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26 People Are Sharing Obscure Facts From Their Lives That Make Others Go “The What?”
Odds are, you’ve been on the internet for so long that barely anything shocks or fazes you anymore. After a while, we simply get desensitized to most stories and it takes something truly powerful to make our jaws drop. Right? Luckily for us, the internet’s chock full of hilarious, downright bizarre, and utterly weird material to keep us entertained all year long. And Twitter is a wonderful source of things that will make you ask out loud: “What?!”
Twitter user Hikikomorphism started up a viral thread asking people to share the obscure facts and anecdotes from their lives that make people react like in the legendary “The What?” meme (aka the “Rug Doctor Woman Ad” meme). You can bet your bottom dollar that people delivered! Scroll down to find their peculiar tales, upvote the ones that caught you off guard, and if you’ve got any similar ones to share, the comment section is eagerly waiting for you, Pandas.
Image credits: hikikomorphism
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They do totally look like the little old men that hang out at farm sales and greasy spoons in the morning
When Bored Panda reached out to the author of the thread, they mentioned that they didn't expect it to get such a large audience for their post. "I would prefer not to be perceived," they added.
Hikikomorphism’s thread got more than 23.4k likes and was retweeted over 35k times. What’s more, the popularity of the post spread to other platforms as well, including Imgur, where it got over 93k views and 2.5k upvotes in the span of a single day. Most of these stories made me do a double-take, but I’m curious to know if you thought they were as bizarre as I did, dear Pandas.
Meanwhile, let’s take a gander at the origins of the “The What?” meme that Twitter user Hikikomorphism referred to. The meme’s a favorite of mine and a couple of my closest colleagues, and it’s a wonderful reaction pic when we’re faced with something our minds have a tough time processing.
I bet he feeds them and they come because they've learned that "woooolie" means food.
They say dogs help with depression. I just imagined it to be more subtle.
Somewhat surprisingly, the photo from the “The What?” meme comes from an old Rug Doctor advertisement that could be seen in various retail stores. According to Know Your Meme, the earliest examples of this ad to be found online date all the way back to November 24, 2014.
The woman in the ad eventually became a meme because of her blank stare and smile. The meme is currently most often used to express confusion and disbelief. The very first time that the meme was used was on June 26, 2017, when redditor Kittty_velor posted the photo on the r/funny subreddit. The post featured a close-up of the woman’s face, though it didn’t have the iconic words “The What?” on them.
Well, of course you continue the hike. You tried the shortcut, and they said no.
The meme spread and took on various formats that utilized the woman’s ‘creepy’ gaze for the purpose of hilarity. It crystallized into the meme we know today after the words “The What?” were added to it during the Storm Area 51 event in 2019. That’s when the meme started spreading on Twitter and beyond. Now, it’s the perfect reaction pic to weird anecdotes on Twitter that make us wonder whether we’re in a bizarre comedy or if this really is real-life.
I think I need to be more careful with what I call a bad day after reading this.
First of all wow! Second off all that had to be the easiest 12 pounds you ever lost
We got trapped in my high school by corn drifts. The farm nearby picked the ears and then just shredded the rest of the corn plant and left it in the field instead of chopping it for silage and when the wind kicked up it blew huge mounds of corn plant around the school and blocked our doors and bent the fence on the tennis court over
He'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress.
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Did you remember to be a comically flat being for 4 seconds before popping back to the 3rd dimension?
I have read that a builder was run over by a sort of steamroller at work and was OK, he was on some very soft sand though.
Load More Replies... I don't know if you're extremely lucky or extremely unlucky
Flat Stanley survived! But he was flattened by a large painting I think.
After that or before? ( i know mean joke but the person is ok now)
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This has happened only once that I know of where the man survived, but only because of the ground he was on, the roller kinda pushed the man into the dirt, still royally injured himself though. This was only a couple of years ago and in england I believe?
I don't know if I believe that. Doesn't seem possible unless he is a cartoon
You must have been on a soft malleable surface and it was a small steamroller but the fact it happened is a story to tell.......!Or.... it rolled over the place you were standing quite safely as a grid or tunnel under eh???
