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While some of the things we learn don't necessarily make us smarter, they can definitely arouse our desire to learn more. Or at least help us continue our stalling conversations. And Twitter account WTF Facts is dedicated to collecting and sharing these random tidbits of information. From celebrity lifestyle to international relations, the project covers a wide range of topics, which is probably the reason why its feed remains so fresh and interesting. Continue scrolling and check out some of the most popular tweets WTF Facts have ever released!

Knowing obscure facts isn't just fun. It's also good for our mental health. For example, experts say that playing trivia games can provide a dopamine rush much like gambling, but without the negative effects. 

Even if our trivia games differ, the benefits are there. Whether we're playing Trivial Pursuit at home or attending a pub trivia night, the basic premise remains the same: we experience the thrill of providing correct answers to questions about lesser-known facts.

"You get a rush or a neuroreward signal or a dopamine burst from winning,” John Kounios, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied cognitive and brain sciences at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, told Healthline. “I think whenever you’re challenged with a trivia question and you happen to know it, you get a rush. It’s sort of like gambling.”

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Kounios said the benefits can also be similar to those of playing a video game.

However, unlike gambling and even video games, Kounios said trivia is generally not a problematic habit.

“I don’t think there are any pitfalls,” he said. “Like anything else that’s fun, it takes up time.”

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A librarian from California, Sarah Kishler, loves trivia games and enjoys attending a monthly pub trivia night in which a team of librarians participates.

"Learning facts so that I can get better at trivia is definitely a passion of mine," she told Healthline. "Getting a question right is definitely very satisfying to me."

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Guido Pisano
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same in Italy... You're allowed to disobey an order that you think is illegal...

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Over the past decade or so, pub trivia nights that are popular in the United Kingdom appear to have grown in other parts of Europe and the United States.

Enthusiasts like Kishler enjoy getting to interact with people at these events, especially compared to electronic trivia games.

She has learned that doing well at these social trivia games gives her "a feeling of validation" and increases her self-esteem.

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River Webb
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah Disney often adapts its stories to be appropriate for children, eventually leading everybody to only remember the Disney version and not the original

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"I love general knowledge, geography, literature, music, science trivia," Kishler explained. "I just love to accumulate knowledge. I like the exercise that it gives my brain and memory."

She doesn't think of herself as a competitive person but nevertheless enjoys getting a bit amped up at trivia games.

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“People really like to have some expertise on something and the brain is very good at focusing on things that you’re interested in,” Deborah Stokes, Ph.D., L.P.C., B.C.N., a psychologist in Virginia, who focuses on neurotherapy, told Healthline.

According to Stokes, learning large bodies of knowledge can often start with trivia. And people who are interested in trivia can be brainy, have a high IQ, and be smart on a lot of levels.

However, Kounios said that people aren’t necessarily better at trivia games just because they’re more educated.

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Láďa Durchánek
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can barely draw a stick figure and if instructions have more than one step it is safer to write them down.

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"Some people soak up facts,” Kounios added. "Plenty of people with a lot more education may not remember what they had for breakfast yesterday morning."

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"In typical people, my observation, not backed up by any research, is that their interest in trivia is confined to topics that they are generally interested in. So if a person is very interested in history, then they may either seek out history trivia, or they might just naturally pick it up in the course of learning about nontrivial aspects of history."

Stokes pointed out that trying to retain information about things we're interested in can be like a good exercise for the frontal cortex as the brain ages.

"That’s the first thing to go with injury or with age if we don’t use it," she said.

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Of course, it's completely understandable if the pandemic has drained your brain of the desire to learn and flooded it with boredom and tiredness instead. In an earlier Bored Panda interview, Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range-Kids movement, said that before we can become curious again, we have to do the hard part: get off the couch. Force yourself out the door. Why? Because beyond your four walls, things are never exactly the same. Weather, animals, people, sounds, smells, clouds—they’re all swirling about."

Lenore continued: "Ask yourself to start noticing new things. I did that this morning with a friend. We took a walk around our neighborhood and started looking for interesting details in the homes and buildings we passed. It went from a walk down streets we’d seen a million times to a sort of treasure hunt. And the big thing we were really hunting for? Curiosity! When you’re curious you’re alive again—noticing, thinking, making connections. You can’t do that if there’s no new information coming in. So your first step is to force yourself out of a rut by leaving the house (harder during the pandemic, but not impossible)."

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Michelle M
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Here's another fact. Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth were born in the same year.

