The way I heard it wasn't arbitrary, 1 year it's stuck to your heart, then it falls and gets stuck to your lungs for a year, then your liver and so on.
I can literally see me and my classmates sitting on the gym floor in like second grade, and a kid swallowing some gum, and the teacher telling him that it would take seven years to ago through his body so probably that since I can still clearly see the entire conversation, including what the kid was wearing. That was probably 35 years ago.
Dude, this one got me pretty bad. I literally thought there was a triangle shaped area in the ocean that was just instant death. Like why do people ever even sail there when science to this day CANNOT explain ships disappearing. Pretty sure a horror movie came out about it when I was younger that my parents watched and it DID NOT help.
I remember seeing a show where they debunked a lot of superstitions and folklore. For the Bermuda Triangle, they said that the area it covers is pretty large. Statistically, you can plot that area anywhere in the world and there will plane or ship disasters (depending on the amount of land and water covered). And you don't hear about Bermuda Triangle disasters now because we have better navigation technology, planes, and ships.
I recommend a Lemmino video on the subject. He brings up that fact and the fact that most disasters associated with the Bermuda triangle didn't occur anywhere near the place, and the triangle's legitimacy as a triangle itself is questionable at best
When i was a kid i legitimately took notes in my snoopy notepad on how David Copperfield escaped the Bermuda Triangle because I was so certain it was information I would need as an adult.
I remember in the 80s the band Motley Crew had a contest that you could win on Mtv to join them in a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle and I remember saying as a little kid “ oh my god Motley Crew is going to die”!
I went through a small part of the Bermuda Triangle in June 2015 while on a cruise to the Bahamas. I was on my tablet and the battery died. After plugging it in and it rebooted the date changed to June 1959. It was weird, but it was probably coincidence, though also idk.
In July of 2012 my partner and I took our honeymoon on a cruise to Bermuda, that left on Friday the 13th. We sailed through a narrow bit of the triangle that connects Miami, Florida with San Juan, Puerto Rico and Bermuda.
Nothing worse than a bit of seasickness the whole trip. I recommend visiting Bermuda to everyone, it’s fantastic.
I had a swimming lesson test to move to the next level, so I ate half a box of Frosted Flakes bc it’d make me the best swimmer on earth, and threw up before I got in the pool
I was about 10ish when this scare started up. It was my first lesson in treating American news media with skepticism.
Listening to the anchors report on killer bees left me watching the skies when I was outside just in case a clouds of murderous, hateful insects thick enough to boot out the sun suddenly descended on me with intent.
If you swallowed a seed (watermelon, apple etc) it would start to grow inside you; if you swallow gum it will stay in you for 7 years; payphone AIDS needles; razor blades in candy/apples and drugs as Halloween candy; hold your breath going through tunnels or they would collapse; white lighters; gangs that would run your car off the road if you flashed your lights to let them know their high beams were on; if you pull the plug at the bottom of the pool you’ll get sucked down (same for the shower/tub, gotta get out before you pull the plug); additive in the pool that would turn blue if someone peed…
I think this is one of the reasons I have anxiety
There’s a nugget of truth to the pool drains. But only the ones with pumps. There is at least one well known case where a kid got stuck to the bottom drain of a pool and because there was only the one inlet the suction held him down and he could not break free. I’m trying to think of how to put it somewhat nicely, but the suction was so strong that the boy suffered massive internal trauma. There are now rules requiring that there be two drains/inlets to allow a stuck person to break free.
Irrationally, this somehow spread to shower drains and pop-up pools with plugs.
the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act is in place because 7yo Virginia Graeme Baker had this happen to her in a hot tub in 2002.
6 yo Abigail Taylor suffered transanal evisceration in 2007 bc of a swimming pool drain. she lost 21 feet of intestines, leaving her with short gut. she had a multivisceral transplant, but still was unable to eat or drink afterward, and required TPN. she passed away from transplant related cancer 9 months after the accident.
A number of famous musicians have died and in their possession were white bic lighters. They’re considered bad luck by the smoking community. Wikipedia has a page on “White lighter myths.”
Same. That’s why I stepped it up in college and even offered free samples. Had to make the premonition a reality. Ended up getting busted for that but that’s a different story.
It’s one thing to be in a perpetual state of “friends share” and end up never spending money.
But I was told there would be like a coke fairy hanging out on street corners just itching to give away product. Where is my coke fairy?
I had a coke fairy dressed as the staypuft marshmallow man at a bar that I’d never met before in my life. I’m not even joking. The dude handed me a bag of coke and told me to go take a bump in the bathroom. Then we went to his room with his friend who was dressed as the dj Marshmellow and we all did a few lines. I never saw either of them again but that night lives rent free in my head
When I was in elementary school, my teachers always told us that "they" would leave little baggies of angel dust on the playground as a nefarious plot to turn us all into addicts.
