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People lie. It’s no secret. But when you realize the extent to which they do this online, you might just lose a large chunk of your faith in humanity.
That’s where the ‘Yeah That Definitely Happened’ Instagram page comes in. The page names and shames the folks who make stuff up on the internet, all for the sake of getting attention. And the lies they come up with are so ridiculous, they’re as funny as they are sad.
Scroll down for the best of the worst, and some blatant internet lies that would even make Pinocchio blush with shame.
Bored Panda got in touch with the current owner of the Instagram page, Jordanna, who took over from the previous owner, Erin. "She came up with the idea for the account because she was really sick of seeing all the fake stories around, and thought making an account to call them out would be a good idea. It took off and this is where we are now. I became an admin, and after Erin left, I became the owner. Lexi and Ethan are our two other admins!" Jordanna shared with us.
Bored Panda also reached out to entertainment, pop culture, and lifestyle expert Mike Sington to get his opinion on why some people make stuff up on social media. He agreed that it's done for attention. "Getting clicks and amassing followers on social media is how success is defined. For many, it becomes addictive, and the more attention your social media gets, it actually creates an adrenaline rush." He added: "The monster feeds itself."
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#1
Charlie does cartwheels 2 years ago
The best part is that she negates her daughter’s intelligence to prove her point about being anti-vax. “Nope; she’s just not vaccinated”. Ok, so not vaccinated OR advanced for her age. Good work, Mum!
The founder of the 'Yeah That Definitely Happened' page told Bored Panda that it is difficult to decide what to post and what to ignore. "People's ideas of what is believable and what isn't are all very different. I like to stay on the safe side and post the stories that I'm sure aren't possible at all and are also just entertaining and funny," Jordanna told Bored Panda. She explained what her process is when deciding whether or not to feature a post on the account.
"You'll notice a lot of our posts involve clapping, or people getting congratulated on something that's really cringey or mundane. Usually, we look for those things, or we look for things that seem really improbable. Sometimes, I won't post a story cause I'll think, 'Nah, that definitely could have happened.' But usually, I will post stories that seem to get called out as fake consistently," she said.
Jordanna definitely believes that people make up fake posts online for attention and validation. "A lot of stories, I feel, are exaggerated, and are based on things that almost happened," she said that many people embellish the truth based on what they hope would have happened.
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#3
Mad Dragon 2 years ago
You’re not “doing your own research” unless you’re a scientist and you set up a lab and hold trials. If you don’t do that, you’re just Googling in hopes of finding the answer you want.
"Like perhaps OP got insulted and then came up with a great comeback later, and decided to write the story up and post it. I feel like the attention they get from it validates them and makes them feel important, and just writing the scenario out often gives them more power in that situation, too. They have control over the narrative now and can change it to suit them," she shared her thoughts with Bored Panda.
According to Jordanna, everyone has an angle and an agenda. "A lot of stories are also written with the intention of making certain groups of people look bad. Sexist men, for example, may write a story that makes a feminist look incredibly bad (fake encounters with a rad fem.) Or a radical feminist might exaggerate their encounters with men to push the idea that 'all men are bad.' Transphobes and racists often do the same. A lot of extremists post stories, especially on sites such as Reddit, I've found, in order to push their extreme personal views and back them up with an encounter that never happened."
#6
troufaki13 2 years ago
Both comments are very rude. Second one was also hurtful on purpose, if it's true
Hollywood's Ultimate Insider, Mike, told Bored Panda that one way to realize that someone's unable to balance the role of social media in their lives is that they begin to lie or bend the truth online.
"A good sign of people going overboard in seeking attention and recognition on social media is when they start exaggerating or making things up. If you find yourself doing that, stop and check yourself, and maybe realign your priorities in life," he suggested.
Mike also shared with Bored Panda some ways to tell if a certain tweet or post might be made up. It's a good thing to trust your gut, as well as your mind. "If a post seems particularly outrageous, or too good to be true, it may be made up. Even if someone else is posting the same thing, that doesn’t make it true, because it could simply be a re-post from the original poster," the expert said.
#8
Joran Quinten 2 years ago
Also the leftover crumbs of the cookie reassembled into Jesus and turn the fish into wine, for which there was a thunderous applause
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Charlie does cartwheels 2 years ago
So some kid fed a rare species of fish an actual cookie, it choked and the manager quit because they’d had enough of dealing with totally ignorant parents letting their kids run wild. Everyone clapped as said parent and child were escorted out.
laka puka 2 years ago
Fish eating cookies? They eat tiny little powdered things and you are saying it at a WHOLE cookie.
aaaggg hhh 2 years ago
I have a feeling that this was originally written in crayon all over the monitor screen.