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Bill
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Except 21 payouts and Non Disclosure agreements. No innocent person would pay out that many times

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S. Tor Storm
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's just mind reading, you don't know. When you're super rich, paying can be the easier way out. Unfortunately the gold diggers just keeps coming. anyway, hundreds of agents over 10 years should be able to find some kind of evidence, don't you reckon?

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Moo Moo Futch
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not only was nothing found he was investigated for over ten years and in many cases he was unaware it was happening. And for those who keep saying about payouts, HE NEVER PAID ANYONE. It was his Insurer which was pushed in to it by the record label. HE WANTED to go to court in 1993.

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CatWoman312
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So we’re going to sit there and pretend he didn’t have little boys over at this house and have them share his bed and we’re supposed to pretend that’s okay?

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Terry Herrick
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The boy that he went to trial over killed himself after MJ's death that said his father forced him to lie and that MJ never touched him That boy had cut all contact with his father as soon as he became of age.

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Jessica
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No one will ever know for sure if he did those things he may or may not be guilty. But you can't deny that regardless of if s**t happened or not sleepovers with kids is incredibly weird and kind of f****d up. If he didn't do it he really walked that line.

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A Cat Named Dragon
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

FWIW, Macaulay Culkin is quoted saying that he slept in the same bed as MJ but absolutely nothing ever happened and he didn’t believe anything happened with any other little boys either. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was true. I remember wondering why these parents kept letting their little boys sleep over after the first time MJ was accused...

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Ryan Johnston
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Rapists don't rape everyone they meet and who in their right mind, even prior to the paedophile panic thing Jackson helped spark lets their kids sleep naked with a stranger? I don't mean kids climbing into bed with you for cuddles or sleep or normal s**t or just casual social nudity. I mean...we are going to bed, wee Johnny ( never janey ) is going to spend the night naked with 35 year old man behind a locked door at the end of a corridor with alarms and security cameras covering the approach to the room. When the creepy guy at the end of my road offered sweets and invited kids into the house, we were clued up enough to give it a miss without the warnings offered by our parents. C'mon now...

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JkNuss
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sorry no adult has sleepovers with children in their own bed & not just once but repeatedly if there is not a underlying sexual factor ... he was deeply disturbed not just in terms of how he related to children but how he related to life ... he was a highly sick individual ... I choose to believe the victims not the perps

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A Cat Named Dragon
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Just another perspective, while I completely agree with you that no adults should have a sleepover with an unrelated child... I will also tell you that I have slept in the same bed with several people over the course of my life with no underlying sexual factor.

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Ellen Frank
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Except the testimony of the victims, which is recorded on film.

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Ms.GB
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have honestly heard so many things pro and con his innocence Idk what to personally believe anymore. If he is guilty he is by far one of the most manipulative abusers I have ever heard of and the fact that he used his fame and money to forever damage children that idolized him is absolutely sickening. If he is innocent his accusers should be ashamed of themselves for ruining the life of an innocent man and causing the mental and emotional strain that by cause and effect led him to an early grave.

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Clare McDuff
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Paedophiles keep trinkets and ALWAYS have porn. There’s never been anything found.

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El Dee
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

None of the witnesses were able to break their NDAs..

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Elida Lechuga
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cuando el rio suena es porque lleva algo. The FBI can do a thorough investigation and find nothing to suggest that I was molested as a child, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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Judith Agogliati
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never believed he was guilty of child abuse. He was robbed of his childhood and was trying to recapture it. Shame on those parents who made his life hell so they could get free money.

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Ryan Johnston
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's normal behaviour right, getting naked with strangers children in a locked alarmed room and showing them porn?! Beggars belief. If a neighbour did that he'd get lynched, rich weirdo does it and he is the victim :/

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Kimberly Brown
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

All parents who wanted a quick way to get rich. Just because you pay someone to go away doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.

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Polly Culberson
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Except for him admitting that he slept with young boys in his home bedroom. Whose parents would even allow that? His response was to say, "There's nothing wrong with sleeping together."

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Jim Ellington
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He just slept with the kiddies, he didn't sleep with the kiddies.

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Ben Moss
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He was almost certainly the VICTIM of child abuse, of course. Poor guy may have been chemically castrated by his father just to keep his voice from changing.

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Norah Reilly
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

None of us will ever know what (if anything) was true about the allegations.

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Constance Skinner
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Insurance companies settle all the time to just get rid of the pests.

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Charlie
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Payouts made him seem guilty. Most People wont believe innocent People will turn to Payouts. Hindsight is 20/20, and he should have taken it to Court, how awful it may have been for him at the time.