So THAT was you: They took you home, but no one was home, so they slipped you under the door.
You should make that a children's book.... what was your name? Stanley? My god I'm calling a publisher this second
I had a friend who was driven over by a Chieftain tank, he had a slight cut on his jaw where a rubber track-pad ripped the skin and some bruises, one over his eye, but was otherwise OK!
Don’t they go really, really slowly? What did you do stand and wait for it?
When I was 9, there was a case of chicken pox that ripped through my school. My mother was sure I would get it but I didn't. A month later, I got a red blotch on my chest. Shortly after, I broke out in spots all over my body which the school assumed was chicken pox and sent me home. My mother took me to a doctor and I did not have chicken pox but a condition known as pityriasis rosea. Doctors still don't now what causes it, but it is not contagious. So my mother sent me to school. Nothing like being treated like a leper on the playground to give you self esteem issues in your adult years.
I had pityriasis lichenoides a few years ago. Itched like buggery, and yes, I got the leper looks
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I stayed once at a friend’s uncle’s cottage. A buddy and I were given a pellet gun and a machete and told to go enjoy the forest. We hiked for hours in the middle of nowhere loosely following a river so we could get back. In the middle of this field there was a small shack. There were no roads to it, no one around for miles, so we went to investigate. When we got close, we realized it was full of boxes., floor to ceiling full of boxes. The door was unlocked so we went in. We pulled the top off one of the boxes, only to find they where absolutely filled with the little fabric labels you put on clothes. All for a company I had never heard of. We checked a few other boxes; all were the same, there were tens of thousands of these labels. Then we just closed the boxes back up and left. I’m not sure what we expected to find, but that wasn’t it.
Whoah! What?! So weird! Did you ever look up the label/company?
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My brother had such large wisdom teeth that the dental surgeon who extracted them kept them as trophies and shows people at the hospital :”I took these out of a HUMAN!”
My wisdom teeth had beefy roots too. My Anthropology Prof was astounded at the size of them, but then he pointed to the base of the root and said, "what happened here?" I said "The root was still hooked into my jaw so the dentist had to get out of his seat to get enough leverage to snap it off." My professor just winced and walked away holding his hand to his jaw.
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Not me, my mom. Her brain tumor made her star of "Tumor Panel" twice in a month, and she got an article in a journal all about her tumor. She's still alive, kicking, and fine, too, which is earning her another article in the five-year-follow-up. ..... Go, Mom!
I had a brain tumor/cancer too. Good for your mom, and I'm still alive and kicking as well
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I have been clinically dead three times (breathing and heart stopped). Once due to a head injury (less than a year old), once due to drowning (10yo), once due to electrocution (12 yo). In all three cases my dad revived me.
Only twice for me. And have you checked your father for angel-of-death complex?!
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In junior high school for some reason I started drawing a cartoon lion's head on all my papers instead of putting my name on them. Later that same year my parents told my brother and me that we were adopted, and I also learned that my birth mother's last name was Lyons.
My brother and neighbor had the county cops, state troopers, GBI, and FBI almost kill them. The neighbor had new hunting gear and camo so he and my brother tested it out. On an August day. The heat index was probably 100 or so. The boys were up and down trees, in and out of our house, and doing all sorts of "I'm a badass" maneuvers. An elderly neighbor saw them and called the police. Police thought they needed backup. Backup thought they needed backup. Ah. The good ole days.
I once had a 30 cup pot of fresh coffee fall on me when I was 14 and burn my left ear all the way down my shoulder blade. Ended up with first and second degree burns but somehow, I never scarred. My parents said they could only tell whenever I played sports because my shoulder blade would turn red but even that stopped after high school.