Jef Bateman 2 years ago
I think it's parody, too, but it would have been more obvious if it had been, "All the fish started clapping, then gave us our drinks for free."
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Clare C 2 years ago
And then the kid took the fish home and taught it to walk and then it went to school and everyone clapped!
MikeWheelerFan 2 years ago
Well, technically all tanks are open, but usually the tops are not accessible to the public. I have seen low tanks, like at the Florida Aquarium’s wetlands exhibit. I guess you could feed a fish there, but there are so many keepers around there that it would be stupid.
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Ozymandias73 2 years ago
And they named the aquarium after the kid who then got free admission for life
Lauren Caswell 2 years ago
Oh dear god this person is raising a person. My hope just died a little
Carolee Samuda-Bailey 2 years ago
The best part is when the fish spat water into the manager's mouth.
Davo gifman 2 years ago
I can't imagine a world where these people think anyone with two brain cells are going to believe this crap.
Lydia Languish 2 years ago
I might have believed this if it had been Pepperidge Farms Goldfish Crackers instead of cookies…
Nunya Business 2 years ago
What really happened: her son fed the fish a cookie and they were both banned from the aquarium.
Eliza Osenbaugh-Stewart 2 years ago
Imagine believing a fish is smart enough to understand English
New Everywhere 2 years ago
This sounds like a dream you had when you fell asleep on the train holding a cookie
Jaybird3939 2 years ago
Did people come up to him and say "Sir", they all called him sir, "Thank you so much for taking home that beloved fish". "His grandparents have been looking for him for years and are so happy you found him. Thank you, sir." By the time they were done everyone in the store was crying and clapping.
Celtic Pirate Queen 2 years ago
WOW. What is wrong with people that they feel the need to create/fabricate such obvious bullsh*t online for people they don't know & will never meet, who don't care about them in the least?
Reading-under-a-Sequoia. 2 years ago
And then it morphed into a cookie fish and proceeded to bless the child with the power of christ, money, and, cookies. The child was a hero! A savior to all! As he ascended to the heavens, he blessed everyone on earth with good health! A statue was built to remember him by! It was made out of pure waterproof cookies! The sky lit up after it was built and rained Skittles upon the land. His godly self flew down and they all danced! The end.
Mary Bricklin 2 years ago
Right... An aquarium gave a random 3 year old a bunch of fish that most likely need special food and special care.
featherytoad 2 years ago
My husband and I knew a person like this. He was talking about when he went to some concert and was invited up on stage and they asked him to play guitar and yadaa, yadaa, yadaa. We just looked at each other and our other friends and thought, how sad.
LynzCatastrophe 2 years ago
What... why... why would you even bother to make this up?! Whats the point of doing this?!
Lex hutton 2 years ago
Im trying to figure out how exactly this kid gave a fish a cookie through a tank and how a fish spit through a tank.
Marisa Varney 2 years ago
Wow they are a bad liar but this story was pretty fun, they could have a future writing fictional children's books.
Phill Healey 2 years ago
Wtf? Let's pretend this actually happened ... You would not f*****g tell this story because you know no-one would f*****g believe it.
Alma Muminovic 2 years ago
This is just sad. Reminds me of that woman who was giving her son large doses of salt to get attention on fb but with fish instead of salt.
"Your instincts can usually tell you when something is made up, and old-fashioned online sleuthing can usually confirm it," Mike told us.
The ‘Yeah That Definitely Happened’ Instagram page has just over 78k followers and invites them to send in their own submissions. So if you happen to stumble across something that fits the mood of the project, consider sending the screenshot over to the creator of the page.
However, one thing that they ask of their fans is that they check the posts to see if the particular screenshot has been posted before. If it has, it’s best to find something else to share. After all, fresh content is king, while reposting the same things over and over frequently would get stale quickly.
There’s no shortage of misinformation, fake news, and simply downright lies on the internet. While some people clearly make stuff up to get attention, others do it with different goals in mind, whether they’re political, social, or other.
Joseph M. Pierre, a professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, previously spoke to Bored Panda about conspiracy theories and the type of people who believe in misinformation.
Professor Pierre told us that conspiracy theorists tend to focus on certain historical events when choosing to twist the truth for whatever goals they have in mind.
He also noted that the only spike of conspiracy theories in recent modern history was during the communist ‘red scare’ in the 1950s.
“It is true that certain historical events do tend to attract conspiracy theories and there is evidence that times of societal upheaval or crisis when people are feeling unsafe and desperate for clarity offer a kind of fertile soil for conspiracy theory beliefs,” he told Bored Panda.
#16
Lady Goldberry 2 years ago
Ah...remember the days when you'd let strangers inject your child in the park?