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Lisa Chambers
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Right. They also investigated 9-11, the Las Vegas shooting, USS COLE bombing, two embassy bombings in Dar-es-Salam, Tazania and Nairobi, Kenya and were totally unimpressive showing at Ruby Ridge and Waco. This does not surprise me.

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Suzanne Haigh
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I am not sure about him, he had zero childhood, a so depressed with constant harassments, I think he had mental problems not sexual

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EJN
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The wealthy are more likely to payoff as opposed to going through a long litigation even when the facts are in their favor. Unfortunately this leads to a greater number of attacks on them by people who just want the money.

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HorseMuse
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I believe firmly we have a falsehood in this one!

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Rose Sakkara Blacke
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

you all seem to forget Michael left Sony OWNING HALF of Sony, and also knowing about the whole Illuminati child sex scandals so they set out to discredit and destroy and eventually killed Michael

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DetongLhamo
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It’s amazing what the authorities fail to find if they look the other way hard enough when it comes to rich people.

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elfin
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never believed those stories about Michael Jackson because the people telling the stories were getting paid big bucks. That destroys their credibility. And celebrity media has no credibility to start with. The fact that the FBI found nothing is pretty good confirmation. I have long thought that Jackson was much like Lewis Carroll. On some level they did have a strange attraction to children, but never acted on it and may not have been aware of it. In Carroll's time the Victorian's though that there was nothing as innocent as a naked child. Note that the Victorians also had some really sophisticated porn.

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Martha Quintero
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wish he would have been spared this pain. I always knew he was innocent. Stop it all ready with the payouts! He paid to stop these greedy people from soiling his name further. He was like a child. He became a man, but he stayed a child. He was traumatized by his strict father. Leave Michael alone. RIP Michael!

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Sunflowercray
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was just having this conversation with my boyfriend. I always believed he was being extorted by greedy parents. It's funny how after these stories surfaced, people still sent their children to his home for sleepovers! WTF?!? Poor Michael was exploited by his father and never had a childhood. So when he was old enough to break away, here come the next round of selfish adults who made up stories and used their OWN children and him labeled forever. I'm sure he will never be exonerated in some people's minds.

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Nadine Bamberger
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

BP could probably make a list of things the FBI didn't find out or botched up.

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Mimi M
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

F**k you and the horse you rode in on. In the name of the boys he abused and abused kids all over the world.

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Octavia Hansen
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Is this the same organization that couldn't produce anything against Woody Allen?

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Katherine Forrestall
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And then the agents all retired to the Bahams to live happily ever after.

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Buzz Covington
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Maybe let's not put too much weight on anything the FBI does or doesn't find any more, huh? They haven't exactly been the bastion of the truth lately...

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Nicky
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was a flight attendant and a pilot told me he once walked in on a young clothed boy straddling MJ's clothed lap while the kid's mother was getting drunk elsewhere on the private plane. The pilot refused to make a police report, although I urged him to do so.

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A Cat Named Dragon
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The fact that he told you but not the cops is how you know it’s true.... (yep...)

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David K
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Jackson brainwashed the boys and their families. Molested young boys for years!! Why is Bored Panda not taking the testimonies, evidence and behavior from this pedophile seriously?

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AlmightyOne
Community Member
3 years ago

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Huh. This actually turned my opinion on him around in five seconds! I used to think he was a pedo, so I'm glad to know he's not

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All's Gravy
Community Member
3 years ago

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So much partisan belief. Shame. These groomers are masters with their direct victims and their indirect victims (you cheering from the sidelines in denial). Deep down, we all know. We have read the testimony of these now adults. It's as vivid today as it was to them then. There will be many reasons and even excuses offered as to why MJ , a child star, beaten by his father, was a paedophile (even if he didn't see it as such himself - and I suspect that is partly the case). Too much cover-up to be anything other than true.

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QuokkaVibes
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As an Italian (but this is my personal belief, everyone is entitled to it's own) this is exactly something Mafia would do. It's something I know occurs in Italy on a daily basis. You see a quite common modus operandi is mobster would do something nice for the community or for specific people, so that the community in the area feels dependable. One well known method of recruiting in the mafia is: you have a problem, we send to you someone you know (and you don't know he works for us). Maybe a friend of a friend. He'll fix your problem for you. After time is passed this person asks for a little innocent thing like let's say "I'm sick can you bring this box to this adress? I can't move". After that he asks for more pressuring you on the favor he did awhile back and tells you that box you delivered was full of drugs/handguns so you're an accomplice. And that's it you're in a system you can't escape without hurting family and friends.

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Mary Rose Kent
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I assume that this photo is all of the lazy culprits and, of course, the one who actually did the deed

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Note: this post originally had 122 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.

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