Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Break Down What Goods Were Sold On The 'Black Market' At Their School

kids, teens, and college students all find unique ways of making money or obtaining "contraband" items in schools.

A relative of mine ran a gambling ring in junior high, for example, and that was how they (and so many of their classmates) obtained all the candy and chocolates they could stuff their faces with. This same relative has since paid for their black market wits with numerous visits to the dentist over the years.

You win some, you lose some, right?

People were all too eager to share after Redditor Alice_exists asked the online community,

"What was the "black market" at your school?"

"My school banned..."

"My school banned soda. I used to keep a cooler full in my car and sell them for $2 a pop."

jsmys

Look at you, you little entrepreneur!

"So she'd constantly..."

"My mum owned a sweet shop and sweets were banned in our school as we had to have healthy meals and all that. So she'd constantly give me bags of sweets to smuggle in and sell every day at dinner. Made an absolute bomb."

skraii

Your mum owned a sweet shop, huh?

Can you say "privileged"?

Well, you certainly got a leg up!

"I'd burn a bunch of copies..."

"I used to sell bootleg movies in high school. Not the kind of bootleg where you take a video camera into a theater, but I knew someone who kept getting early versions of movies that I guess are sent to theaters (they had some message about it being for screening purposes only/internal use - I don't remember exactly) and giving them to me."

"I'd burn a bunch of copies and sell them to people for $5. They were high quality and still early in theaters."

Cheese_Pancakes

The bootlegs which were nothing more than someone taking a video camera into a theater were the absolute worst.

"In 5th grade..."

"In 5th grade, I sold fairies to every single one of my classmates for $1 each. I gave them names and backstories and drew little portraits of each then would toss them an invisible fairy and then collect from the next sucker."

venuscries

WHAT?

Clearly I was not doing the right thing. You sold people imaginary crap?

"Teachers punished us..."

"Teachers punished us by making us write 'I will refrain from extemporaneous vocalization during valuable pedagogical opportunities' 50 or 100 times as homework. So over the summer, we would do up a few hundred sheets of that, and we could sell or use them, as necessary."

FlavoredCuDispenser

Now this is clever. I love everything about it.

"A porn ring."

"A porn ring."

"Kids would find their dad's VHS pornos or magazines and sell them to this kid. Then he'd turn around and sell it for profit."

"Funny thing is that when the principal caught wind of it and found all the porn in his locker but the money wasn't there. The kid used the locker under his and hid it all in the bottom."

"The porn hustler dude is now a cybersecurity analyst. I asked him at our reunion how much he thought he made back then. He claims $900 in 4 months."

HelpMyBunny1080p

Now the porn hustler dude probably makes sure people aren't spreading viruses with all the crappy porn sites they visit while on company time.

"In high school..."

"In high school, there was this game/fad where people would try to stealth zip tie other people's bags to their desks, shoes together, whatever so they'd be stuck when the bell rang. One guy sold the heavy-duty zip ties and another sold mini scissors for easy escape."

SaSaMei

I think I would hate it if someone did this to me.

"The most popular..."

"In elementary school, it was flavored toothpicks. The most popular were soaked in cinnamon oil. First time I tasted Fireball whiskey took me right back to first grade."

SignificantStuff4930

I'm just imagining you sitting in the bar sharing this anecdote while all the other drinkers around you get a wistful look in their eyes and just nod silently.

"Everyone wanted them..."

"In elementary school, my friend had a sticker maker, and we pumped out hundreds of stickers with Neopets on them."

"Everyone wanted them, we were making away like bandits before teachers started to get pissed they were showing up all over the desks/walls/etc."

"Eventually we got called into the principal's office and had to stop."

colorabro

Aw, the teacher and principal were absolutely no fun!

"The one that stands out..."

"The one that stands out is marbles."

"Marbles were banned at the school, because kids were getting into arguments over them, as well as digging up the gardens making marbles tracks."

FormalMango

Have you lost your marbles??

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Well, it's clear after reading all of these that my black market hustle was severely lacking. Now as an adult, I have to figure out how to obtain such infamy.

Just kidding. I have bills to pay now.

Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!

Want to "know" more?

Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

hantavirus illustration
Joao Luiz Bulcao/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Infectious Diseases Expert Speaks Out After MAGA Makes Predictably Unfounded Claim About Hantavirus

For those unaware, ivermectin is an FDA-approved antiparasitic medication used to treat conditions caused by parasitic worms as well as external parasites like lice.

Parasites are organisms that depend on a host to both survive and spread. There are three main types of parasites that call humans home—the endoparasites protozoa and helminths (worms), which cause infection inside the body, and ectoparasites, which cause infection superficially within or on the skin.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hayden Panettiere
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Hayden Panettiere Just Publicly Came Out As Bisexual—And She Explained Why She Waited So Long

Scream and Heroes star Hayden Panettiere is soon releasing her memoir This is Me: A Reckoning, and according to an interview with US Weekly, she almost didn't write it.

Despite many of her characters being confident, kind, and often bubbly in nature, Panettiere's life at home was riddled with dark moments, including tremendous public pressure, abuse, drug addiction, and tragic loss.

Keep ReadingShow less
Brian Niccol
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company

The CEO Of Starbucks Just Gave A Mind-Numbing Defense For Charging $9 For Coffee 'Experience'—And People Aren't Having It

What's the absolute most you'd ever agree to pay for a coffee? If you said the absurd amount of $9, you're apparently Starbucks' ideal customer.

The coffee chain's CEO Brian Niccol is getting dragged on the internet for insisting that $9 is a perfectly reasonable price for a cup of joe.

Keep ReadingShow less
Zohran Mamdani
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Zohran Mamdani Praised For His Post About Fashion Industry's Unsung Heroes After Skipping Met Gala

Each year, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—dubbed just The Met—hosts an invite-only fundraising gala in New York City, currently boasting a $100,000-a-ticket price tag.

The Met Gala has been called "fashion’s biggest night" with icons of fashion and entertainment rubbing elbows with the uber-wealthy in The Met's Fifth Avenue location on Manhattan's Upper East Side. This year's theme was "Fashion is Art."

Keep ReadingShow less
Thomas Massie; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Ilhan Omar
Heather Diehl/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

'Satirical' MAGA Attack Ad Slammed For Using AI To Claim GOP Rep Is In 'Throuple' With AOC And Ilhan Omar

Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie and his ex-colleague, former George Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, criticized a "satirical" attack ad running in Kentucky that claims Massie is in a "throuple" with New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar.

The ad opens with the line, “Thomas Massie caught in a throuple! In Washington, he’s cheating with the Squad on the America First movement,” before showing AI-generated images of Massie holding hands with Omar and sharing dinners with her and Ocasio-Cortez in staged scenes.

Keep ReadingShow less