30 Satisfying Stories Of Overconfident People Getting Put In Their Place, As Shared In This Online Group
In fact, people don't learn anything. Absolutely nothing. It would seem that no matter how many centuries have passed since the time of David and Goliath, still, there are always people with an incredibly large ego, and in completely different life situations.
And, of course, in full accordance with the laws of karma, arrogance almost always gets what it deserves. A person claiming to be extremely erudite takes last place in the trivia quiz, a guy who thinks he's a great driver fails the driving test, Atlanta Falcons lose the Superbowl after having 28:3 in the third quarter...
In general, karma is a very unpleasant thing for those who want to show off something in front of others. You can be sure, sooner or later (most likely sooner), you will regret it. The only consolation is that you might get featured in this popular Reddit thread in which the topic starter wondered about situations where someone's large ego has been absolutely flattened. Currently, the thread has received almost 6K upvotes, over 2.5K comments, and counting.
Bored Panda created a curated list for you with the most popular, interesting, and instructive examples from this thread. So feel free to scroll to the very end, leave your comments and do not forget to upvote the post, as we are now absolutely sure that this one is the best you have ever read in your entire life!
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
There was an arm wrestling trend going on at my high school during my junior year, and there was an all star athlete on my basketball team we called Pat who was very cocky. He wasn’t the best on the team at basketball, but he started in every single sport and he was absolutely jacked for a 17 yr old. One day he challenges this semi mentally handicapped kid at our school to an arm wrestling match over who gets to use this particular tool in shop. This kid is pretty big, but he’s a bit slow so he got teased a lot. Anyways they get set up, everyone’s watching, and the match starts. 15 seconds go by and Pat couldn’t move this kid’s arm at all. He just sat there smiling at Pat and watched the smug and cocky attitude disappear. Then he easily pinned his arm and let Pat use the tool anyways. He walked away humming to himself like usual. What a boss.
Long ago? In college one semester for fun I took “Swine Management”. I’m a total city girl, about 5 ft nothing, and at the time I was like 105 lbs soaking wet. I did learn how to restrain a hog in that class, and I got to know all the barn men really well.
Next fall semester, I start my Veterinary College courses. In Large Animal Medicine, we had a block of, you guessed it, swine disease prevention. The professor was known to enjoy taking his students down a peg or two. Great, he covers basic swine restraint really fast, like no way you’d be able to do this…unless you already know how. He looks around…barn men are watching this show from the back. I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I make eye contact with the prof and of course he picks me “to demo”.
I calmly walk up to the sow, take the rope, loop around the belly, twist, half hitch into her mouth and tie her up. Barn men are like proud papas, prof is like wtf just happened. He asked me where I grew up, he’s clearly thinking Iowa or something, I answer the big city to the west.
Best day ever.
The day I got my restraining Order against my then spouse...Everyone says the abusers rarely show up, and he had no reason to show up at ours...
He was drunk, belligerent, and volatile.
The judge let him ramble and make an absolute A*S out himself, for about ten minutes before she asked him when he had had his last alcoholic beverage, since she could smell him from the bench...He started in on her and she...just ripped him apart.
For the first time in his life, he was forced to silently listen to a woman call him out, tell him he is an abuser, a user, an addict, and a terrible person in general. In front of his teenage kids he brought along.
She counted down each previous RO and eviction from all his previous women, and (correctly) said he is the kind of man who chooses vulnerable women to live off of and she sees this as his "job" and that he wasn't going to be getting a "paycheck" from me anymore.
It's been years and he still hates me with a passion for that experience.
Son was born the day before, my wife was in bed recovering. I’m all cocky because I was able to put him to sleep and did a perfect swaddle. I was able to calm him down in seconds and I’m just getting more arrogant by the minute. I volunteer to change his pooped diaper because I’ve been a father for an entire day and clearly an expert at this point. So apparently my beautiful newborn wasn’t finished pooping and not only peed all over my face and chest but he pooped all over my hands. After that happened I was a little more humble.
