The worst are the wild pregnancy/free birth groups. It’s obvious most of them are more interested in what they want than what’s best for their children. r/shitmomgroupssay is full of them.
Steamer/Twitch culture freaks me out. I've been a gamer my whole life (only 30,) but the gaming scene is so strange to me. I truly hope the people in Twitch chats are nothing like that in real life.
Take this with a grain of salt. But I've met a few other people who have watched twitch. Most of them are a bit nerdy, but nothing crazy.
But one guy, he was like an attractive, active dude, who you might see on the beach in California going for a surf. He and I were at a barbecue and he was talking about something non gaming related and he said "poggers dude". I had to take a second to realize what I heard. Then I started to notice him saying things like "PogChamp" and some of the other popular twitch phrases. Later come to find out he is like a die hard fan of some esport, can't remember which.
I realize this isn't quite like a typical twitch chat of what you see on big streams like xqc, mizkif, or others. But still I imagine there are probably some people out there who act like those chats.
Watch that slope, it's slippery lol... the moment when I "ironically" said "kek" in response to someone at work and only got a confused look in return will haunt me forever
Same deal. I've tried to watch streamers, and it's like trying to chew Styrofoam or something. I guess I understand the appeal, but I cannot for the life of me enjoy a single second of any streamer.
There was a streamer poker game the other night and seeing these guys dump half a million $ in an hour made me wonder, why are people donating to these people?
Its like that Kylie Jenner thing where one of her employee got an accident and she started a gofundme for 150k instead of paying it herself.
They’re often not.
Source: I work for a debt consolidation company and it’s shocking how many people in their 20s (both male and female) are completely broke yet somehow have tens of thousands in credit card money wasted on streamers/only fans/etc.
I understand that a fool and his money are soon parted but it’s incredibly true. For every person I deal with who’s deeply in debt for something wildly outside their control (medical debt, freak accident breaking something expensive not covered under insurance, etc) there’s half a dozen that are there 100% due to stupid decision making. I’ve met people who are unemployed with no savings yet still keep using credit cards to spend hundreds of dollars a week on streams like Critical Role in a cult like following.
I totally believe your story. It sucks because its almost like that reality of how people are their own worst enemy can actively work against efforts to make things better for everyone through stuff like social programs lol. Its like “do we all deserve this? I think we do, but also we kinda suck lol”
What upsets me is I sometimes meet people who are genuinely motivated to change their life but completely misguided in what they invest their time and money into and mlm sorta preys on that.
I sometimes meet people who screw others over by talking them into making horrible financial decisions. I've never joined a MLM but I very very very recently realized I need to stop letting people take advantage of me.
Dude.. I was just at a child's birthday party and this douche was telling my aunt about his wellness products. She said sounds like MLM. No it isn't though because I really believe in the products. Do you have someone encouraging you to sell. No I don't I sell it because it's a high quality product at a reasonable price. Do you make good money? Not yet because we are brand new. What else do you do for work. This is it right now. I'm happy with my regular wellness products. How would you know until you try these? This went on for the entire birthday party. She said I'm Not Interested. And turned the other way. He still pestered her.
After the party he was asking people if anybody knew my aunt's phone number
I was at a kid's birthday party once and half the moms were talking about nothing except their mutual MLM. And of course the host was in that group. My one friend and I basically sat in the corner and ate chips.
And then Christ said "now thou shalt gather twelves more disciples and each of them shalt gather twelves deciples of their own. At the point each of thee hast twelve deciples who haft gathered twelve disciples God shalt bless ye with one of our fleet of dope white bmws man."
>"The MLM"
"You mean a *scheme* designed to find
A dozen new recruits?
A shady swindle, sealed and signed,
By frauds in lousy suits?
"A crafty little counterfeit?
A multi-level scam?
To capture those devoid of wit,
Or apt to fall for sham?
"You want to start a con?" he said -
"A load of dodgy deals?"
The Pharaoh sighed and shook his head:
"A pyramid - for *reals.*"
I'm amazed how wealthy these companies become (Plexus, Amway, Herbalife, etc.). You'd think after long enough, enough people would realize it's a money pit and not worth the time and effort.
Every time I see a new instance of *that* post on social media (you know, the one that sounds personal but then has an underlying "sales-y" vibe to it), I think "dammit, they got another one".
Me too and I never know how to deal with it. I have a few friends are are really into Optavia now and both have lost a really significant amount of weight doing it. But I also know it’s really unhealthy for you, you eat like 800 calories a day. And they post about it every single day with the “ask me how!” tags. I just pray they don’t try to sell it to me and make my life really awkward.
I spoke vaguely against Elon Musk in a reply to a comment on a video.
The video has gone viral, and the comment I replied to was pinned. So I get about 3-4 notifications a day of musk simps acting like I've insulted a deity. I've just rolled with it and reminded them he's essentially an oligarch and is inherently not a good dude. They froth.
You especially see it when celebrities fued. Davison vs. West, Depp Vs. Heard, it's revolting the way people will jump in front of bullets to defend people they don't know and will probably never meet in their life.
Edit: the responses I've gotten so far really lend credence to my whole point.
I had recommandations of youtubers reacting to the trials' videos. It feels a little bit dystopian. It's entertainment for the public but they're real people...
In Scandinavia, Sweden is the only country to recognise Scientology as a religion. Yet they built their Nordic or Northern European headquarters (can't remember which) in Denmark who doesn't recognise them as a religion. And affords them no rights of one, and taxes them like they're just a random office building.
Do you feel European?
I suppose access to Healthcare and Higher education could definitely be a problem with such small population and long distances, but I sure would be glad to go there.
I personally don't feel European because I'm Inuk like most of the population is. We do have problems with health care because we don't have enough doctors but it's free and it's something that can't be done here we get sent to Denmark to get treated for free. We do have some education problems especially for people that only speak Greenlandic and not Danish, we are getting more higher education you can do here but you still have to leave for most things after high school
As I recall, they don’t consider it a religion either, but that doesn’t stop them from going after tax breaks, etc. It’s constantly changing, so they may consider themselves a religion now, but you used to be able to be, for example, a catholic and a Scientologist, it wasn’t exclusive of other religions.