#18
“Over the past 60 years, the assassination of JFK, the death of Princess Diana, and 9/11 are the most obvious examples of national traumas surrounded by conspiracy theory beliefs,” the expert went into detail.
“We should acknowledge that many conspiracy theories, like the idea that the Earth is flat, aren’t really based on any kind of obvious traumatic event,” he added that not all misinformation, fake news, and made-up ‘facts’ are associated with traumatic events.
The professor told Bored Panda that the people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories are usually those who see the world in a very black-or-white way: they see history as a struggle between good and evil, and don’t tend to notice nuances or subtleties.
#27
Got Myself 4 Dwarves 2 years ago
Why are these guys always annoying the crap out of baristas? Just shut up and take your damn sugar filled weird flavoured coffee and leave
“People who believe in conspiracy theories are also often attracted to the Manichean narratives that conspiracy theories offer, involving battles of good and evil pitting against each other in an almost apocalyptic fashion. So, it should come as no surprise that conspiracy theories might sprout up from World War II—a real-life apocalyptic battle between good and evil,” the expert noted.
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What do you think ?
AnnaB 2 years ago
I shook my head so much while reading these, that I gave myself whiplash. And then my chiropractor clapped.
Rose the Cook 2 years ago
Got less than a quarter of the way through. Reads like young kids competing to out lie each other.
phil blanque 2 years ago
Yeah, in the ultrasound my daughter signed to me, in American sign language, that I should buy Bitcoin. But it has been 27 months and she has not come out of the womb....what is she hiding from?
LynzCatastrophe 2 years ago
Normally I like to continue going past the posted list and get everything. I could barely get through the 30 posts. I'm tired now.
Random Anon 2 years ago
Do these people spend all their time thinking up porkies to tell? If they did, they are crap at it.
L Johnson 1 year ago
So sick of these sick people, let me add to these. "It's 2030 and all the doctors in the country are now seeing people come in with huge foreheads. They insert a needle and draw out the fluid. Out come thousands of microchips. They ask everyone, did you have the covid shot? No was the answer from each patient. Then the government said "if you voted for donny, when you submitted your ballot, a laser immediately beamed in a duplicating microchip directly to your forehead...zap...you are dead." That was your "Trump conspiracy fairy tale" of the day. Just wait til 2030!!
Cydney Golden 2 years ago
Reminded me of some of the stories I used to hear from kindergarteners and first graders. But they had the excuse of being very, very young.
I'mNotARoboat 2 years ago
These people literally just type the fiction they imagine in their minds as if it's the truth a wear it like a badge of honour. I'm sure most of them were aspiring writers but we're rejected one time too many and something snapped.
Sleazy Weaver 2 years ago
it isnt "anti-anti-vax" to post lies that anti-vaxxers tell in a post about lies, especially considering everything anti-vaxxers believe is a lie. is protecting anti-vaxxers, who willingly endanger their children & the general public, from mockery really the hill you want to die on?
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AnnaB 2 years ago
I shook my head so much while reading these, that I gave myself whiplash. And then my chiropractor clapped.
Rose the Cook 2 years ago
Got less than a quarter of the way through. Reads like young kids competing to out lie each other.
phil blanque 2 years ago
Yeah, in the ultrasound my daughter signed to me, in American sign language, that I should buy Bitcoin. But it has been 27 months and she has not come out of the womb....what is she hiding from?
LynzCatastrophe 2 years ago
Normally I like to continue going past the posted list and get everything. I could barely get through the 30 posts. I'm tired now.
Random Anon 2 years ago
Do these people spend all their time thinking up porkies to tell? If they did, they are crap at it.
L Johnson 1 year ago
So sick of these sick people, let me add to these. "It's 2030 and all the doctors in the country are now seeing people come in with huge foreheads. They insert a needle and draw out the fluid. Out come thousands of microchips. They ask everyone, did you have the covid shot? No was the answer from each patient. Then the government said "if you voted for donny, when you submitted your ballot, a laser immediately beamed in a duplicating microchip directly to your forehead...zap...you are dead." That was your "Trump conspiracy fairy tale" of the day. Just wait til 2030!!
Cydney Golden 2 years ago
Reminded me of some of the stories I used to hear from kindergarteners and first graders. But they had the excuse of being very, very young.
I'mNotARoboat 2 years ago
These people literally just type the fiction they imagine in their minds as if it's the truth a wear it like a badge of honour. I'm sure most of them were aspiring writers but we're rejected one time too many and something snapped.
Sleazy Weaver 2 years ago
it isnt "anti-anti-vax" to post lies that anti-vaxxers tell in a post about lies, especially considering everything anti-vaxxers believe is a lie. is protecting anti-vaxxers, who willingly endanger their children & the general public, from mockery really the hill you want to die on?
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