedToFix challenge. “Thankfully the vending machines at my work recently updated to accept iPay, so the dollar bill issue is no longer a problem.”
“I had it down to a fine art of how to flatten a dollar bill in order for it to get accepted. It was a 3-minute process, but addicting like playing the lottery. I can't describe the feeling of sweet satisfaction when the machine wouldn't spit the dollar back, I always knew it was going to be a good day that day,” Bree said humorously.
Can't resist: Q: What did the maxi pad say to the fart? A: You are the wind beneath my wings.
I won't listen to songs that use cell phone sounds or police sirens, for the same reason. I actually pulled over to the side of a highway because a song started playing with sirens in it. smh
The use of hashtags on social media was first proposed by American blogger, product consultant and speaker Chris Messina 14 years ago. In August 2007, Chris tweeted: “how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?” Today, he’s widely acknowledged as the inventor of the hashtag.
To everyone’s surprise, Chris didn’t patent the hashtag concept. A patent could have given him ownership of hashtags as an HTML-activated device that allows Twitter users to sort their feeds by topic. People believe that hypothetically, he could have licensed hashtags to Twitter and made some pretty good cash off it.
It's not the name. If the consequences of COVID-19 would be the falling off of male genitalia there wouldn't be a single unvaccinated man no matter what the name of the disease is.
It turned out that one of the reasons was that Twitter itself first rejected the idea. Chris told the Wall Street Journal: “[Twitter] told me flat out, ‘These things are for nerds. They’re never going to catch on.’” Paradoxically, today, Twitter would probably be of little use if not for its linked hashtags.
In response to the question posted on Quora, Chris explained further about his decision not to patent the hashtag. “Claiming a government-granted monopoly on the use of hashtags would have likely inhibited their adoption, which was the antithesis of what I was hoping for, which was broad-based adoption and support—across networks and mediums,” he said.
Buy a packet of bag clips. Seals on packaging use more plastic which is more waste. Bag clips can be used again and again.
Another reason, according to Chris, is that he himself had no interest in making money (directly) off hashtags. “They are born of the internet, and should be owned by no one. The value and satisfaction I derive from seeing my funny little hack used as widely as it is today is valuable enough for me to be relieved that I had the foresight not to try to lock down this stupidly simple but effective idea.”
I've only seen these sinks in the UK. Does anyone know other countries where this is common?
Depends on the airline as to how they charge for it and what they allow as carry on. Also the plane has a weight limit before it cannot take off or needs to use too much fuel so an interesting issue to solve.
Also never being able to find the same pair of jeans again. I will get attached to one specific pair of jeans that has just the right fit, pocket space, fabric feel, etc. but then once that pair wears out, you’re done for. You’ll never find that pair again
Airports are usually pretty good. Railway stations on the other hand can be imitated by holding your nose whilst you speak.
surely by now they know who should be boarding what flight, you filled in an online ticket. Just ask for your cellno on the ticket sale, and send whatsapps or whatever to the phone to say BTW you are late, idiot. And maybe even a spyware app to geolocate you and say NO IDIOT OTHER CORRIDOR
Intercoms everywhere in my experience. All you hear is "Wahwahwahwahwaaaah!" and you might catch the odd word if you're lucky.
I have never had a problem with this one IRL, only in the cartoons.
SFO and most larger airports dropped announcements decades ago and went with those huge leader boards, but I remember when they had them, the sound was fine. Did sound exotic especially spoken in foreign languages at London Airport (now Heathrow) in 1963!
Having serving sizes be illogical eg 30g serving size when the pack is 50g. Having products that look like single serve and giving the nutritional information for a smaller serving- eg, 300ml bottle of juice, but the 'serving size' is 100ml. Serving size should be based on use "Will the average consumer eat the whole pack at once; or eat half the pack?"
I just wish they would stop auto-playing the movie when I'm still reading the description to decide if I want to watch it or not.
wish there were an update for Xbox 360 to play high res. without weirdly coloured pixelation in the dark parts of the imagery.
Technically speaking, this is a problem with the container, not the microwave.
A smoothie through a paperstraw. Just eat the paper straight up and save your time.
The last two packs of toilet paper I bought in South Africa both told me that I was buying 9 rolls in a pack, 350 sheets per roll and the sheet size. No more guessing. And that seems pretty standard here. None of this mega rolls nonsense. Just have to decide between the lower quality 1 ply or the higher quality 2 ply.