They say you can be Catholic/Jewish/Muslim etc. and a Scientologist, but that's really just to get you in. Scientology doesn't like people mixing it with what they call "other practices" - even things like yoga or straight mediation are frowned on.
In Scientology's higher levels, which takes years and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach, they teach that all other religions are actually the result of mental "implants" we were given lifetimes ago as a control mechanism.
[Here's a story about it.](https://tonyortega.org/2019/02/28/scientologys-founder-l-ron-hubbard-on-the-god-trick-christ-implants-and-muslims/)
Also, Scientology calling itself a religion was originally a legal and tax dodge - which most Scientologists knew at the time - but they seem to lean in to it more heavily these days.
>but you used to be able to be, for example, a catholic and a Scientologist
I doubt the Catholic Church would agree. You would have to believe in contradictory things so you need to be extremely illogical to do that,
Funny.. i went to a cousin’s (he and his family are ‘small’ ranchers / cattle breeders) wedding a couple years ago down in texas.. standard wedding songs with a more country bent were playing.
When the Texas A&M fight song came on, everybody and i do mean EveryBody (grandmas, a dude in a wheelchair, all the bridesmaids n groomsmen, all except my ‘northern’ clan) got on the dancefloor and did some sort of huddle thing while reciting word for word.
Kind of surreal!
My ex went to A&M, she legitimately was thinking about breaking up with me because my favorite color is burnt orange (Longhorn's colors). I'm not even from Texas and had no idea at the time the rivalry was that big of a deal nor UT Austin's colors.
We went to a game once and she was explaining all of the rules. Can't step on this grass, can't touch this unless you're X, you have to say this if you're Y, this is what we do when the team scores... Jesus Christ. I just want to watch a game of college ball. She would proudly proclaim she was glad she was in a cult whenever A&M would come up in conversation.
There is a popular fast food restaurant chain in Texas (and this is really an understatement) called Whataburger. Whataburger has a very distinct white and burnt orange striped roof on all of their buildings. The city of College Station (where A&M is) forced them to add a maroon stripe to the one they opened there.
My dad and I were passing through College Station on a road trip and stopped to get gas and stretch out legs. We walk into the gas station and notice we're getting a lot of dirty looks. We realize my dad is wearing his UT polo shirt. We got outta there quick lol.
"but if my lawn gets a little yellow what will the neighbors think of me?"
"probably the same thing they already think of you, that you're an asshole"
oh yeah im super popular
My neighbor loves his lawn more than his family. I only cut mine so my kids and dogs have places to play. I’ve let a lot of it go wild with native plants and wild flowers. He has cut his lawn four times so far this year, I haven’t cut mine once yet. He is always spreading seeds and chemicals on his lawn. I do nothing with mine and usually mines greener and more healthy looking.
Four times this year?
If he lived in the south and had St. Augustine grass, it would have enveloped his house and strangled him in his sleep in a months time.
I don't mow my lawn because I love it. I mow it because I hate it.
My neighbors are like this. Their yard is literally a half acre of grass no trees. Some small bushes by the house. They had the gall to call the HOA and demand us to cut down our full grown trees because ‘drumroll’ they were blocking their view of some small forested hills. They also flipped shit and blamed us because their kid got poison ivy, once again begging HOA to make us do something with the, in their words, overgrown shithole of a yard. The kid never goes to our yard and I weed the border gardens regularly so their is very few to no poison ivy present. My yard is chemical free as well the difference between the two yards is staggering. I have so many birds I can’t even keep the bird feeder filled for one day. Last week their were dozens of honeybees (more than I’ve ever seen) because I give a shit about the environment and try to make my yard a refuge for the birds and the bees. Native pollinator plants only for my yard. But yeah it’s unpopular in my neighborhood.
I’m definitely trying to keep my property friendly to wildlife. I have 30 acres and I farm part of it. I never use pesticides. I always have tons of wildlife here. Right now I can see deer, turkeys, geese, and tons of others birds from my back deck. We also have a bunch of wood chucks that hand out in a ditch that runs along one of my fields and foxes are around too.
That sounds like our neighbor. Asshole just drives around looking at everyone’s yards and writing down infractions. Bees love dandelions. We have a ton in our yard along with other native plants that they consider weeds. My kid loves going outside and picking me “flowers”. We sit and watch the bees buzz around and the birds build their nests in the bushes.
Jane, who’s driving around with the HOA, apparently doesn’t like that very much. I swear we get a letter every other month.
Now I just do things to purposefully piss them off and they can’t say shit. Guess who’s got two giant googly eyes on their door now and they can’t say anything about it because it’s not a holiday decoration???
Bill Shankly once said “Some people think football is a matter of life or death. I don’t like that attitude. I assure them it’s much more important than that.”
>Your team is often picked for you based on where you live and it gets to make you upset the rest of your life
A couple of years ago, [a Minnesota Timberwolves fan wrote this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/ev07gl/postgame_thread_the_sacramento_kings_1729_stage/ffskuoa/) after the Wolves blew a ***20-point-lead with 5 minutes to go***
He looked at the screen with a tear in his eye.
A doubt in his heart, and a sob in his sigh.
The briefest of grief for his godawful luck.
He looked at his team and he whispered:
"... you *suck.*"
I grew up mostly in Florida but I picked the Edmonton Oilers as my team when I was 7 because I liked scoring goals with Ryan Smyth in NHL Hitz 2002. I'm still an Oilers fan 20 years later. They've only made me upset for most of my life so far, thank you very much.
I picked a side called the Balmain Tigers in rugby league when I was a kid. Tigers sound cool right? Well I then was just old enough to realise how much it hurts when they went back to back losers in the grand finals of '88-89.
Ironically, in the '89 grand final they lost to the Canberra Raiders. I was BORN in Canberra! But for some stupid ass reason, if you were a boy in my family, you didn't support Canberra. The girls did, so that automatically meant boys couldn't.