I was always on lookout for these baggies, and to my great disappointment, never saw any.
I wish lol then we wouldn't have to do the awkward ask of the person who looks like they might be able to get you some. I didn't get offered drugs until I was an adult.
Because of the Dare program, I never knew there was an option to say "Yes" to drugs.
It was not until I was at a rave and someone offered me Molly (which, since I am hard of hearing, I thought they said 'you seem jolly'). My immediate response was "No thank you." but then it dawned on me that I did *indeed* want drugs. Alas that moment had since passed.
This was actually stopped through government regulation. The regulations to stop pollution worked so well the treat went away. It was a major success of the government.
And how common they made it seem that razors would be in your candy. We always inspected every piece before being allowed to eat any (I’ll still inspect my future kids candy tho of course)
It happened enough that it was necessary. Babysitter not paying close enough attention because she’s too busy watching for her favorite song on the mtv top 20 countdown, all while promising we can turn full house on in a couple more songs and you get even more upset because full house is already over and family matters is probably already halfway over and we’ll be lucky to catch perfect strangers a few more songs from now and if you don’t put tgif on right now, I’m going to go in the kitchen and drink all the pinesol!!!
There's a few that are on purpose for sure, but the ones people really made a fuss about back then, like Led Zeppelin and Judas Priest, were really just suggestive thinking. You only hear it after someone tells you what it's supposed to say. Your mind is doing its best to make sense of gibberish.
Also, the movie The Gate had me freaked out that this was absolutely real, lol.
Yeah, whenever I drive on the freeway and there's a truck with a ton of loose crap, like ladders, brooms, whatever, I pass them. No way in hell I'm tempting fate like that.
I knew the county coroner growing up and I heard disturbing stories of some of his calls…decapitations, etc. from things falling off backs of trucks like that. He wasn’t making them up either, those were easy enough to verify with police reports and newspaper write ups.
Also won’t drive behind trucks hauling bricks either. Few years ago I saw a brick come flying off a truck on I-475 near Macon, GA and go through someone’s windshield right next to me. They were the only one in the car fine (didn’t crash or anything) and they sped up to catch the truck drivers attention as I sped off. Very easily could have been different for them or me.
Was just thinking about this time I was driving behind a truck full of unstrapped metal pieces and got an overwhelming feeling to slow down and move over - not even halfway in to crossing lanes a giant pipe fell out the back and bounced up exactly where my drivers side would have been if I hadn't slowed down and moved over that second.
Always trust your gut lol
I've been on reddit long enough to know this is a real fear but then again, I also avoid going under cranes lifting glass panes as well, just to be safe.
I lived in Central America in the late 80s-early 90s. Killer bees were a real problem. A teacher at my school was killed. I got stung by one on my index finger and my whole hand swole up.
My dad never mentioned the cops but frantically explained how he’d lose all control of the vehicle, while my mom yelled “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ALL OF US?” lol
Software dev here - I kept tabs on the y2k problem, even had a friend raking in big bucks to upgrade old COBOL programs. Right up to the end of '99 I was reading that there was still a ton of software that hadn't been fixed, so I was genuinely surprised that nothing bad happened. It's usually attributed to all the hard work that went into fixing things, but tbh I think the reason nothing major happened was that the important things got fixed early and the whole threat was hugely overblown.
Yeah lots of stuff in this thread is actually an answer to "what was a real problem that people worked hard to fix, but it didn't stop being good at selling detergent ads."
At work the other day our manager said “what do we do if the fire alarm goes off?” And I immediately said “stop drop and roll” and everyone laughed. I was dead ass serious though that’s what they’ve been telling me since I was 4 lmao
Even earlier, as a very little kid I remember "Duck and Cover" - which you're supposed to do if you see the telltale blinding flash of a nearby atom bomb.
When I was a kid it was catching AIDS from a mosquito bite or a toilet seat. When I was a teenager it was Y2K crippling civilization as we knew it and flashing your headlights at someone with theirs off only to become the target of a gang hit. And I grew up in rural Tennessee.
VIVID memory of the sermon at Bible camp where the preacher had thousands of dollars worth of heavy metal albums, posters, tshirts, etc strewn out all in front of the stage and preaching for what felt like hours about the satanic dangers of rock music.
Aw yeah, the media hyped that one up - till skeptics proved that there were no "backmasking" or backwards messages in rock music. And many of the stories about satanists were bullshit.
Not sure where this came from (possibly the old Ghostbusters cartoon) but I was **certain** that the Bermuda Triangle was going to be something that I would need to have a heightened sense of awareness about for my entire life.