Ex girlfriend was hostess at a swanky restaurant in Seattle. She was looking down at her book when some people approached the dais and a guy said “I need a table for 8.” She said without looking up “it’s probably going to be at least a 90 minute wait.” Voice says “But I’m David Copperfield.” Ex says “Then maybe you can make a table appear.” Finishes what she’s doing. Looks up. It’s actually David Copperfield. No table appeared.
I hate it when people use their fame or association to get something. I work at a non-profit and I constantly get calls from "supporters" who ask me is there's anything I can do to get them tickets to a sold out show. They go on about how much they have donated blah blah blah. I don't give in. Instead, I sell the reserve tickets (at a discount) to a nice person who tells me "oh man!" I was hoping there would be tickets left by the time I got paid and had enough money to get the tickets." non-profits are all about helping people in the end right?? =D
I worked IT support for my school while I was in college. One of my coworkers was the type who thinks they’re the smartest guy in the room. One day he came in and couldn’t get his monitors to work. After 10 minutes of watching him struggle I tried to interject and help but got a long winded rant about how he’s been working with computers his whole life and doesn’t need any help, if he can’t figure it out I certainly wouldn’t be able to.
I just responded with “that’s cool man, I just thought monitors had to be plugged in to work, my bad.” His entire face turned red and he looked like he wanted to die as he realized both monitors were unplugged.
I knew a guy that always felt the need to one up everything I said. I was on the phone with my girlfriend at the time and he happened to overhear us talking. He came up to me and started to brag about himself, loud enough for my girlfriend to hear, and how he could steal my girl just by talking to her on the phone for 10 minutes. I offered him my phone and my girlfriend reamed him out for 5 minutes straight before he handed me back the phone and walked off. I was so proud of her haha.
She's a keeper. Their a keeper. Weird guy who can neither put up nor shut up, not so much.
BIL always preening and bragging about how he's the best. At everything. At a family dinner with people he hadn't met before, someone asked him if his last name was Italian. He said yes. Another person said,"Ah, I've heard about those hot Italian lovers." Before he could get a word out , his wife looked at him and very clearly said, "Yeah, I've HEARD about them too."
Oh SO many times. I live in the DC area. The number of times I have seen men patronize a little gray-haired woman and then learn she is a power player... it's glorious.
My favorite was a backyard barbecue with some friends who sail. You've got everyone from the guy who scrapes barnacles off the bottom of the boats to old Navy dudes to the people who own racing yachts. And you CANNOT tell by looking. These yacht racers dress like they went shopping at the Salvation Army in 1989.
So there we are, watching the kids spray each other with the hose and waiting for burgers, and my friend's new brother-in-law is a Lawyer. He wants everyone to know he is a Lawyer. He's swaggering around like, "Well, as an ATTORNEY...." oh god. He is SUPER patronizing to a nice older lady and a teen girl, then heads over for yet another beer. He's pulling his I'm A LaWYeR routine on a guy and the guy says, "Oh, hey, I have a great person for you to meet!" Drags the jackass back over to the older lady and the teen girl and introduces the jackass to the two. Jackass realizes he bragged about being a lawyer to the dean of a major law school and Justice Scalia's granddaughter.
I thought the jackass was going to s**t himself.
I used to work at a photography studio. I'm not a photographer but I know some basics.
Photographer guy, probably in his 50s, tells me the equipment he rented isn't working and he is ranting on about how he has wasted 25 minutes of his rental time because his camera wasn't syncing to the lighting equipment. All in front of his poor clients.
Best moment of my life -- as he was cursing me out I walked over and wordlessly plugged it in. Never seen a grown man turn so red.
When I was a kid a new guy showed up at church. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he had a PHD in communications and insisted everyone call him "Doctor" (and he was old enough that it's not like he *just* got his doctorate). He basically treated everyone else like uneducated rubes because *he* was a Doctor.