The stall doors that swing inward are the worst. The stall is usually small so you have to wedge in between the wall and the toilet ( touching the toilet with your clothes) in order to have enough room to swing the door open and escape. For those saying the outward swinging doors could hit someone, a few whacks and people would learn not to hover around a restroom door.
The original real estate scam. Vikings called it "Iceland" to keep everyone away, and "Greenland" in hopes everyone would go there instead.
My friend once threw her iPhone 11 across the room. It landed face down and was completely fine. It was carpet but still, new phones are pretty durable.
I don't know if it still exists but in Massachusetts back in the day, there was the "bottle bill" where you would get 5cents back on every bottle you returned. That worked.
Roombas in general!! Mine is always getting stuck, and why, JUST WHY does it need to talk to me. No, SHOUT at me, every time that it gets stuck, and then every five minutes thereafter. Something about opening the app. SHUT UP!!!
They also need to take them of snow removal trucks. Nothing better than being woken up at 4am by a snow removal crew clearing a parking lot that no one is going to use because, hey, there's still 3 feet of snow on all the roads leading there.
Could it have a setting where you can also choose to increase the volume is someone is talking? I really don't want it to pause it, just to let the person know that the conversation is not welcome.
I'd just be happy if people would learn how to use an apostrophe!
Isn't that how the war between humans and machines started in "terminator"?
I trained myself to always put these things down in consistent places. Took a few weeks and now I only occasionally lose them if I get distracted when putting things away.
They need to fix the sounds between movie/TV show and the commercials. Have the volume all the way up to hear the show since it's like they whisper now and then a commercial and your deaf!
The commercials are louder because they know that is when you go to the toilet or go to make a cup of tea/coffee. They want to ensure the commercial can be heard wherever you are in the house.
Load More Replies... We need an English language gender neutral honorific/title and pronouns to be used for everyone regardless of age, marital status, gender presentation social ranking, etc. Some way to be polite to everyone without the social work of having to avoid giving offence by calling a feminist Mrs, a married woman Ms, a too-young woman ma'am, a gender-ambiguous person MX or nothing at all, a trans-woman sir, a trans-man Ms/Mrs/Miss/Ma'am. Can't we just have something equal and the same for everyone? We're all human, and there are a lot of contexts where our gender expression and congruance shouldn't matter. It would avoid that internal grammatic dissonance of using they/their for a singular and known individual.
Making a text 'unread' so you can read and reply later with this reminder.
How can we get pictures from Hubble that show dust from 40 billion light years away when I can't get a good cell signal in my backyard?
Time zones. Just have one time. If it is 800 here then it will be 800 everywhere else. If you live in a country where the sun is not yet up at 800 then go to work at 1200 or 1800 or whatever.
Time zones are there since the sun isn't in the same place everywhere in the world, so it isn't the same time. You're just lazy.
Load More Replies... They need to fix the sounds between movie/TV show and the commercials. Have the volume all the way up to hear the show since it's like they whisper now and then a commercial and your deaf!
The commercials are louder because they know that is when you go to the toilet or go to make a cup of tea/coffee. They want to ensure the commercial can be heard wherever you are in the house.
Load More Replies... We need an English language gender neutral honorific/title and pronouns to be used for everyone regardless of age, marital status, gender presentation social ranking, etc. Some way to be polite to everyone without the social work of having to avoid giving offence by calling a feminist Mrs, a married woman Ms, a too-young woman ma'am, a gender-ambiguous person MX or nothing at all, a trans-woman sir, a trans-man Ms/Mrs/Miss/Ma'am. Can't we just have something equal and the same for everyone? We're all human, and there are a lot of contexts where our gender expression and congruance shouldn't matter. It would avoid that internal grammatic dissonance of using they/their for a singular and known individual.
Making a text 'unread' so you can read and reply later with this reminder.
How can we get pictures from Hubble that show dust from 40 billion light years away when I can't get a good cell signal in my backyard?
Time zones. Just have one time. If it is 800 here then it will be 800 everywhere else. If you live in a country where the sun is not yet up at 800 then go to work at 1200 or 1800 or whatever.
Time zones are there since the sun isn't in the same place everywhere in the world, so it isn't the same time. You're just lazy.
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