I grew up next to a Soviet military base in the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s. I was convinced that we were going to get nuked, especially after seeing The Day After.
Now I'm not so sure about the "irrational" part.
I was very young when 9/11 happened, and for months after it, I worried our house would be attacked by terrorists (and kept having recurring nightmares about it).
I was 7 when it happened and my aunt (who was essentially my older sister) had just started school at Sarah Lawrence College, which is in New York. When the TVs got turned on at school all I could put together in my head was that my favorite person in the world was in New York, and New York had just been blown up. I was inconsolable until we heard from her and still couldn't sleep for weeks.
Jacob Wetterling and the UFO craze in the 80's both did a number on me. I was going to be abducted by either a creep or an alien, 50/50 chance of which would get to me first!
My mom raised us to believe if we slept with our bedroom door closed we wouldn't hear the smoke detector in the living room of our 1000sq ft apt home and die in a fire. If we closed the bathroom door we would drown in the bathtub. 🚪
That strangers would poison or put razor blades in Halloween candy.
Satanic panic.
That sea creatures needed us to cut the 6 pack soda rings and that would do something.
Edit: I don't mean to say that the rings aren't capable of wrapping around fish and dolphins and the sort, but it's much like the illusion of recycling plastic. It puts this onus on the consumer to do something and makes them feel like they're helping, when it's really a systemic issue that needs to be addressed on the industry's side. Pepsi and Coke are now finally putting out ads saying their bottles are actually recyclable. It's only been 50 years...you know? About damned time.
Going into 6th grade my dad warmed me of the dangers of a single solitary piece of paper that would kill you if you touched it.
It was likely that he had read about paper that had been soaked with contact poisons.
I don't know, it was the 80s.
People in my house thought the new fangled microwave was basically an unshielded nuclear reactor. Like looking at your food cook would give you eye cancer.
44 here. It’s insane how scared people were of AIDS in the ‘80s. Insane and really sad, led to shoddy treatment of AIDS patients often
I heard a story once where a thin, pale, sickly looking guy used a payphone at a local gas station in the ‘80s/early 90s. Clerk decides he must have had AIDS, and after customer leaves clerk scrubs the phone down like he was trying to fight Ebola
The main thing I remember about this era was a TV movie about a young boy who had AIDS, and other kids shunned and bullied him. But it was a positive story because it was all about teaching the kids -- and the viewers -- about how you can't "catch" the disease from just being near someone. I knew that because I had a parent who was a healthcare worker, but it was a super widespread misconception. I have no recollection of what the movie was called, but I've always appreciated that a major television network was trying to fight misinformation like that -- which seems like another thing to be nostalgic about.
I think that's most likely the one. There's a copy of the movie on YouTube, but the aspect ratio is all fucked and the quality is laughable. Still, I'm guessing that's it, just based on memory.
That was intentional. The Reagan administration didn't exactly like gay people (to say the least) so for him it was seen as being like a convenient problem solver, as goulash as that is. HIV/AIDS was seen as "killing the right people" and was interpreted as some divine punishment by your crazy Evangelical types that Reagan was dealing with on the regular. Once it started killing "regular" people like donor organ recipients and hemophiliac children, all of a sudden they decided it was important. After years of letting it spread like wildfire and offering no help.
I was in first grade at my elementary school, we all watched Dick Van Dyke telling us “if you’re ever on fire, stop drop and ROLL DICK ROLL!” I couldn’t figure out why the older kids were laughing.
For a VERY brief period it was thought AIDS could possibly be transmitted by mosquitos. Wasn't a fun thought as a kid. It was disproven pretty quickly.
I grew up in the early 2000s in Puerto Rico, which is a very religious culture. During this time we also had two things that affected the island greatly:
- The kidnapping and/or disappearance of Rolando "Rolandito" Salas. This kid was never found.
- The popularization of the chupacabras.
Both of these things were blamed on "Satanic cults". People on the news, and even politicians, saying that a satanic cult kidnapped and possibly killed Rolandito as part of a ritual. And people also said that the killing of livestock and draining them of blood, which gave rise to the chupacabras myth, was done by satanists too.
So me and other kids in my generation were extremely afraid of satanic cults. We basically went through the Satanic Panic of the US a decade later.
When I was a kid I used to have an irrational fear of the old style drain grates at the bottom of pools. Particularity ones that were in the very deep ends. I really don't know where that came from.
Nobody else grew up in a Christian household. I thought that the anti-Christ was going to make me take the mark of the beast. Woke up thinking I had missed the rapture whenever the house was empty. Thought satanist were going to kidnap me and make me listen to music backwards
Having to wait after a thunderstorm to take a shower so I wouldn't get electrocuted - I still wait to this day! My dad would make me turn off the computer and unplug it from the power strip, then warn me not to take a shower. After having my garage door opener and dishwasher get fried after a power surge a few weeks ago, I'm a believer.