My brother spilt hot coffee on himself when he was really young, less than 6 I think. He ended up with scars on his back and wrist that only faded a months ago (it's been 10+ years)
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I had a series off unfortunate events at 15yrs old. Itt started with getting hit by a truck, which ripped off my foot, which led to me getting demoral, it was discovered I'm allergic to demoral when I started seizing, died, was revived and fell into a coma for 3 days. My parents decided they didn't want me & being in hospital was a convenient time to cut ties. So after a few months in hospital I went straight into foster care as a teenager. Got placed in an group home where a resident was killed by staff & I ran away. So when people as me where I went to high school, I just say "oh, here and there. I moved a lot" it's technically true.
When I was 16, I drove my knee through a glass table by accident. Big cut, lots of blood, went to the ER to check whether my tendons were intact and no bits of glass were stuck in the wound. Doctor cleaned it and we were off again. Fast forward to four years later, and I get this tiny pimple on my kneecap. Really random, I thought, but alright. Then after a few more weeks, it starts to hurt whenever clothing brushes over it, and I look at it and pluck out a tiny shard of glass. Which has apparently been stuck in my knee, without any issues, for over four years. (Disclaimer: since that one time I had not fallen knee-first through glass again.)
I got hit by a bus when I was 27 and suffered brain injuries that took months to recover from. I felt like I was going round in slow motion, often tired and never feeling like I was normal. After about 4 months, I was on my way to my friend's house and I put the Beastie Boys on my Discman. The first song was Sabotage and the power of it instanteously brought me back to the real world and I felt alive again. I never relapsed from it. That song literally changed my life. Thank you, Beastie Boys.
My wife went to middle school with Reese Witherspoon and were good friends, they lost touch when they went to different high schools. We bumped into her on a hiking trail in the Santa Monica mountains in 2015, where I helped her fix her back pack -which the strap had broken. While talking they realized they knew each other and now meet up every 6 months or so. We bought her old car off her too. Got a good deal.
When I was 3 my teenaged uncles were throwing a boomerang in the street outside their house. My Mum made me come inside the fenceline (6ft fence) so I wouldn't get hit. Boomerang flies over the fence and hits me in the corner of my eye. Still have the scar. 2ml closer and it would've taken my eye.
Early one morning at secondary school, I was 12 at the time, I got locked in part of one of the buildings. Luckily there were windows in the door to the corridor so I was able to ask older students for help. First one went to find a teacher and never came back. The second flagged down a passing teacher who told them to go and find a key (the teacher kept walking to their own building). Finally someone unlocked the door and I made it to my form room with about 2mins to spare >_
I believe I got stung by a Jellyfish when I was a kid. I was at the beach with my family, a piece of seaweed wrapped around my leg, and suddenly, it stung like a m**********r. I walked back to my family and my leg was turning red like a sunburn and had white bumps forming on it. The wind hitting it made it hurt even more. Did my family take me to the hospital? No they did not. They got some ammonia wipes, and wiped down my leg. I must have passed out in the car because next thing I remember was being in a pizza place, seated at a table with pizza in front of me, too sick to eat it. I was so sick for the rest of that week that I barely ate anything and lost about 10 lbs, which took me forEVER to gain back.
You most probably did, also a good way to loose weight, where would I find a jellyfish?. I live at the seaside but non around here.
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My sister was born dead, completely blue, no heartbeat. The Dr's rushed her to the NICU and saved her life. Turns out she had Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia - a condition where there is a hole in the diaphram and the baby's internal.organs (stomach, intestines, etc) migrate up into the chest cavity. About 1 on 3,600 babies are born with this, and the survival rate in the US is about 70%. It can be detected during an ultrasound at 20 weeks. About half of the babies born with this also have mental disabilities and/or other birth defects of the brain, heart, and intestines. My sister was born in 1972, and they didn't had ultrasounds that were capable of seeing it back then. Dr's told my parents she would most likely be "deaf, dumb, and blind" (their words) bc she went without oxygen for so long. Often, these babies don't even make it to full term bc the internal organs lay where the heart should be so it never develops. My sister's intestines sat on the other side, so she was born with a perfect heart, but only one lunch. She also just finished her PhD and is a published author and college professor. No mental or physical disabilities other than asthma. She's in medical books bc she's the first child to survive the surgery that saved her life as a baby. She was given a 30 year life expectancy. She just turned 49.