Whelp, the neurosurgeon, the anesthesiologist, the radiologist (chief of radiology at the biggest regional hospital!), the 3 dentists, the 2 orthodontists, and a handful of other people that I have no idea what they did all started calling each other "Doctor" as well.
Weirdly, mr. communications stopped insisting everyone call him doctor.
My army friend when he lost to his mom at the shooting range at the carnival
I knew this girl who was a part of my friend group back in high school. She started really harshly bullying one of the girls in our group and wouldn’t own up to it or apologize in any way so we all cut ties with her. Shortly afterwards she moved away. Let me tell you I have never seen such sudden and strong entitlement come from a person.
She reached out to the girl she was bullying almost a year later and told her she was coming back and was going to “ruin her life.” Said she was going to re-join the youth group at our church and spread horrible rumors about her so that nobody would like her anymore and she’d be able to steal all of her friends back. Also said she was going to play the victim card and tell everyone that she was the one being harassed. We shared those messages with our minister and she was promptly banned from that group and never got to show her face there again. She also started posting things about all of us on tiktok, which we reported and ended up getting her temporarily banned from the platform. She wasn’t able to get a job in this town because everywhere she applied there was someone there who knew what she did and told their boss not to hire her. And now her grandma is kicking her out and sending her back home.
In highschool a martial arts group performed for us during an assembly in the gym. The lead guy with a microphone was arrogant and full of himself. He was demonstrating how you could lock your arms behind your neck in a hold that can't be separated. He asked for someone from the audience to try and break his arms apart. Down from the bleachers came our top male gymnast. The student got behind the "expert" and in a matter of seconds the student not only broke the hold but dislocated the pro's shoulder in the process.
Best assembly ever.
Well... Nothing should happen since the lead martial artist was the one to challenge an untrained person to get out of a move... It is a miracle the boy didn't hurt himself too.
Load More Replies...
One thing you learn really fast in martial arts is never to underestimate anyone. I am 6'' and lift weights regularly. When I first started training, after a few days of learning the ropes, was told to spar this tiny little girl, who couldn't have been more than 4'' 9'. Thirty seconds into the match, I'm flat on my back with the wind knocked out of me, and that tiny little girl has my wrist held in a joint lock that feels like my wrist is breaking.
Thank you for saying this. I'm average in height, but everyone tends to assume that I can fight well because I'm big. I can't say that that's the reason I fight well (let alone good), but I train with my instructors who range from first to sixth dan black belts. Don't assume people who are overweight can win a fight based on size alone
Load More Replies...
A friend of mine teaches martial arts, and his best story is about the time some guy came swaggering into the dojo, bragging about his massively callused knuckles which he got from repeatedly punching something solid so now his fists are super tough, etc. The tiny old Chinese guy who ran the place examined the guy's hands and memorably said "You have hands of seventy year old who smoke every day! How you fight?" He asked the guy to straighten out his fingers (he couldn't do it), then proceeded to press down on one of the calluses and the idiot screamed his head off.
Elementary school track meet, 1995.
My friend E introduced me to her friend S who went to another school. I was there as a sub but someone on our team didn't show so I was up. E mentions I'm in the same race as S and turns out we're both starting the relay. S immediately starts ribbing me - "I'm going to beat you", "I'm faster than you". I was a sweet looking innocent girl, people were generally nice to me unless they were the type of a*****e who spotted an easy target.
Race starts, I'm running and I don't see her anywhere. I'm thinking, damn, she is fast until I check over my shoulder. When I tell you this girl was not just behind me but SO FAR behind me. Our team placed 2nd and hers came in something like 5th or 6th. She didn't say a word after, I doubt she'd even remember it but to this day I think about it anytime someone goes into S mode with me. I never give it back to them, I always just do my own thing and hope that I prove them wrong and usually it works.
Me: who's the best Dad in the world?!?!
My daughter: Mommy!!!!