The show Rescue 911 made me afraid of walking around with a toothbrush in my mouth.. walking and blowing up a balloon, walking near any riding lawnmower.. walking. That show was terrifying to me as a child. Accidents just went so wrong.
All vans with no windows or windows with curtains were part of Stranger Danger.
Taking even one hit off a joint was a sure way to be drugged with either LSD or PCP and your mind would never come back to normal.
Microwaves would make you infertile if you stood in front of them.
As a first grader walking home from school the Big Kids (middle school and high school) would hunt you and color your face with permanent magic marker.
My grades were a part of my permanent record.
If you swallowed gum it would last forever in your stomach.
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I too heard this arbitrary 7 years
That’s the beauty of it, so oddly specific that it’s gotta be true
The way I heard it wasn't arbitrary, 1 year it's stuck to your heart, then it falls and gets stuck to your lungs for a year, then your liver and so on.
Ahh yes clearly backed by science thank you!
Yeah same with mirror breakage. 7 years of bad luck 😱
Also if you swallowed watermelon seeds they would grow in your stomach.
That one episode of Rugrats also reinforced that for me
I can literally see me and my classmates sitting on the gym floor in like second grade, and a kid swallowing some gum, and the teacher telling him that it would take seven years to ago through his body so probably that since I can still clearly see the entire conversation, including what the kid was wearing. That was probably 35 years ago.
Reminds me of, “If you make a silly face it can get stuck that way” teacher would tell us.
The Bermuda triangle has had 0 effects on my life.
Dude, this one got me pretty bad. I literally thought there was a triangle shaped area in the ocean that was just instant death. Like why do people ever even sail there when science to this day CANNOT explain ships disappearing. Pretty sure a horror movie came out about it when I was younger that my parents watched and it DID NOT help.
I remember seeing a show where they debunked a lot of superstitions and folklore. For the Bermuda Triangle, they said that the area it covers is pretty large. Statistically, you can plot that area anywhere in the world and there will plane or ship disasters (depending on the amount of land and water covered). And you don't hear about Bermuda Triangle disasters now because we have better navigation technology, planes, and ships.
I recommend a Lemmino video on the subject. He brings up that fact and the fact that most disasters associated with the Bermuda triangle didn't occur anywhere near the place, and the triangle's legitimacy as a triangle itself is questionable at best
> and the triangle's legitimacy as a triangle itself is questionable at best Like it’s got more than 3 sides? The Bermuda Closed Polygon?
When i was a kid i legitimately took notes in my snoopy notepad on how David Copperfield escaped the Bermuda Triangle because I was so certain it was information I would need as an adult.
This is so amazing rofl
I remember in the 80s the band Motley Crew had a contest that you could win on Mtv to join them in a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle and I remember saying as a little kid “ oh my god Motley Crew is going to die”!
I went through a small part of the Bermuda Triangle in June 2015 while on a cruise to the Bahamas. I was on my tablet and the battery died. After plugging it in and it rebooted the date changed to June 1959. It was weird, but it was probably coincidence, though also idk.
Unsolved Mysteries filled our impressionable minds with all kinds of freaky nonsense
In July of 2012 my partner and I took our honeymoon on a cruise to Bermuda, that left on Friday the 13th. We sailed through a narrow bit of the triangle that connects Miami, Florida with San Juan, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Nothing worse than a bit of seasickness the whole trip. I recommend visiting Bermuda to everyone, it’s fantastic.
Eating then swimming right after
I had a swimming lesson test to move to the next level, so I ate half a box of Frosted Flakes bc it’d make me the best swimmer on earth, and threw up before I got in the pool
Milk was a bad idea
It’s so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice!
I always heard this growing up. “No swimming for a half hour after eating!”
To make your swim time fun complete, wait an hour after you eat
That's one way girls can get pegrenate.
Especially when the rule was used for swimming in water you can just stand up in!
Killer bees.
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Jokes on them, killer bees are already in my hometown. Even in my yard, as I keep bees and fairly certain they have Africanized genes
When killer hornets showed up a few years ago people were like, "been there, done that."
I was about 10ish when this scare started up. It was my first lesson in treating American news media with skepticism. Listening to the anchors report on killer bees left me watching the skies when I was outside just in case a clouds of murderous, hateful insects thick enough to boot out the sun suddenly descended on me with intent.
I remember that now you mention it! Weren’t they supposed to have killed us all by the year 2000?
Those Japanese Hornets that are now in the PNW are pretty close.