There used to be these baby bottles that were a hard shell with a plastic bag in them that you filled with milk. This way you didn't have to hold the bottle upright, and your baby could hold it any way they wanted but not swallow a bunch of air. When I was a year old, I had just started walking and I was going through a doorway in our apartment that had a little lip on the floor. I tripped over it and fell forward, the borrle still on my mouth, and it slammed up and hit my face so hard it broke my nose.
Just a funny way I got hurt- When I was young like 8 I was trying to pick up a pillow, but by the tag. The tag ripped off, and I accidentally punched myself in the face. I was bleeding everywhere and my parents weren’t in the house.
I laughed a little too hard at most of these. I have nothing really interesting. Although I did get a concussion two years ago, thought I didn't have a body for about three hours, and now have anxiety focal seizures in my arms and can't work because they last about three hours. Guess who has a divot in their head where it bounced off a concrete floor loud enough to hear twice and developed social anxiety from said concussion? I never did have a headache though. Just convinced I was only a head unless I could see my body.
People don't believe half of my life. Let's see... I have been in every form of media (except radio), including getting my picture in the NY Times. My photographer for the NY Times was Dith Pran, the man who survived the cambodian death camps and had a movie made about his experiences. I have posed for a painting, a sculpture and a figurine. I've commanded artillery. I was shanghaied into being published in a top scientific journal in the world (I didn't want to write the paper, it was too much work but I got forced into it). I have pictures of me with Bill Clinton, his arm around my shoulder (his idea) from when he was on his re-election campaign. I've played with some of the world's deadliest animals, including newts that can produce a lethal contact toxin through their skin. Those newts are so deadly the lab had to be registered with the department of Homeland Security. I let them ride on my shoulder while I cleaned their cages. I died once, noone knows how I am still here
(No, it was not from the newts). I used to be a stage magician, and got to meet Penn and Teller (Penn is HUGE). Afterwards, when Penn went to go back inside the venue, the door was locked. As he rattles the doors, my mother, from off to the side, calls out "Use Magic!" I have, literally, helped rewrite the history books. There is a formula named after my father, which I helped develop. I've been on tv several times. And that is just for starters.
Load More Replies... When I was 9, there was a case of chicken pox that ripped through my school. My mother was sure I would get it but I didn't. A month later, I got a red blotch on my chest. Shortly after, I broke out in spots all over my body which the school assumed was chicken pox and sent me home. My mother took me to a doctor and I did not have chicken pox but a condition known as pityriasis rosea. Doctors still don't now what causes it, but it is not contagious. So my mother sent me to school. Nothing like being treated like a leper on the playground to give you self esteem issues in your adult years.
I had pityriasis lichenoides a few years ago. Itched like buggery, and yes, I got the leper looks
Load More Replies... I stayed once at a friend’s uncle’s cottage. A buddy and I were given a pellet gun and a machete and told to go enjoy the forest. We hiked for hours in the middle of nowhere loosely following a river so we could get back. In the middle of this field there was a small shack. There were no roads to it, no one around for miles, so we went to investigate. When we got close, we realized it was full of boxes., floor to ceiling full of boxes. The door was unlocked so we went in. We pulled the top off one of the boxes, only to find they where absolutely filled with the little fabric labels you put on clothes. All for a company I had never heard of. We checked a few other boxes; all were the same, there were tens of thousands of these labels. Then we just closed the boxes back up and left. I’m not sure what we expected to find, but that wasn’t it.
Whoah! What?! So weird! Did you ever look up the label/company?
Load More Replies... My brother had such large wisdom teeth that the dental surgeon who extracted them kept them as trophies and shows people at the hospital :”I took these out of a HUMAN!”
My wisdom teeth had beefy roots too. My Anthropology Prof was astounded at the size of them, but then he pointed to the base of the root and said, "what happened here?" I said "The root was still hooked into my jaw so the dentist had to get out of his seat to get enough leverage to snap it off." My professor just winced and walked away holding his hand to his jaw.