Me: little sh*t
There was this annoying woman in my department at work back in the early 80s. She was one of those who had already seen it/done it better during any topic of conversation. It bugged me because it seemed to me that the bulk of her claims were products of her imagination, but many of our co-workers thought that "Lynn" was sooo cool, she knows so many famous people and has visited all these exotic places!" Well, she crossed the line with me in 1980 when I was fortunate enough to get front row tickets to a Queen concert in Detroit via a scalper. I paid $45 each, but it was worth it - that was back in the day when the front row folks were squished against the stage so that we rested our forearms on it. Both Freddie and Brian shook my hand during the show. Of course, since I was willing to spend that kind of cash to see them it only makes sense that I was a huge fan and knew a LOT about the band and its history.
Come Monday morning I go to work and talk enthusiastically about seeing Queen so closely and Lynn interjects off-handedly, "Oh, I remember partying with them back in the day when they played small clubs. I remember seeing them at [some small downtown Detroit bar] and playing cards with them backstage later." I looked her in the eye and replied, "The first time Queen ever played in Detroit was at the Ford Auditorium in February 1975. They've never played club dates in Detroit." She just gave me a frozen smile, patted my arm and walked away. After that she never interacted with me unless absolutely necessary.
I was the singer in a very moderately successful rock band in the early '90s. I was living in an apartment block and there was an incredibly hot girl that lived there and I'd always try and say hi and interact with her but she would have none of it. After my third or fourth attempt she just looked me square in the face and told me to f**k off and leave her alone. About a month later my band was playing a nightclub. The place was sold out. I was walking through the crowd before the show and saw her standing with some girl friends and walked over and asked her what she was doing here. She replied that she was dating the lead singer of the band. I said which band? She said the band playing here tonight, and I replied but I'm the lead singer of that band. To her credit, she said okay fine. You caught me in a lie. I f*****g laughed and walked away.
There’s this guy who always shows up to the public dog park and let’s everyone know he is a professional dog trainer.
One day he targets this good looking woman with a big ol German Shepard. He goes up to her, gives her the usual schpeel “hey I train dogs professionally and just wanted to let you know that your dog is a killer. It’s a good thing you have him out here getting his energy out. I can tell he is young and I’m sure you’re coming home to tons of accidents and objects chewed up? I’ll happily give you a free lesson.”
The woman looks at him and says “my dog is 5 years old and has never had an accident in my house and never chewed up anything.”
Dog trainer guy just sort of laughed and walked away, onto the next person he can bother.
When I was in middle school I was very short and generally just looked like a stereotypical 14 year old girl. One day in gym class we go to the weight room, so I'm doing weighted squats (don't remember the exact weight, but probably between 60 pounds and 80 pounds), and this kid starts getting all cocky and teasing me for "trying too hard" and basically challenges me to a bench pressing competition.
What he didn't know was that I spent 2 hours in the weight room every morning.
I kicked his butt, it was very satisfying.
my landlord's two sons, who were bodybuilders, came in and started bragging about how much they could leg press. I asked them to show me and each struggled but did 600 lbs. I set the weights to 915 lbs, the weight I had done earlier in the week, and crushed their egos with a single lift.
I worked for a Mercedes Benz dealer. Lots of a-hole customers, but one in particular was just a d**k. He'd throw a tantrum if he couldn't get in for a service appointment with zero notice and pulled a lot of "do you KNOW who I AM" c**p to try to get his way. He came in one day and made a huge production of buying a $100,000 car - made sure everyone in the dealership knew he was buying it and exactly how much it cost, drove it into the service bay to smugly show it off to the techs, rolled the top down and blasted his lame 80's music as loud as he could on the way out...super cringy. About three hours after he left with his new car, he walked back into the service bay absolutely losing his $hit and demanding his money back because "the car was ruined". Sure enough, here comes the tow truck with his pretty little convertible in tow. Turns out genius had decided to show off his car to his work buddies and parked it on the street with the top down, then popped inside to "conduct some business". Welp, a downpour came out of nowhere and drenched the interior of the car. Totally ruined the electronics, soaked into the upholstery, and he couldn't even turn it on. The thing was essentially totaled and he'd had it for three hours. It was amazing.