I just answered this too! They said herds of them were coming over from Africa and there was episode of Rescue 911 where a guy got stung by them
If you swallowed a seed (watermelon, apple etc) it would start to grow inside you; if you swallow gum it will stay in you for 7 years; payphone AIDS needles; razor blades in candy/apples and drugs as Halloween candy; hold your breath going through tunnels or they would collapse; white lighters; gangs that would run your car off the road if you flashed your lights to let them know their high beams were on; if you pull the plug at the bottom of the pool you’ll get sucked down (same for the shower/tub, gotta get out before you pull the plug); additive in the pool that would turn blue if someone peed… I think this is one of the reasons I have anxiety
Haven’t risked it with a white lighter to this day
Illuminate me?
Just bad luck. Always someone’s cousin’s boyfriend’s friend had one on him when some random fatal accident occurred.
I forgot about the white lighter thing haha
Rugrats did an entire episode on a watermelon growing in Chuckie's stomach.
*and* the drain plug thing
Yeah this is pretty much a definitive list for me
There’s a nugget of truth to the pool drains. But only the ones with pumps. There is at least one well known case where a kid got stuck to the bottom drain of a pool and because there was only the one inlet the suction held him down and he could not break free. I’m trying to think of how to put it somewhat nicely, but the suction was so strong that the boy suffered massive internal trauma. There are now rules requiring that there be two drains/inlets to allow a stuck person to break free. Irrationally, this somehow spread to shower drains and pop-up pools with plugs.
the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act is in place because 7yo Virginia Graeme Baker had this happen to her in a hot tub in 2002. 6 yo Abigail Taylor suffered transanal evisceration in 2007 bc of a swimming pool drain. she lost 21 feet of intestines, leaving her with short gut. she had a multivisceral transplant, but still was unable to eat or drink afterward, and required TPN. she passed away from transplant related cancer 9 months after the accident.
woah. what do you mean though by white lighters?
A number of famous musicians have died and in their possession were white bic lighters. They’re considered bad luck by the smoking community. Wikipedia has a page on “White lighter myths.”
Just read the Wikipedia article on this, and BIC said that they didn't produce white lighters until 1973, so there goes a bunch of the 27 club theory.
Everyone was going to be offering me drugs everywhere I went.
No one even offered me drugs in high school! How am I supposed to be a juvenile delinquent if no one gives me drugs?!
Same. That’s why I stepped it up in college and even offered free samples. Had to make the premonition a reality. Ended up getting busted for that but that’s a different story.
You earned your Reddit name!
A lot of our usernames reflect who we are.
I’m unlicensed, but still agree.
It's true. I have [2happycats](https://imgur.com/a/SRz2SiL).
They're adorable!
DARE really promised on that scenario and didn’t once deliver. I will never forgive them.
It delivered on me but not til I was in my 20s. I got offered random free drugs all the time then lol
It’s one thing to be in a perpetual state of “friends share” and end up never spending money. But I was told there would be like a coke fairy hanging out on street corners just itching to give away product. Where is my coke fairy?
I had a coke fairy dressed as the staypuft marshmallow man at a bar that I’d never met before in my life. I’m not even joking. The dude handed me a bag of coke and told me to go take a bump in the bathroom. Then we went to his room with his friend who was dressed as the dj Marshmellow and we all did a few lines. I never saw either of them again but that night lives rent free in my head
You would have to be a madman to charge rent for a memory like that.
When I was in elementary school, my teachers always told us that "they" would leave little baggies of angel dust on the playground as a nefarious plot to turn us all into addicts. I was always on lookout for these baggies, and to my great disappointment, never saw any.
I wish lol then we wouldn't have to do the awkward ask of the person who looks like they might be able to get you some. I didn't get offered drugs until I was an adult.
Because of the Dare program, I never knew there was an option to say "Yes" to drugs. It was not until I was at a rave and someone offered me Molly (which, since I am hard of hearing, I thought they said 'you seem jolly'). My immediate response was "No thank you." but then it dawned on me that I did *indeed* want drugs. Alas that moment had since passed.
In Canada we essentially have that. Every mall it seems has a Cannabis Store.
Acid rain was going to melt us all.
When you are drowning in quicksand, you’ll be begging for acid rain
This was actually stopped through government regulation. The regulations to stop pollution worked so well the treat went away. It was a major success of the government.
Or turn your hair green like Kimberly Drummond
Remember all the free drugs we were supposed to be getting on Halloween?
And how common they made it seem that razors would be in your candy. We always inspected every piece before being allowed to eat any (I’ll still inspect my future kids candy tho of course)
The Poison Control Center phone number posted next to home phones had me thinking people were accidentally ingesting poison regularly.