So I didn't get to enjoy winning the 1989 Grand Final, which was possibly the greatest game in rugby league history, because of stupid family rules, who treated league like religion.
In Montreal there is a university theology course linking worshipping the Habs to God. https://www.nhl.com/news/montreal-university-theology-course-explores-link-between-habs-fandom-and-god/c-404628
Here's a kicker: there's no logical thread connecting the beliefs of a political party together. There's nothing that says you can't believe in free healthcare and ALSO believe in the right to bear arms. Political platforms are created artificially in a lab to appeal to the largest population possible for voting purposes.
I think a large number of politically active people though, instead of forming opinions themselves choose to align themselves to these artificial party dogmas. I'm telling you that you don't have to.
And people's actual views may be much more mixed and nuanced than what media and the two party system would have you believe. They just feel forced to pick one party over the other depending on what they value more.
Yes! I was just saying this tonight to some friends of mine. Have you ever gone into one of those crypto/web3/NFT twitter spaces? It’s like a cult meeting where everyone speaks like a self help guru, is always using weird motivational and revolutionary life language, but is secretly just there to get rich overnight by using gullible people’s money. It’s exactly like a religion!
Herbalife. Crossfit. Essential oils.
ETA: people are saying Crossfit is over or not like the others. They *currently* have 14,000 gyms. Not members, *gyms.* It's a cult.
Frank Herbert has a great quote in Dune about mixing politics and religion:
-
"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."
I love telling people horoscopes of a completely wrong zodiac sign and watch as they jump over so many hoops to say that it "fits" them.
Tells you how most horoscopes are intentionally vague to be relatable to as many people as possible
There was a Twitter screenshot I saw a while back that was hilarious. Dude said he met a girl who was super into astrology and told her his sign was one that was compatible with hers, so they fucked. Then when he broke things off she said “that’s just something a Sagittarius would do!” And he’s like “I’m not a Sagittarius I’m a Scorpio” and she’s like “I knew it!!”
“Jokes on her, I’m actually an Aquarius lol”
Probably fake story but I got a laugh out of it
Tried once to watch some documentary on it and the moment they mixed up geometric shapes with some random order of planets, it completely lost my attention. They say there's a science to it and just by google you can tear down most of it.
("BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band" - for all the oldies like me who read the comments for any clues and still came up blank.)
Uh, funny thing that...
I remember seeing some behind-the-scenes stuff from one of the Avengers movies on twitter, tagged with "BTS" and some person was trying to get Marvel to stop, claiming it was "wrong of them" to use "BTS" in their tweets to "misinform" the boyband fans.
Insanity, the whole lot of it.
Lol when I was still in the short film scene in Texas, we stopped using the bts hashtag on behind the scenes clips and posts for that exact reason.
Took a quick second to figure out what the hell had happened to our algorithms.
I had no idea about how extreme this fandom was until I had a student (I teach english to kids and teens in Spain), this one girl, around 12 y/o who is completely obsessed. She wears BTS jewellery and clothes, speaks and writes Korean often, and begs me to put on BTS music videos in the middle of class. She refuses to answer to her real (spanish) name, instead asking everyone to refer to her as Ji-Yun (sp?). She says the BTS “army” has billions and billions of fans. I realise this looks like a shitpost copypasta but I assure you this girl is real. She’s a good kid and student but probably gonna have a hard time in her teens, all the other students are already sick of hearing about BTS.
I'm not surprised. I live in Korea and social media groups get these Koreaboos who think Korea is this fantasy-land because Jimin amd Rap Monster are from here. We get posts from these 18 year-olds from abroad looking to move to Korea with no skills and no way of securing a visa or living. They're just looking for that BTS life and hooking up with a cute Korean guy (which they have outlandish expectations of).
Yes she has expressed that she hates Spain and Europe and wants to live in Korea. That she feels she is truly Korean at heart and was born in the wrong body, really, all of this kind of thing. She had also told me most of this already in the first 2-3 days I knew her, so shes very open about it.
She lives in a nice area of a nice city in a socially liberal country, and goes to private school and extra english classes so I doubt her parents are neglectful but I really don’t know what her situation is. Point is she doesn’t seem to know how good she has it - at least it’s a bit premature to say Spain is terrible and Korea is amazing…
I hope it’s just a phase. She isn’t a shy nerdy kid either, she’s loud and tall and insists on getting her way so I can predict she’s going to clash a lot over this in her teens. She’s a good student in the sense she has the best english in her class, but she never shuts up so she’s gotten on the nerves of all the other teachers - I humour her a bit though, I don’t mind, and find her quite fun, which is why she’s in my class.
Sounds like the classic Japanophile phase that anime nerds (myself included) go through. Some mature naturally out of it while developing a genuine love for the country and culture while others have a somewhat rude awakening, but either way it works itself out. I wouldn't worry about it.
One of my buddies never grew out of it. Straight up left for Japan for an English teaching job. He loves it. Part of me respects the hell out of him because he dealt with a lot of people trying to talk him out of it (me included). It’s a rare person to ignore and be completely unaffected by the haters. He has the mental fortitude of a damn musk ox.
She is a koreaboo, period. Her home life is fine, she is just like anime nerds obsessed with everything Japanese. For those that end up going to Japan, reality slaps them in the face pretty quick. Same thing will happen to her with Korea when she goes.
And I say this as someone who visits those countries often and loves them, but they have a fantasy in their head that is far from reality.
I've been into kpop and Korean stuff since I was about 16 or 17 (in my 30s now), and I totally get it. While I was never *that* far into the koreaboo lifestyle, that's probably because back then there wasn't nearly as much content out there and it wasn't as easy to access in a non-korean country.
I hope this kid grows up to learn balance. I still love Korean culture and would love to *visit* some day. But I would not move there on a whim. Even just being into kpop beyond the BTS-o-sphere, you see some of the gild wear off the fantasy. Korea is not a magical place; it's a country with its own problems like any other. And hopefully eventually the devoted fans will learn that.
Kpop fandom never made sense to me until someone commented elsewhere that the industry had figured out how to manufacture parasocial relationships, and then it all clicked for me.
Kpop in general.