Load More Replies... Not me, my mom. Her brain tumor made her star of "Tumor Panel" twice in a month, and she got an article in a journal all about her tumor. She's still alive, kicking, and fine, too, which is earning her another article in the five-year-follow-up. ..... Go, Mom!
I had a brain tumor/cancer too. Good for your mom, and I'm still alive and kicking as well
Load More Replies... I have been clinically dead three times (breathing and heart stopped). Once due to a head injury (less than a year old), once due to drowning (10yo), once due to electrocution (12 yo). In all three cases my dad revived me.
Only twice for me. And have you checked your father for angel-of-death complex?!
Load More Replies... In junior high school for some reason I started drawing a cartoon lion's head on all my papers instead of putting my name on them. Later that same year my parents told my brother and me that we were adopted, and I also learned that my birth mother's last name was Lyons.
My brother and neighbor had the county cops, state troopers, GBI, and FBI almost kill them. The neighbor had new hunting gear and camo so he and my brother tested it out. On an August day. The heat index was probably 100 or so. The boys were up and down trees, in and out of our house, and doing all sorts of "I'm a badass" maneuvers. An elderly neighbor saw them and called the police. Police thought they needed backup. Backup thought they needed backup. Ah. The good ole days.
I once had a 30 cup pot of fresh coffee fall on me when I was 14 and burn my left ear all the way down my shoulder blade. Ended up with first and second degree burns but somehow, I never scarred. My parents said they could only tell whenever I played sports because my shoulder blade would turn red but even that stopped after high school.
My brother spilt hot coffee on himself when he was really young, less than 6 I think. He ended up with scars on his back and wrist that only faded a months ago (it's been 10+ years)
Load More Replies... I had a series off unfortunate events at 15yrs old. Itt started with getting hit by a truck, which ripped off my foot, which led to me getting demoral, it was discovered I'm allergic to demoral when I started seizing, died, was revived and fell into a coma for 3 days. My parents decided they didn't want me & being in hospital was a convenient time to cut ties. So after a few months in hospital I went straight into foster care as a teenager. Got placed in an group home where a resident was killed by staff & I ran away. So when people as me where I went to high school, I just say "oh, here and there. I moved a lot" it's technically true.
When I was 16, I drove my knee through a glass table by accident. Big cut, lots of blood, went to the ER to check whether my tendons were intact and no bits of glass were stuck in the wound. Doctor cleaned it and we were off again. Fast forward to four years later, and I get this tiny pimple on my kneecap. Really random, I thought, but alright. Then after a few more weeks, it starts to hurt whenever clothing brushes over it, and I look at it and pluck out a tiny shard of glass. Which has apparently been stuck in my knee, without any issues, for over four years. (Disclaimer: since that one time I had not fallen knee-first through glass again.)
I got hit by a bus when I was 27 and suffered brain injuries that took months to recover from. I felt like I was going round in slow motion, often tired and never feeling like I was normal. After about 4 months, I was on my way to my friend's house and I put the Beastie Boys on my Discman. The first song was Sabotage and the power of it instanteously brought me back to the real world and I felt alive again. I never relapsed from it. That song literally changed my life. Thank you, Beastie Boys.
My wife went to middle school with Reese Witherspoon and were good friends, they lost touch when they went to different high schools. We bumped into her on a hiking trail in the Santa Monica mountains in 2015, where I helped her fix her back pack -which the strap had broken. While talking they realized they knew each other and now meet up every 6 months or so. We bought her old car off her too. Got a good deal.
When I was 3 my teenaged uncles were throwing a boomerang in the street outside their house. My Mum made me come inside the fenceline (6ft fence) so I wouldn't get hit. Boomerang flies over the fence and hits me in the corner of my eye. Still have the scar. 2ml closer and it would've taken my eye.