So this lady was called to do a job. Once she came, I welcomed her and she passes me like I'm insignificant. She kept making side comments and asking where the person she's to talk to is. It felt like she was trying to get on my nerves to be honest.
Anyways, the dude finally comes and she stands up greeting and smiling acting polite. He points to me and goes, "That's who you answer to, I have a lot to do". Her expression changes.
I smile and ask what questions she has. *Silence*
A guy in our union was running for some executive board position and he was telling everyone what an easy win it was gonna be for him because nobody like the other 2 people running for the job. Come election day he got a very humbled awakening. Out of 1300 people he got less than 10 votes. He didn’t speak to many people for awhile after that. Nobody likes a braggart.
Exactly that happened at my workplace. She was 5 years already the Union leader, and thought, it will be an easy win a few months ago, when we had elections. She got 3 votes (her 2 friends) out of 19. She is not speaking to anyone now, except her 2 friends. Not much a difference, compared to how "communicative" she was before.
My family has an old story that always gets retold. This was in the early 1980s. One of my grandfather's cousins was the kind of guy who'd always one-up in conversations- "Oh, I know a better place for dinner." "I know the best X". "I got a guy at X, I can get us in." He recently got a brand new Cadillac car and loved to say how it was top of the line.
One fine Sunday, the whole clan went into the city for dinner. The cousin arrives in a flourish, gets out of the Caddy, hands the man at the entrance the keys and $10 and tells him to take care of his car. After dinner, he gets out and tells the maitre'd to bring his car around.
"What car, sir?"
"The car I had valeted."
"We don't have a valet."
"Then who did I give my car to?"
"..."
Yep. He was pretty quiet the ride back.
With some friends at a pool hall/club opening night. Packed, local celebs. DFW area, so Cowboys, Mavericks, etc. Find a table where some guy is talking loads of sh*t how he's so good, so amazing, he'll take one anyone in 9 ball.
At the time, roomie and I knew all the staff at a place close to our apt. We'd play all night, no charge. They made up for it in food and alcohol, trust. We practiced breaks for 9 ball. Got there 8 times out of 10 I could sink the 9 on break, or sink at least one and run to the 9. Not saying I was world class but I was good.
I volunteer. Dudebro generously offered me break. Sink the 9. Laugh from the crowd. Guy claims it's just luck. Break again, sink the 9. Third break, sink it. Dudebro is pissed, tells me scram, points at roomie. Who sinks the 9 four times in a row. Crowd is now laughing AT Dudebro, who is massively pissed. Throws down his cur and leaves.
Turns out it was the owner, and a pro on the billiards circuit.
For those who may not know, DFW is Dallas/Fort Worth area, Texas
Some dude came into the pub I work at for the pub quiz. Kept going on about how he was smarter than all these bumpkins (I live in a university city) and that he was gonna get first prize. He was adamant and he sat at the bar across from me the whole time. I played on my phone and named myself Bumpkin. He didn't even place in the top 10 and was furious that he got beaten by a bumpkin and a "gang of old retired f**kups that have nothing better to do"
A girl in my English class said that she would score a 100 on our End of Course test. She made everyone feel bad about themselves and thought that she was the best in the class. In the end, she scored a 64.
Me when I was a kid. Made fun of a girl in my neighborhood in front of people, then proceeded to try and do a bike trick and break my wrist as they all watched.
I got promoted (at a f*****g McDonald's... Wow...) over some other girl. I didn't even know I was being considered until a day or two before the managers voted. I was told to come in the next day in my new uniform and the other girl came in, saw my uniform, and quit on the spot. She accused me of stealing "her" promotion.