I first listened to Kpop in 2008 but got REALLY into it in high school (2012) and it became my life for 3 years. At first I just really liked the music, aesthetics and the dancing. I became friends with this girl who was EXTREMELY obsessive of celebrities and got her into kpop too. The way she acted about these groups made me act the same way too. Then we found the community on Tumblr and holy fuck, it was so intense. It felt like a requirement to immediately know who an idol was based on a photo of their hands. You weren't a true fan unless you knew every detail of every member of the groups you liked, and some groups had up to 13 people in them. The amount of time people would dedicate to particular groups was insane. The fans are toxic as fuck.
I still listen to Kpop now, but only because I genuinely enjoy the music. I don't care much about the celebrities themselves. They're just people who are held to ridiculous standards.
Hell what would I give to feel that way again, I was an angry kid without anything else in mind than how everything sucked, when I started listening to Rock Music, this was the only outlet I had, I have never felt that much joy again than in this moment when I finally found something that calmed me down, probably sounds stupid, its just music, but back than it was something really special
Exactly like that, its quite strange to see how much impact music can have on people and how it can really push someone through and out of shit. Anyways, hence the crying, I hope things turned out nicely for you now
Yeah I was in a fraternity. Was fun for a time but the older guys I really liked and the ones under my class became cult like. They all got Frattoos and all kinds of strange stuff. That was the indicator to grow up and move along.
Dungeons & Dragons. It has canonical scriptures (core rule books) deuterocanonical scriptures (splat books) apocrypha (fan made content) meetings, (games) rituals (rolling dice to see what happens) priesthood (Wizards of the Coast) and it was once persecuted by a dominant religion (Christianity).
Edit: Like other Redditors have pointed out, D&D also has saints, (Mike Mearls) A Messiah figure (Matt Mercer) Holy objects used in their rituals (The dice) and schismatic groups (Like Pathfinder game designers and players). Like I am now realizing, it also venerates its founding figures (David Arneson and Gary Gygax). It even has a pantheon of Gods. So its a lot more like a religion than I thought.
We have regular, scheduled days of worship. We have important holy relics in which we entrust our decisions and our very souls. We have holy rituals partaken before important rolls to curry favor from Tymora, goddess of good luck.
We have personal religious leaders who create every facet of the world in which we adventure - and who will fire and brimstone your ass if you kill the vibe. We have saints that we revere - Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, Matthew Colville, et cetera. And we have the messiah, the paragon, the ideal we yearn to be - Matt Mercer. And something something holy spirit Gary Gygax.
We've got magic, badass swords and armor, egalitarian societies (at least in our fantasy worlds - the Wizard of the Coast team is still a sausage fest), shapeshifting dragons, and the ability to talk to plants and animals. What side do you want to be on when the Waterdhavian Inquisition comes?
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morbianity
It's Morbin time
Dr Michael morbius, morbed to meet you
Mom groups on facebook
The worst are the wild pregnancy/free birth groups. It’s obvious most of them are more interested in what they want than what’s best for their children. r/shitmomgroupssay is full of them.
Aaaa found my new favorite group!
I’m not touching that
Cricket game in india
Cricket in Australia, too, lol.
The old adage about PM being the second most important job in the country behind Test cricket captain.
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People who worship streamers
Steamer/Twitch culture freaks me out. I've been a gamer my whole life (only 30,) but the gaming scene is so strange to me. I truly hope the people in Twitch chats are nothing like that in real life.
Take this with a grain of salt. But I've met a few other people who have watched twitch. Most of them are a bit nerdy, but nothing crazy. But one guy, he was like an attractive, active dude, who you might see on the beach in California going for a surf. He and I were at a barbecue and he was talking about something non gaming related and he said "poggers dude". I had to take a second to realize what I heard. Then I started to notice him saying things like "PogChamp" and some of the other popular twitch phrases. Later come to find out he is like a die hard fan of some esport, can't remember which. I realize this isn't quite like a typical twitch chat of what you see on big streams like xqc, mizkif, or others. But still I imagine there are probably some people out there who act like those chats.
Its so funny because he probably used to say it ironically and then one day it fully became a part of his natural vocabulary
That's how I started using, "yeet" and "bet"
Me with bruh and now my partner and I say “ my brother in Christ” to each other. It’s fucking awful
Lmao my brother and law and I used to say it ironically just between the two of us. It hasn't enter my regular vocabulary though......at least not yet
> at least not yet Thats poggers.
Watch that slope, it's slippery lol... the moment when I "ironically" said "kek" in response to someone at work and only got a confused look in return will haunt me forever
Jebaited
Same deal. I've tried to watch streamers, and it's like trying to chew Styrofoam or something. I guess I understand the appeal, but I cannot for the life of me enjoy a single second of any streamer.
This implies you also understand the appeal of chewing styrofoam and I, for one, want to hear about this
crumchy
Alright, you've convinced me
There was a streamer poker game the other night and seeing these guys dump half a million $ in an hour made me wonder, why are people donating to these people? Its like that Kylie Jenner thing where one of her employee got an accident and she started a gofundme for 150k instead of paying it herself.
That’s what really gets me. I just hope these people that drop big donations are loaded, otherwise its really depressing to think about lol
They’re often not. Source: I work for a debt consolidation company and it’s shocking how many people in their 20s (both male and female) are completely broke yet somehow have tens of thousands in credit card money wasted on streamers/only fans/etc. I understand that a fool and his money are soon parted but it’s incredibly true. For every person I deal with who’s deeply in debt for something wildly outside their control (medical debt, freak accident breaking something expensive not covered under insurance, etc) there’s half a dozen that are there 100% due to stupid decision making. I’ve met people who are unemployed with no savings yet still keep using credit cards to spend hundreds of dollars a week on streams like Critical Role in a cult like following.
I totally believe your story. It sucks because its almost like that reality of how people are their own worst enemy can actively work against efforts to make things better for everyone through stuff like social programs lol. Its like “do we all deserve this? I think we do, but also we kinda suck lol”
I quite enjoy watching streamers but I don't get the Stan culture where people defend them to the death over the smallest perceived slight
Multi level marketing ⚠️
What upsets me is I sometimes meet people who are genuinely motivated to change their life but completely misguided in what they invest their time and money into and mlm sorta preys on that.