Early one morning at secondary school, I was 12 at the time, I got locked in part of one of the buildings. Luckily there were windows in the door to the corridor so I was able to ask older students for help. First one went to find a teacher and never came back. The second flagged down a passing teacher who told them to go and find a key (the teacher kept walking to their own building). Finally someone unlocked the door and I made it to my form room with about 2mins to spare >_
I believe I got stung by a Jellyfish when I was a kid. I was at the beach with my family, a piece of seaweed wrapped around my leg, and suddenly, it stung like a m**********r. I walked back to my family and my leg was turning red like a sunburn and had white bumps forming on it. The wind hitting it made it hurt even more. Did my family take me to the hospital? No they did not. They got some ammonia wipes, and wiped down my leg. I must have passed out in the car because next thing I remember was being in a pizza place, seated at a table with pizza in front of me, too sick to eat it. I was so sick for the rest of that week that I barely ate anything and lost about 10 lbs, which took me forEVER to gain back.
You most probably did, also a good way to loose weight, where would I find a jellyfish?. I live at the seaside but non around here.
Load More Replies... My sister was born dead, completely blue, no heartbeat. The Dr's rushed her to the NICU and saved her life. Turns out she had Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia - a condition where there is a hole in the diaphram and the baby's internal.organs (stomach, intestines, etc) migrate up into the chest cavity. About 1 on 3,600 babies are born with this, and the survival rate in the US is about 70%. It can be detected during an ultrasound at 20 weeks. About half of the babies born with this also have mental disabilities and/or other birth defects of the brain, heart, and intestines. My sister was born in 1972, and they didn't had ultrasounds that were capable of seeing it back then. Dr's told my parents she would most likely be "deaf, dumb, and blind" (their words) bc she went without oxygen for so long. Often, these babies don't even make it to full term bc the internal organs lay where the heart should be so it never develops. My sister's intestines sat on the other side, so she was born with a perfect heart, but only one lunch. She also just finished her PhD and is a published author and college professor. No mental or physical disabilities other than asthma. She's in medical books bc she's the first child to survive the surgery that saved her life as a baby. She was given a 30 year life expectancy. She just turned 49.
There used to be these baby bottles that were a hard shell with a plastic bag in them that you filled with milk. This way you didn't have to hold the bottle upright, and your baby could hold it any way they wanted but not swallow a bunch of air. When I was a year old, I had just started walking and I was going through a doorway in our apartment that had a little lip on the floor. I tripped over it and fell forward, the borrle still on my mouth, and it slammed up and hit my face so hard it broke my nose.
Just a funny way I got hurt- When I was young like 8 I was trying to pick up a pillow, but by the tag. The tag ripped off, and I accidentally punched myself in the face. I was bleeding everywhere and my parents weren’t in the house.
I laughed a little too hard at most of these. I have nothing really interesting. Although I did get a concussion two years ago, thought I didn't have a body for about three hours, and now have anxiety focal seizures in my arms and can't work because they last about three hours. Guess who has a divot in their head where it bounced off a concrete floor loud enough to hear twice and developed social anxiety from said concussion? I never did have a headache though. Just convinced I was only a head unless I could see my body.
People don't believe half of my life. Let's see... I have been in every form of media (except radio), including getting my picture in the NY Times. My photographer for the NY Times was Dith Pran, the man who survived the cambodian death camps and had a movie made about his experiences. I have posed for a painting, a sculpture and a figurine. I've commanded artillery. I was shanghaied into being published in a top scientific journal in the world (I didn't want to write the paper, it was too much work but I got forced into it). I have pictures of me with Bill Clinton, his arm around my shoulder (his idea) from when he was on his re-election campaign. I've played with some of the world's deadliest animals, including newts that can produce a lethal contact toxin through their skin. Those newts are so deadly the lab had to be registered with the department of Homeland Security. I let them ride on my shoulder while I cleaned their cages. I died once, noone knows how I am still here
(No, it was not from the newts). I used to be a stage magician, and got to meet Penn and Teller (Penn is HUGE). Afterwards, when Penn went to go back inside the venue, the door was locked. As he rattles the doors, my mother, from off to the side, calls out "Use Magic!" I have, literally, helped rewrite the history books. There is a formula named after my father, which I helped develop. I've been on tv several times. And that is just for starters.
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