Things That Started As A Joke That Are Now Taken Way Too Seriously

Crocs. How did they become a thing?

Seriously?

"Scientology. Come on. He's a Sci-fi writer and now a bunch of people believe they have Mendichloreans or some sh*t in their blood making them do bad things. Wow."

Gillbreather

Stop Complaining

"Nyquil chicken."

"There was a guy who made a video on TikTok jokingly saying that he had a great recipe for cooking chicken in Nyquil. A few people made response videos, but everyone who saw it knew it was a joke."

"Then mainstream media picked it up, and blew it out of proportion. They made it sound like it was an actual trend for people to be cooking Nyquil. There are already plenty of problems on TikTok, we don't need to invent new ones to complain about."

TheAres1999

Morons

"That science can't explain why bumblebees can fly. It literally started as a joke among scientists. Now some anti-scientific morons use it as an argument against science. Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummel-Paradoxon"

"Edit: English version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee#Misconception_about_flight"

Schlaueule

"I worked with a guy who literally used this as an argument for God against science. Which, regardless of your beliefs, is absolutely silly because I showed him multiple videos and articles telling how bees fly and he kept saying, 'Yes, but we can't explain it.'"

"*itch, they just did. Ten times! Listen!!"

kingferret53

The Test

"The Bechdel Test. Not that the issue it raises shouldn't be taken seriously, but people totally misunderstand that it was only supposed to highlight how absurd it is that so many movies fail to reach the very low bar it sets. I've seen filmmakers brag at Comic-Cons and the like now about how their movies pass the Bechdel Test and it's seen as a female character representation stamp of approval when it really just means it reached a satirically low bare minimum threshold originally created by a cartoonist."

VULCAN_WITCH

Fame

"Celebrities becoming politicians."

ZaryssThesia

"After all this, I never want to be told I need experience for a job ever again."

ajlposh

Our political system isn't a joke, it's a travesty.

Currency

"Dogecoin."

Eparii

"I remember a Twitter post where someone asked the Dogecoin creator whether they thought about the environmental impact when creating this coin. He replied saying he took 2 hours to create the cryptocurrency and did not consider anything."

daaniscool

Types

"Those masculinity types, like Apha, Omega and Sigma male, etc. Some people take this too seriously."

Nihlus-N7

"People thought that's how wolves operate and just projected it onto humans. Turns out that wolves also don't do that."

idk_this_my_name

"I think the best part of that whole thing is the fact that the guy who first thought that's how wolf packs worked is the same one who found out it's not how they work."

DarthOptimist

Meow me not...

"Schrodinger's Cat was formulated as a thought experiment to illustrate how odd quantum mechanics is, not that the cat is actually both alive and dead."

uraniumraven

"Not just that, Schrodinger came up with it to demonstrate how absurd and ridiculous the idea was. It was just that his peers thought it actually demonstrated their ideas quite well and started using it as a layman's explanation."

AzyKool

"Schrodinger's cat lived long enough to become the villain."

macewystan

Science

" Flat Earth."

Pichuk

"I remember that it's a forum, i think it's called www.flatearth.org or something. The forum said that it was a debate training ground. The idea was, if you can defend such a ridiculous idea as saying that the earth is flat, then you can defend anything.

"Little did we know..."

nyenkaden

Brain power

"Brain only using 10% of its ability." - ksaunders8

"A better understanding of this would be that a traffic signal is only utilizing 1/3 of its capacity at any one time. If you observe over a time period/with diverse tasks you'll likely see 100% utilization." - Dry-Manufacturer-165

Bootstraps

"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." Get on the floor and try it. It's impossible. That's the meaning. It was originally used as a sarcastic joke. But today it means the opposite because fanatical capitalists co-opted the phrase and changed the meaning to the opposite." - neonomen

Halloween Candy

"The idea that people are putting drugs or razor blades or other hazards in your kid's halloween candy."

"That is pure unadulterated media fear-mongering. They've been doing it for decades, and it's pure BS every time. I have to wonder if it's not some propaganda paid for by a candy company so people will buy candy to give out on Halloween instead of making it themselves. Sounds like something Nestle would do." - Generico300·

Music Choices

"Hating on Nickelback apparently." - honeydew_bunny

​Birds work for the bourgeoise 

"Birds aren’t real. I believe the guy who started it actually came out saying it was all intended as a joke and he’s surprised people actually take it seriously now." - jozzywolf121

Religious affiliations

"The church of the flying spaghetti?!" - WobblyBroth

Well that's a lot of jokes that didn't really land.