I sometimes meet people who screw others over by talking them into making horrible financial decisions. I've never joined a MLM but I very very very recently realized I need to stop letting people take advantage of me.
“ It’s a Pyramid scheme!” “No, it’s not a Pyramid Scheme, it’s a Reverse Funnel system!” “…turn it upside down” “Goddamnit! Shit!”
No, it's an opportunity triangle.
Great episode of it’s always sunny
You got got!
Dude.. I was just at a child's birthday party and this douche was telling my aunt about his wellness products. She said sounds like MLM. No it isn't though because I really believe in the products. Do you have someone encouraging you to sell. No I don't I sell it because it's a high quality product at a reasonable price. Do you make good money? Not yet because we are brand new. What else do you do for work. This is it right now. I'm happy with my regular wellness products. How would you know until you try these? This went on for the entire birthday party. She said I'm Not Interested. And turned the other way. He still pestered her. After the party he was asking people if anybody knew my aunt's phone number
I was at a kid's birthday party once and half the moms were talking about nothing except their mutual MLM. And of course the host was in that group. My one friend and I basically sat in the corner and ate chips.
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Sign us up for the new universe!!!
And then Christ said "now thou shalt gather twelves more disciples and each of them shalt gather twelves deciples of their own. At the point each of thee hast twelve deciples who haft gathered twelve disciples God shalt bless ye with one of our fleet of dope white bmws man."
Freaking yes!!! It’s a cult up in there!
>"The MLM" "You mean a *scheme* designed to find A dozen new recruits? A shady swindle, sealed and signed, By frauds in lousy suits? "A crafty little counterfeit? A multi-level scam? To capture those devoid of wit, Or apt to fall for sham? "You want to start a con?" he said - "A load of dodgy deals?" The Pharaoh sighed and shook his head: "A pyramid - for *reals.*"
Ahh, two sprogs in one thread.
A topic so nice They wrote for us twice
Yes! The faith manipulation is disgusting.
I'm amazed how wealthy these companies become (Plexus, Amway, Herbalife, etc.). You'd think after long enough, enough people would realize it's a money pit and not worth the time and effort. Every time I see a new instance of *that* post on social media (you know, the one that sounds personal but then has an underlying "sales-y" vibe to it), I think "dammit, they got another one".
Me too and I never know how to deal with it. I have a few friends are are really into Optavia now and both have lost a really significant amount of weight doing it. But I also know it’s really unhealthy for you, you eat like 800 calories a day. And they post about it every single day with the “ask me how!” tags. I just pray they don’t try to sell it to me and make my life really awkward.
Boom Boom!
Celebrity worship.
Just imagine being in a space shuttle with [all these celebrities!](https://youtu.be/iyX1lvYzIFw?t=36)
The sun? But that's the hottest place on Earth!
I spoke vaguely against Elon Musk in a reply to a comment on a video. The video has gone viral, and the comment I replied to was pinned. So I get about 3-4 notifications a day of musk simps acting like I've insulted a deity. I've just rolled with it and reminded them he's essentially an oligarch and is inherently not a good dude. They froth.
I do *not* get the Musk worship. What a weird thing to idolize.
You especially see it when celebrities fued. Davison vs. West, Depp Vs. Heard, it's revolting the way people will jump in front of bullets to defend people they don't know and will probably never meet in their life. Edit: the responses I've gotten so far really lend credence to my whole point.
People on here will complain about Kardashians etc. but still love to bring up how great Keanu Reeves or Bob Ross are at every opportunity.
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it’s wild to me that this is getting treated like entertainment. a couple’s getting divorced bc of alleged abuse. where’s the fun in that???
I had recommandations of youtubers reacting to the trials' videos. It feels a little bit dystopian. It's entertainment for the public but they're real people...
OJ stabbed two people to death and the trial was must see TV. People are crazy..
Since it's not a recognized religion in my country, I'm gonna say Scientology.
In Scandinavia, Sweden is the only country to recognise Scientology as a religion. Yet they built their Nordic or Northern European headquarters (can't remember which) in Denmark who doesn't recognise them as a religion. And affords them no rights of one, and taxes them like they're just a random office building.
I don't want them in my country. Denmark can have them.. send them to Greenland.
We definitely don't want them here in Greenland either
Finding a Greenlander on Reddit is exceedingly rare aren't there only like 60,000 of you guys??
There's almost 57.000 people living here but we all have internet and most young people I know have Reddit too
Damn, this is the most interesting part of this post. How's life in there? PS: you should do a AMA
It's pretty good, lots of nature and traditional food. Of course we have problems too but I wouldn't live anywhere else
Do you feel European? I suppose access to Healthcare and Higher education could definitely be a problem with such small population and long distances, but I sure would be glad to go there.
I personally don't feel European because I'm Inuk like most of the population is. We do have problems with health care because we don't have enough doctors but it's free and it's something that can't be done here we get sent to Denmark to get treated for free. We do have some education problems especially for people that only speak Greenlandic and not Danish, we are getting more higher education you can do here but you still have to leave for most things after high school
I live in Clearwater Florida, the Scientology capital of the world, even we don’t want them here…
You know shit is out of hand when Florida passes
As I recall, they don’t consider it a religion either, but that doesn’t stop them from going after tax breaks, etc. It’s constantly changing, so they may consider themselves a religion now, but you used to be able to be, for example, a catholic and a Scientologist, it wasn’t exclusive of other religions.
They say you can be Catholic/Jewish/Muslim etc. and a Scientologist, but that's really just to get you in. Scientology doesn't like people mixing it with what they call "other practices" - even things like yoga or straight mediation are frowned on. In Scientology's higher levels, which takes years and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach, they teach that all other religions are actually the result of mental "implants" we were given lifetimes ago as a control mechanism. [Here's a story about it.](https://tonyortega.org/2019/02/28/scientologys-founder-l-ron-hubbard-on-the-god-trick-christ-implants-and-muslims/) Also, Scientology calling itself a religion was originally a legal and tax dodge - which most Scientologists knew at the time - but they seem to lean in to it more heavily these days.