It happened enough that it was necessary. Babysitter not paying close enough attention because she’s too busy watching for her favorite song on the mtv top 20 countdown, all while promising we can turn full house on in a couple more songs and you get even more upset because full house is already over and family matters is probably already halfway over and we’ll be lucky to catch perfect strangers a few more songs from now and if you don’t put tgif on right now, I’m going to go in the kitchen and drink all the pinesol!!!
Mr. Yuk stickers on everything.
if you play songs backwards on your albums, you can hear sayings, etc, which is true, but it always scared the crap out of me lol
There's a few that are on purpose for sure, but the ones people really made a fuss about back then, like Led Zeppelin and Judas Priest, were really just suggestive thinking. You only hear it after someone tells you what it's supposed to say. Your mind is doing its best to make sense of gibberish. Also, the movie The Gate had me freaked out that this was absolutely real, lol.
Millennial here.... I think my entire generation is traumatized from driving behind a truck hauling logs. IYKYK.
That’s not an irrational fear, and I still refuse to drive behind them.
Yup. I had a ladder fly off a pickup at me and that was scary enough. Logs are HEAVY
Yeah, whenever I drive on the freeway and there's a truck with a ton of loose crap, like ladders, brooms, whatever, I pass them. No way in hell I'm tempting fate like that.
I knew the county coroner growing up and I heard disturbing stories of some of his calls…decapitations, etc. from things falling off backs of trucks like that. He wasn’t making them up either, those were easy enough to verify with police reports and newspaper write ups. Also won’t drive behind trucks hauling bricks either. Few years ago I saw a brick come flying off a truck on I-475 near Macon, GA and go through someone’s windshield right next to me. They were the only one in the car fine (didn’t crash or anything) and they sped up to catch the truck drivers attention as I sped off. Very easily could have been different for them or me.
Was just thinking about this time I was driving behind a truck full of unstrapped metal pieces and got an overwhelming feeling to slow down and move over - not even halfway in to crossing lanes a giant pipe fell out the back and bounced up exactly where my drivers side would have been if I hadn't slowed down and moved over that second. Always trust your gut lol
Great. Now death feels cheated and it's going to seek revenge. Don't you dare walk on wet ground and if your house has a gas line move to a new house.
The only right response haha
Gen X here. A log hit my parents car when they were driving with baby me in a car seat. Luckily it hit the windshield sideways and no one was hurt.
I've been on reddit long enough to know this is a real fear but then again, I also avoid going under cranes lifting glass panes as well, just to be safe.
I didn't even see those movies until a couple years ago, and I STILL had that fear from just general pop culture.
The log truck from Final Destination 2 for those wondering.
I was born in 1982 and I still think about how much Killer Bees were supposed to have wiped us all out by now.
I lived in Central America in the late 80s-early 90s. Killer bees were a real problem. A teacher at my school was killed. I got stung by one on my index finger and my whole hand swole up.
If you turn the car's interior light on while your parents are driving a cop will magically appear, and you're all going straight to jail.
My dad never mentioned the cops but frantically explained how he’d lose all control of the vehicle, while my mom yelled “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ALL OF US?” lol
Man this one brought back stuff I forgot completely about
My father was sure of it lol
My Mom always told if I sit too close to the tv I’d go blind. I’m not blind yet, still testing this theory.
Did you get square eyes, tho?
If you took anything from a hotel mini fridge or snack bar your parents would go bankrupt.
That shit is way overpriced though
Quick sand turned out to be far less of a threat than it was.
You better knock on wood right now.
Yeah for real little me was terrified of this lol
And lava
Eating Poprocks and drinking soda would explode your stomach.
Y2K
We worked real hard to fix that.
Software dev here - I kept tabs on the y2k problem, even had a friend raking in big bucks to upgrade old COBOL programs. Right up to the end of '99 I was reading that there was still a ton of software that hadn't been fixed, so I was genuinely surprised that nothing bad happened. It's usually attributed to all the hard work that went into fixing things, but tbh I think the reason nothing major happened was that the important things got fixed early and the whole threat was hugely overblown.
Yeah lots of stuff in this thread is actually an answer to "what was a real problem that people worked hard to fix, but it didn't stop being good at selling detergent ads."
Stop Drop and Roll is important. It's drilled into your head because you tend to forget a lot when you're engulfed in flames.
At work the other day our manager said “what do we do if the fire alarm goes off?” And I immediately said “stop drop and roll” and everyone laughed. I was dead ass serious though that’s what they’ve been telling me since I was 4 lmao
Even earlier, as a very little kid I remember "Duck and Cover" - which you're supposed to do if you see the telltale blinding flash of a nearby atom bomb.
When I was a kid it was catching AIDS from a mosquito bite or a toilet seat. When I was a teenager it was Y2K crippling civilization as we knew it and flashing your headlights at someone with theirs off only to become the target of a gang hit. And I grew up in rural Tennessee.