I found out from an assistant manager that they were openly considering her and tried to push her towards things she would need to know/do and she would never take the initiative to learn more, do more. I actively tried to learn more (mainly to get out of service and into the kitchen... Fuuuuck the public) and was well liked by most of the crew/management and someone randomly tossed my name in the conversation.
Back when taking the Matura (huge high school graduation exam), there was this girl in my class who was extremely vocal about her great English skills (as a 2nd language). She had lived in the US before and everything.
When we got the results back, she was bragging about her 98% and how "noone ever gets a perfect score anyway". Well, umm... she was surprised to find out that I, a person that originally started in the beginner course, did get 100%.
And the majority of our class was actually in the 85%+ category.
A dude in high school had lots of money growing up. He liked to splash it around and bragged about fancy clothes and cars and throwing parties where he would supply alcohol for everyone. I wasn't so much of a friend but we just ran in different circles. A few years later it was discovered that they were so rich because his dad who was a wealth manager embezzled money for years from his clients. This was a sort of small community so his clients were all friends and family. It was all over the press that his dad went to jail. This hit him hard. I ran into him a few years later and he had changed his name, his personality was different and he even walked with a different poster. I couldn't imagine how much this would have rocked his world. It definitely took his ego down a few notches. I sort of felt bad for him as he was just a product of his environment. He didn't know that it was at the cost of practically everyone around him.
I was confused about walking with a different "poster". I am not ordinarily a grammar Nazi, but for the sake of clarity, I think you mean "posture".
Note: this post originally had 52 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
In middle school a boy told me i was ugly and no one would ever date me. 5 Yeats later I run into him and he's like "whoa you look so different," and asks me for my number. I just was like um didn't you say I was ugly and no one would ever date me? He just starts blushing and stammering and I just walked away. He dms me later on Facebook and says he wants to hang out because he's going to jail soon. I did not reply.
Worked in the MMJ industry in Colorado for 10 years, then the "green rush" happens and suddenly all these men from out of state are telling me what I "should be doing".
There was this kid Aidan in middle school who always said he would call his lawyer if we screwed with him. He was a pushover, so everyone did screw with him. Then he finally got in the cool kids circle (kind of) and they were horsing around and from the account of some of the guys there, he followed through on a dare to pee on his friends hat. He got suspended for a week, and when he got back, i said, “ Looks like your lawyer from Best Buy didn’t cut it, huh?” (His dad is a lawyer.)
He was still screwed with after the fact, too. I remember at the end of the year this kid Charlie was yeeting Mike and Ike candies at Aidan from across the Spanish room while the Spanish sub could not give less of a sh1t. That is, until i found a piece of wood and broke it up into pieces for Charlie to throw next.
Load More Replies... In middle school a boy told me i was ugly and no one would ever date me. 5 Yeats later I run into him and he's like "whoa you look so different," and asks me for my number. I just was like um didn't you say I was ugly and no one would ever date me? He just starts blushing and stammering and I just walked away. He dms me later on Facebook and says he wants to hang out because he's going to jail soon. I did not reply.
Worked in the MMJ industry in Colorado for 10 years, then the "green rush" happens and suddenly all these men from out of state are telling me what I "should be doing".
There was this kid Aidan in middle school who always said he would call his lawyer if we screwed with him. He was a pushover, so everyone did screw with him. Then he finally got in the cool kids circle (kind of) and they were horsing around and from the account of some of the guys there, he followed through on a dare to pee on his friends hat. He got suspended for a week, and when he got back, i said, “ Looks like your lawyer from Best Buy didn’t cut it, huh?” (His dad is a lawyer.)
He was still screwed with after the fact, too. I remember at the end of the year this kid Charlie was yeeting Mike and Ike candies at Aidan from across the Spanish room while the Spanish sub could not give less of a sh1t. That is, until i found a piece of wood and broke it up into pieces for Charlie to throw next.
Load More Replies...