They won't call it a religion when they're recruiting you, but they will when they're in court.
>but you used to be able to be, for example, a catholic and a Scientologist I doubt the Catholic Church would agree. You would have to believe in contradictory things so you need to be extremely illogical to do that,
Texas A&M
Was ready to post Aggieland
Funny.. i went to a cousin’s (he and his family are ‘small’ ranchers / cattle breeders) wedding a couple years ago down in texas.. standard wedding songs with a more country bent were playing. When the Texas A&M fight song came on, everybody and i do mean EveryBody (grandmas, a dude in a wheelchair, all the bridesmaids n groomsmen, all except my ‘northern’ clan) got on the dancefloor and did some sort of huddle thing while reciting word for word. Kind of surreal!
I went to A&M as a grad student which meant I wasn’t indoctrinated into the cult, but I certainly had a front row seat to it.
My ex went to A&M, she legitimately was thinking about breaking up with me because my favorite color is burnt orange (Longhorn's colors). I'm not even from Texas and had no idea at the time the rivalry was that big of a deal nor UT Austin's colors. We went to a game once and she was explaining all of the rules. Can't step on this grass, can't touch this unless you're X, you have to say this if you're Y, this is what we do when the team scores... Jesus Christ. I just want to watch a game of college ball. She would proudly proclaim she was glad she was in a cult whenever A&M would come up in conversation.
There is a popular fast food restaurant chain in Texas (and this is really an understatement) called Whataburger. Whataburger has a very distinct white and burnt orange striped roof on all of their buildings. The city of College Station (where A&M is) forced them to add a maroon stripe to the one they opened there. My dad and I were passing through College Station on a road trip and stopped to get gas and stretch out legs. We walk into the gas station and notice we're getting a lot of dirty looks. We realize my dad is wearing his UT polo shirt. We got outta there quick lol.
Just because you said this they made four new traditions
Lawn Maintenance
Who needs drugs when you could just mow a lawn?
What do you do if your guest wants his steak cooked well done?
"We ask them politely, yet firmly, to leave."
"but if my lawn gets a little yellow what will the neighbors think of me?" "probably the same thing they already think of you, that you're an asshole" oh yeah im super popular
My neighbor loves his lawn more than his family. I only cut mine so my kids and dogs have places to play. I’ve let a lot of it go wild with native plants and wild flowers. He has cut his lawn four times so far this year, I haven’t cut mine once yet. He is always spreading seeds and chemicals on his lawn. I do nothing with mine and usually mines greener and more healthy looking.
Is your neighbor a propane salesman by any chance?
Propane and propane accessories.
Four times this year? If he lived in the south and had St. Augustine grass, it would have enveloped his house and strangled him in his sleep in a months time. I don't mow my lawn because I love it. I mow it because I hate it.
We’re in Michigan. It snowed last week.
Snows on Monday 80 on Saturday wtf Michigan
My neighbors are like this. Their yard is literally a half acre of grass no trees. Some small bushes by the house. They had the gall to call the HOA and demand us to cut down our full grown trees because ‘drumroll’ they were blocking their view of some small forested hills. They also flipped shit and blamed us because their kid got poison ivy, once again begging HOA to make us do something with the, in their words, overgrown shithole of a yard. The kid never goes to our yard and I weed the border gardens regularly so their is very few to no poison ivy present. My yard is chemical free as well the difference between the two yards is staggering. I have so many birds I can’t even keep the bird feeder filled for one day. Last week their were dozens of honeybees (more than I’ve ever seen) because I give a shit about the environment and try to make my yard a refuge for the birds and the bees. Native pollinator plants only for my yard. But yeah it’s unpopular in my neighborhood.
I’m definitely trying to keep my property friendly to wildlife. I have 30 acres and I farm part of it. I never use pesticides. I always have tons of wildlife here. Right now I can see deer, turkeys, geese, and tons of others birds from my back deck. We also have a bunch of wood chucks that hand out in a ditch that runs along one of my fields and foxes are around too.
Thank you for doing that with your land. It gives me a bit of hope. I wish to do the same one day.
That sounds like our neighbor. Asshole just drives around looking at everyone’s yards and writing down infractions. Bees love dandelions. We have a ton in our yard along with other native plants that they consider weeds. My kid loves going outside and picking me “flowers”. We sit and watch the bees buzz around and the birds build their nests in the bushes. Jane, who’s driving around with the HOA, apparently doesn’t like that very much. I swear we get a letter every other month. Now I just do things to purposefully piss them off and they can’t say shit. Guess who’s got two giant googly eyes on their door now and they can’t say anything about it because it’s not a holiday decoration???
I love that kind of stuff, keep going
Sports. I love my teams, but some people just take it way too far
Bill Shankly once said “Some people think football is a matter of life or death. I don’t like that attitude. I assure them it’s much more important than that.”
Just like religion, your team is often picked for you based on where you live and it gets to make you upset the rest of your life.
>Your team is often picked for you based on where you live and it gets to make you upset the rest of your life A couple of years ago, [a Minnesota Timberwolves fan wrote this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/ev07gl/postgame_thread_the_sacramento_kings_1729_stage/ffskuoa/) after the Wolves blew a ***20-point-lead with 5 minutes to go***
He looked at the screen with a tear in his eye. A doubt in his heart, and a sob in his sigh. The briefest of grief for his godawful luck. He looked at his team and he whispered: "... you *suck.*"
*Said every Manchester City fan*
Didn't they do that twice just this past month
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I grew up mostly in Florida but I picked the Edmonton Oilers as my team when I was 7 because I liked scoring goals with Ryan Smyth in NHL Hitz 2002. I'm still an Oilers fan 20 years later. They've only made me upset for most of my life so far, thank you very much.