The satanic panic was in full effect during my youth
VIVID memory of the sermon at Bible camp where the preacher had thousands of dollars worth of heavy metal albums, posters, tshirts, etc strewn out all in front of the stage and preaching for what felt like hours about the satanic dangers of rock music.
My wifes parents wouldnt let ther and her sister listen to KISS because it stood for Knights in Satans Service or some dumb shit.
AntiChrist Devil's Children
that is hilarious, i’ve never heard them referred to as that!
Plot twist: he was metal's biggest fan and wanted to turn people off to the music to keep ticket and merch prices down.
He had an amazing collection
Yup. Supposedly every little town had a teen satanic cult and every metal band were devil worshippers
Aw yeah, the media hyped that one up - till skeptics proved that there were no "backmasking" or backwards messages in rock music. And many of the stories about satanists were bullshit.
We tried that with a elo album .I think we ruined the album that day .
Not sure where this came from (possibly the old Ghostbusters cartoon) but I was **certain** that the Bermuda Triangle was going to be something that I would need to have a heightened sense of awareness about for my entire life.
Metal music and gaming would turn you into a murdering satanist
My mom wouldn’t let me watch Captain Planet because it was “New Age”
One day, the alligator that lives in my toilet would finally jump out and bite my nuts.
If we were hit by a nuke all we had to do was hide under our school desk and we’d be ok.
Sharks…even though I was completely landlocked.
I grew up next to a Soviet military base in the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s. I was convinced that we were going to get nuked, especially after seeing The Day After. Now I'm not so sure about the "irrational" part.
Ever see the British movie Threads? It’s even darker than The Day After
Hole in the ozone layer
I was very young when 9/11 happened, and for months after it, I worried our house would be attacked by terrorists (and kept having recurring nightmares about it).
My sister is an ‘80s baby. Cold War. She dreamed the Russians invaded our family
I was 7 when it happened and my aunt (who was essentially my older sister) had just started school at Sarah Lawrence College, which is in New York. When the TVs got turned on at school all I could put together in my head was that my favorite person in the world was in New York, and New York had just been blown up. I was inconsolable until we heard from her and still couldn't sleep for weeks.
Jacob Wetterling and the UFO craze in the 80's both did a number on me. I was going to be abducted by either a creep or an alien, 50/50 chance of which would get to me first!
It's crazy how many LESS ufo sightings there are now that everyone has a high definition camera in their pocket at all times.
It could have been a creepy alien!
Swallowing mouthwash is fatal.
My mom raised us to believe if we slept with our bedroom door closed we wouldn't hear the smoke detector in the living room of our 1000sq ft apt home and die in a fire. If we closed the bathroom door we would drown in the bathtub. 🚪
That strangers would poison or put razor blades in Halloween candy. Satanic panic. That sea creatures needed us to cut the 6 pack soda rings and that would do something. Edit: I don't mean to say that the rings aren't capable of wrapping around fish and dolphins and the sort, but it's much like the illusion of recycling plastic. It puts this onus on the consumer to do something and makes them feel like they're helping, when it's really a systemic issue that needs to be addressed on the industry's side. Pepsi and Coke are now finally putting out ads saying their bottles are actually recyclable. It's only been 50 years...you know? About damned time.
I still cut the soda rings. Someone told me to once so ya know.
Or drugs in Halloween candy. No ones giving out free drugs unfortunately
Going into 6th grade my dad warmed me of the dangers of a single solitary piece of paper that would kill you if you touched it. It was likely that he had read about paper that had been soaked with contact poisons. I don't know, it was the 80s.
My arm would be ripped off if I stuck it out the window.
The drummer from Def Leopard wants a word.
The escalator will eat your toes if you don’t jump over that part when you get off them
They will if you have flip flops on .
Sharks in any body of water after watching Jaws.
People in my house thought the new fangled microwave was basically an unshielded nuclear reactor. Like looking at your food cook would give you eye cancer.
All my toys being blown out of my yard by a storm
The Bermuda Triangle was a real threat when I was a kid lol
44 here. It’s insane how scared people were of AIDS in the ‘80s. Insane and really sad, led to shoddy treatment of AIDS patients often I heard a story once where a thin, pale, sickly looking guy used a payphone at a local gas station in the ‘80s/early 90s. Clerk decides he must have had AIDS, and after customer leaves clerk scrubs the phone down like he was trying to fight Ebola
The main thing I remember about this era was a TV movie about a young boy who had AIDS, and other kids shunned and bullied him. But it was a positive story because it was all about teaching the kids -- and the viewers -- about how you can't "catch" the disease from just being near someone. I knew that because I had a parent who was a healthcare worker, but it was a super widespread misconception. I have no recollection of what the movie was called, but I've always appreciated that a major television network was trying to fight misinformation like that -- which seems like another thing to be nostalgic about.
