Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Debate Which 'Normal' Human Things Would Seem Bizarre To Aliens

man in green mask inside car
Brooke Denevan on Unsplash

Reddit user 2drums1cymbal asked: 'What are some “normal” things humans do that an intelligent alien species might find weird, gross or confusing?'

Make us preferred on Google

Are we alone in the universe? It's highly unlikely given the number of stars and potential planets.

But are we actively encountering extraterrestrial life? That ones a little harder to discern.


And what do/would they think if they are visiting us? Are we a fascinating primitive culture? Or are we more "lock the doors, roll up the windows, we're in the bad part of the galaxy" neighborhood?

Admittedly, we are kind of strange.

Reddit user 2drums1cymbal asked:

"What are some 'normal' things humans do that an intelligent alien species might find weird, gross or confusing?"

Substances

"Intentionally poisoning ourselves to make our tedious lives more bearable."

"Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, Ecstasy, alcohol, etc..."

~ Snark_Life

"And many other mind-altering substances, like caffeine, and things that evolved to be unpleasant or unpalatable, like capsaicin."

~ -King_Slacker

Mini-Humans Are Useless

"Human babies are useless because hip bone sizes limit how much they can develop before birth. That's why a calf or foal can walk in hours, but a human baby takes a year."

"If aliens reproduce differently enough, they might be confused both as to why our offspring are messy little blobs and as to why we're all so comparatively clingy—because if they don't rely on their parents for survival as much their social structure would probably be wildly different."

~ shyishguyish

Likes

"Exchanging saliva because we like someone."

"Slapping our hands together rapidly because we like something."

"Keep animals captive because we like them."

~ _forum_mod

Taste Is Subjective

"We will put each other's genitalia in our mouth, but we won't eat the overripe black part on the banana."

~ Snoo_63187

Close Shave

"Do we really let someone pass the sharpest blade our species could create near our largest artery only to remove our head/neck hair?"

~ tbfoot

Lacto Tolerance

"'You do WHAT with the lactic fluids of animals? Wait, wait, wait, you're saying you don't just drink it, but you also carefully rot it until it congeals into fatty, solid blocks and then you eat THAT too‽‽'."

"I love cheese, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to think about sometimes."

~ Chairboy

Carne Humana

"We're all made of meat!"

~ imn0tafurry

O Tannenbaum

"Decorate the corpse of a conifer every winter solstice."

~ Mumbles_Stiltskin

Bless You v. Excuse Me

"Others call on the intercession of a deity when someone else expels from the nose, but the bodily function wielder begs for forgiveness when expelling gas from the anus or mouth."

~ prodigy1367

Sports

"Bowling. I always thought an alien or very different culture would be shocked by how many people around me are surprisingly good at accurately rolling a heavy ball 30 feet."

~ NigilQuid

"Some games we play, like bowling, golf, do look a little pointless to an outsider."

~ GaiaSagrada909

Face Leakage

"Crying. Shedding tears as a response to emotions might be confusing or seen as a bizarre leakage of body fluids if emotional expressions manifest differently for them."

~ Fit_Journalist_533

Reproduction

"Having hot sweaty smelly messy sex instead of neatly depositing eggs in a proper incubator and neatly fertilizing them."

"If it's good enough for the salmons, it's good enough for our new fishy masters."

~ fogobum

"Take it a step further. What if they don't reproduce sexually at all?"

"That'd be a huge divide to overcome."

~ 250HardKnocksCaps

"Mitosis is indeed a huge divide."

~ PirateNinjasReddit

Efficiency Ick

"That our reproductive system and waste disposal system are interconnected with each other."

~ soccerdevil22

"Hell, the reproductive, food intake, and waste disposal systems of some invertebrates are all interconnected and enter/exit from the same hole."

~ Peptuck

💩🚽

"Pooping in water."

"With water being one of the most fundamental resources to human life and health I feel like an alien species would question why we just expel waste into it and flush it away."

~ CaptainCreepwork

What would you add to the list?

More from News/science

Screenshots from TikToker @user4934997299767's video
@user4934997299767/TikTok

TikToker Confronts Stranger Who Allegedly Stopped His Car To Follow Her—And Women Are Nodding Hard

Though skeptics might argue that women can safely walk around and enjoy life without a care in the world, one woman shared a video of how often that isn't true.

Originally posted on TikToker @user4934997299767's account, the woman recorded herself walking outside on a sidewalk in a wide open area, allegedly right after a man had driven past her and noticed her. He'd then made a U-turn and pulled his car over so that he could get out and follow her.

Keep ReadingShow less
Anne Hathaway
Cindy Ord/SiriusXM/Getty Images

Anne Hathaway Just Revealed That She Was Having A Panic Attack In One Of Her Most Memed Moments—And Fans Are Floored

Anne Hathaway has been involved in a lot of memes throughout her career, from looking disappointedly at an ice cream cone to her transformation as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries becoming one of the most frequently trending sounds on TikTok.

Fortunately, not only is Hathaway aware of many of these mentions, but based on her Esquire interview opposite Star Wars star Ewan McGregor, she finds many of them quite funny.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @a_daywillcome's video
@a_daywillcome/Instagram

Woman Who Lives In High-Rise Sparks Debate After Forcing Hispanic Window Cleaner To Get Off Her Balcony in Viral Video

A woman who lives in a high-rise building called out an employee for walking on her balcony to clean her windows, and she did not get the validation she was looking for when she shared the video.

The woman started recording as she walked into her main living space, and an employee was unstrapped from the equipment used to scale the building as he cleaned her balcony windows.

Keep ReadingShow less
Tom Holland & Zendaya; Chrissy Teigen
Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images; MEGA/GC Images

Resurfaced Clip Of Zendaya's Panicked Expression After She Thought Chrissy Teigen Was About To Kiss Tom Holland Has Fans Cackling

By now, pretty much anyone who spends any time on the internet is intimately familiar with Tom Holland's iconic 2017 performance on Lip Sync Battle, emulating Rihanna and doing a barn-storming performance of "Umbrella."

For one, it's just an incredible performance. But what really makes the moment shine is Zendaya's reaction to it as she watches—many believe it's the exact moment she fell for the actor.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sam Altman
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

OpenAI CEO Ripped After Suggesting Tip For Using ChatGPT To Help Parent Your Kids—And It's So Bleak

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is desperate to push his highly unpopular product, going on talk shows to gush about its benefits and making suggestions online for how everyone can use ChatGPT in their daily lives. The tech billionaire tries hard to sell the public on AI, but his recent assertion that parents should use it to avoid speaking with their kids didn't land well.

On Friday, Altman tried to convince parents that his app, ChatGPT Work, was the answer to their parenting needs. But it read more like a cheat code for people who don't know how to interact with other humans, including their own children.

Keep ReadingShow less