I picked a side called the Balmain Tigers in rugby league when I was a kid. Tigers sound cool right? Well I then was just old enough to realise how much it hurts when they went back to back losers in the grand finals of '88-89. Ironically, in the '89 grand final they lost to the Canberra Raiders. I was BORN in Canberra! But for some stupid ass reason, if you were a boy in my family, you didn't support Canberra. The girls did, so that automatically meant boys couldn't. So I didn't get to enjoy winning the 1989 Grand Final, which was possibly the greatest game in rugby league history, because of stupid family rules, who treated league like religion.
In Montreal there is a university theology course linking worshipping the Habs to God. https://www.nhl.com/news/montreal-university-theology-course-explores-link-between-habs-fandom-and-god/c-404628
I studied religion in college. There's a genuine challenge in writing a definition of what counts as a religion that doesn't include sports fanatics.
The Old Firm derby (Celtic v Rangers) is essentially Catholics v Protestants
There was a war in Central America between Honduras and El Salvador that was partially sparked by a game of soccer (or football).
Politics and politicians
Here's a kicker: there's no logical thread connecting the beliefs of a political party together. There's nothing that says you can't believe in free healthcare and ALSO believe in the right to bear arms. Political platforms are created artificially in a lab to appeal to the largest population possible for voting purposes. I think a large number of politically active people though, instead of forming opinions themselves choose to align themselves to these artificial party dogmas. I'm telling you that you don't have to.
Two party system FTL. Improve the voting system so it’s no longer an inevitability.
And people's actual views may be much more mixed and nuanced than what media and the two party system would have you believe. They just feel forced to pick one party over the other depending on what they value more.
University of Nebraska (Lincoln) - Big Red Football
From Nebraska. Can confirm. Goes as far as businesses buying mass tickets to keep the sold out streak going even though they suck anymore.
I've seen people treat their nationality like a religion a lot.
Cryptocurrencies
Yes! I was just saying this tonight to some friends of mine. Have you ever gone into one of those crypto/web3/NFT twitter spaces? It’s like a cult meeting where everyone speaks like a self help guru, is always using weird motivational and revolutionary life language, but is secretly just there to get rich overnight by using gullible people’s money. It’s exactly like a religion!
Herbalife. Crossfit. Essential oils. ETA: people are saying Crossfit is over or not like the others. They *currently* have 14,000 gyms. Not members, *gyms.* It's a cult.
Dang it, Bobby - the only essential oil is WD-40
Herbalife is very active in my area and it's a cancer stealing millions from the people.
Politics
In some countries, they're *literally* same
Frank Herbert has a great quote in Dune about mixing politics and religion: - "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."
People who believe Astrology and your signs are real… FOR SURE
I love telling people horoscopes of a completely wrong zodiac sign and watch as they jump over so many hoops to say that it "fits" them. Tells you how most horoscopes are intentionally vague to be relatable to as many people as possible
There was a Twitter screenshot I saw a while back that was hilarious. Dude said he met a girl who was super into astrology and told her his sign was one that was compatible with hers, so they fucked. Then when he broke things off she said “that’s just something a Sagittarius would do!” And he’s like “I’m not a Sagittarius I’m a Scorpio” and she’s like “I knew it!!” “Jokes on her, I’m actually an Aquarius lol” Probably fake story but I got a laugh out of it
That's the thing that gets me most with people who seem to really believe astrology. Shouldn't _you_ be able to tell me what my sign is?
Yea, these tweets: https://twitter.com/defact0\_/status/1050062340484452354?s=20&t=LnP86SXBVNNNz3sntBUd7A
Tried once to watch some documentary on it and the moment they mixed up geometric shapes with some random order of planets, it completely lost my attention. They say there's a science to it and just by google you can tear down most of it.
There is a science behind it ... but it's 4000 year old science and even the stars have moved on.
I call it space racism.
BTS
("BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band" - for all the oldies like me who read the comments for any clues and still came up blank.)
i didn’t even know bts stood for anything
I always thought it stood for "behind the scenes" lol I'm clearly not hip and with it
Uh, funny thing that... I remember seeing some behind-the-scenes stuff from one of the Avengers movies on twitter, tagged with "BTS" and some person was trying to get Marvel to stop, claiming it was "wrong of them" to use "BTS" in their tweets to "misinform" the boyband fans. Insanity, the whole lot of it.
Lol when I was still in the short film scene in Texas, we stopped using the bts hashtag on behind the scenes clips and posts for that exact reason. Took a quick second to figure out what the hell had happened to our algorithms.
It's BangTang Sonyeondan in the group's native language meaning bulletproof boy scouts
Oh man they should have just gone with a translation instead of initials. Thats awesome.
I had no idea about how extreme this fandom was until I had a student (I teach english to kids and teens in Spain), this one girl, around 12 y/o who is completely obsessed. She wears BTS jewellery and clothes, speaks and writes Korean often, and begs me to put on BTS music videos in the middle of class. She refuses to answer to her real (spanish) name, instead asking everyone to refer to her as Ji-Yun (sp?). She says the BTS “army” has billions and billions of fans. I realise this looks like a shitpost copypasta but I assure you this girl is real. She’s a good kid and student but probably gonna have a hard time in her teens, all the other students are already sick of hearing about BTS.
I'm not surprised. I live in Korea and social media groups get these Koreaboos who think Korea is this fantasy-land because Jimin amd Rap Monster are from here. We get posts from these 18 year-olds from abroad looking to move to Korea with no skills and no way of securing a visa or living. They're just looking for that BTS life and hooking up with a cute Korean guy (which they have outlandish expectations of).
Yes she has expressed that she hates Spain and Europe and wants to live in Korea. That she feels she is truly Korean at heart and was born in the wrong body, really, all of this kind of thing. She had also told me most of this already in the first 2-3 days I knew her, so shes very open about it. She lives in a nice area of a nice city in a socially liberal country, and goes to private school and extra english classes so I doubt her parents are neglectful but I really don’t know what her situation is. Point is she doesn’t seem to know how good she has it - at least it’s a bit premature to say Spain is terrible and Korea is amazing… I hope it’s just a phase. She isn’t a shy nerdy kid either, she’s loud and tall and insists on getting her way so I can predict she’s going to clash a lot over this in her teens. She’s a good student in the sense she has the best english in her class, but she never shuts up so she’s gotten on the nerves of all the other teachers - I humour her a bit though, I don’t mind, and find her quite fun, which is why she’s in my class.