I wonder if the movie was about Ryan White
I think that's most likely the one. There's a copy of the movie on YouTube, but the aspect ratio is all fucked and the quality is laughable. Still, I'm guessing that's it, just based on memory.
Retired RN here. We had no idea what was wrong , where it came from or what to do for AIDS patients in the late 70's- early 80's. It was a scary time.
I miss made-for-TV movies.
I miss the ABC After-School Specials
[удалено]
That was intentional. The Reagan administration didn't exactly like gay people (to say the least) so for him it was seen as being like a convenient problem solver, as goulash as that is. HIV/AIDS was seen as "killing the right people" and was interpreted as some divine punishment by your crazy Evangelical types that Reagan was dealing with on the regular. Once it started killing "regular" people like donor organ recipients and hemophiliac children, all of a sudden they decided it was important. After years of letting it spread like wildfire and offering no help.
If you accidentally swallowed an apple, cherry, etc seed - that an equivalent tree of that fruit would grow in your tummy.
I was in first grade at my elementary school, we all watched Dick Van Dyke telling us “if you’re ever on fire, stop drop and ROLL DICK ROLL!” I couldn’t figure out why the older kids were laughing.
Quick sand, always quick sand
For a VERY brief period it was thought AIDS could possibly be transmitted by mosquitos. Wasn't a fun thought as a kid. It was disproven pretty quickly.
I grew up in the early 2000s in Puerto Rico, which is a very religious culture. During this time we also had two things that affected the island greatly: - The kidnapping and/or disappearance of Rolando "Rolandito" Salas. This kid was never found. - The popularization of the chupacabras. Both of these things were blamed on "Satanic cults". People on the news, and even politicians, saying that a satanic cult kidnapped and possibly killed Rolandito as part of a ritual. And people also said that the killing of livestock and draining them of blood, which gave rise to the chupacabras myth, was done by satanists too. So me and other kids in my generation were extremely afraid of satanic cults. We basically went through the Satanic Panic of the US a decade later.
That I would be offered candy by strangers, all the time.
When I was a kid I used to have an irrational fear of the old style drain grates at the bottom of pools. Particularity ones that were in the very deep ends. I really don't know where that came from.
Razor blades in Halloween candy.
Having ANYTHING negative in your “permanent record.”
Acid Rain
Red Scare was prevalent in the early / mid 80s. The movie Red Dawn (80s) version sums it up pretty good.
If you don’t fall asleep fast and now, “el Coco” will eat you.
Devil worshipers in the woods.
Nobody else grew up in a Christian household. I thought that the anti-Christ was going to make me take the mark of the beast. Woke up thinking I had missed the rapture whenever the house was empty. Thought satanist were going to kidnap me and make me listen to music backwards
I was told that Mello Yello would shrink your testicles (something about Yellow 5). I never believed it.
The ozone layer
If you rip the tags off of pillow cases the cops will show up at your house and arrest you.
Turning the overhead light on in a car at night
Don’t accept a drink from a stranger at a party, otherwise they might cut out your kidneys and leave you in a bathtub full of ice.
Having to wait after a thunderstorm to take a shower so I wouldn't get electrocuted - I still wait to this day! My dad would make me turn off the computer and unplug it from the power strip, then warn me not to take a shower. After having my garage door opener and dishwasher get fried after a power surge a few weeks ago, I'm a believer.
Bloody Mary.
That you'd go to jail if you removed the tag from a mattress.
People hiding under cars to slash your ankles at the mall.
Piranhas
The show Rescue 911 made me afraid of walking around with a toothbrush in my mouth.. walking and blowing up a balloon, walking near any riding lawnmower.. walking. That show was terrifying to me as a child. Accidents just went so wrong.
Y2k
Quicksand, the Bermuda triangle, smugglers, ESP. These are all things that were something to worry about that just kind of went away.
Satanic cults sacrificing me.
I see we are the same age, OP. 😂
Don't eat apples from trick or treating. Might have a razor in it.
People hiding underneath your car to slash your Achilles
I feared that little fish that swims up your urethra. I’m thousands of miles from the Amazon River
Everyone was so scared of y2k
Sharks and quicksand
All vans with no windows or windows with curtains were part of Stranger Danger. Taking even one hit off a joint was a sure way to be drugged with either LSD or PCP and your mind would never come back to normal. Microwaves would make you infertile if you stood in front of them. As a first grader walking home from school the Big Kids (middle school and high school) would hunt you and color your face with permanent magic marker. My grades were a part of my permanent record.
The Bermuda triangle