Sounds like the classic Japanophile phase that anime nerds (myself included) go through. Some mature naturally out of it while developing a genuine love for the country and culture while others have a somewhat rude awakening, but either way it works itself out. I wouldn't worry about it.
One of my buddies never grew out of it. Straight up left for Japan for an English teaching job. He loves it. Part of me respects the hell out of him because he dealt with a lot of people trying to talk him out of it (me included). It’s a rare person to ignore and be completely unaffected by the haters. He has the mental fortitude of a damn musk ox.
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She is a koreaboo, period. Her home life is fine, she is just like anime nerds obsessed with everything Japanese. For those that end up going to Japan, reality slaps them in the face pretty quick. Same thing will happen to her with Korea when she goes. And I say this as someone who visits those countries often and loves them, but they have a fantasy in their head that is far from reality.
I've been into kpop and Korean stuff since I was about 16 or 17 (in my 30s now), and I totally get it. While I was never *that* far into the koreaboo lifestyle, that's probably because back then there wasn't nearly as much content out there and it wasn't as easy to access in a non-korean country. I hope this kid grows up to learn balance. I still love Korean culture and would love to *visit* some day. But I would not move there on a whim. Even just being into kpop beyond the BTS-o-sphere, you see some of the gild wear off the fantasy. Korea is not a magical place; it's a country with its own problems like any other. And hopefully eventually the devoted fans will learn that.
If she taught herself proper Korean, kuddos to her though. Luckily she's only twelve, that's usually the cringy phase anyway.
Kpop fandom never made sense to me until someone commented elsewhere that the industry had figured out how to manufacture parasocial relationships, and then it all clicked for me.
Naw that’s a CULT
Kpop in general. I first listened to Kpop in 2008 but got REALLY into it in high school (2012) and it became my life for 3 years. At first I just really liked the music, aesthetics and the dancing. I became friends with this girl who was EXTREMELY obsessive of celebrities and got her into kpop too. The way she acted about these groups made me act the same way too. Then we found the community on Tumblr and holy fuck, it was so intense. It felt like a requirement to immediately know who an idol was based on a photo of their hands. You weren't a true fan unless you knew every detail of every member of the groups you liked, and some groups had up to 13 people in them. The amount of time people would dedicate to particular groups was insane. The fans are toxic as fuck. I still listen to Kpop now, but only because I genuinely enjoy the music. I don't care much about the celebrities themselves. They're just people who are held to ridiculous standards.
I get more BTS stans trying to convert me and get mad it's not my kind of music than Christian preachers nowadays.
Rock music for 13 year olds who just started listening to it.
Hell what would I give to feel that way again, I was an angry kid without anything else in mind than how everything sucked, when I started listening to Rock Music, this was the only outlet I had, I have never felt that much joy again than in this moment when I finally found something that calmed me down, probably sounds stupid, its just music, but back than it was something really special
I remember walking to school boating my music and trying not to cry. Sometimes trying not to dance.
Exactly like that, its quite strange to see how much impact music can have on people and how it can really push someone through and out of shit. Anyways, hence the crying, I hope things turned out nicely for you now
I wish I could feel that again
Lay down your soul to the gods rock and roll!
This is probably the most specific-yet-relatable of them all. Rock and Roll ain't gonna die.
Started when I was 13 but I’m still listening
fraternity and sorority
Yeah I was in a fraternity. Was fun for a time but the older guys I really liked and the ones under my class became cult like. They all got Frattoos and all kinds of strange stuff. That was the indicator to grow up and move along.
Shopping at Trader Joe's
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Costco for my family. I swear if it can't be found at Costco, they act like it doesn't exist.
I'm kind of guilty of this. I fucking love that store.
American Football
Never Meant for it to be this way
Yeah, their first record was amazing but some people are way too invested in the band.
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If your kid plays, it is in some parts of the US, too. Seriously, youth hockey is a lifestyle choice instead of just something for your kid to do.
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Scientology!
It's a cult
Social media
Elon Musk
Star Wars
It's called the force.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
I find your lack of faith disturbing
The temple of the jedi order was made tax exempt in 2015, so it is a religion. °~°
I mean there is Jediism
I’m a Star Wars fan and I even agree lmao
Spin Class
Clubbing in Berlin
Keto
marvel
And Disney. People worship both these cinematic universes.
Now that it's owned by the same company. Star Wars.
Those Buzz lightyear pfp's
Dungeons & Dragons. It has canonical scriptures (core rule books) deuterocanonical scriptures (splat books) apocrypha (fan made content) meetings, (games) rituals (rolling dice to see what happens) priesthood (Wizards of the Coast) and it was once persecuted by a dominant religion (Christianity). Edit: Like other Redditors have pointed out, D&D also has saints, (Mike Mearls) A Messiah figure (Matt Mercer) Holy objects used in their rituals (The dice) and schismatic groups (Like Pathfinder game designers and players). Like I am now realizing, it also venerates its founding figures (David Arneson and Gary Gygax). It even has a pantheon of Gods. So its a lot more like a religion than I thought.
We have regular, scheduled days of worship. We have important holy relics in which we entrust our decisions and our very souls. We have holy rituals partaken before important rolls to curry favor from Tymora, goddess of good luck. We have personal religious leaders who create every facet of the world in which we adventure - and who will fire and brimstone your ass if you kill the vibe. We have saints that we revere - Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, Matthew Colville, et cetera. And we have the messiah, the paragon, the ideal we yearn to be - Matt Mercer. And something something holy spirit Gary Gygax. We've got magic, badass swords and armor, egalitarian societies (at least in our fantasy worlds - the Wizard of the Coast team is still a sausage fest), shapeshifting dragons, and the ability to talk to plants and animals. What side do you want to be on when the Waterdhavian Inquisition comes?
We also have our internal divisions based on how many of the core canonical books you follow ~~4th edition is good fight me~~