It can be hard when people aren't looking at you, isn't it?
Reddit user, u/bel_kitty, wanted to know about the biggest awkward attention grabber you've seen when they asked:
What was the weirdest thing you've seen someone fake for attention?
Sometimes your own body is just a form of currency to pay with to try and grab some views. Doesn't matter how silly it is, you'll throw yourself in front of a bus so long as someone watches you.
Social Media Makes People Do Dumb Things
"That Instagram idiot that licked the public toilet then lied about getting Covid"
Faking Sleep PTSD
"There was this one dude, Jake, hated it when the attention wasn't on him. This was roughly 12 years ago but once after a party ended he was deemed too drunk (he had a beer and 2 shots of sour pucker liquor) he stayed the night them pretended to sleep and that he was a soldier during nam and was running all over the place with his eyes closed. One of his buddies ended up tossing a bucket of water on Jake but that didn't wake him up. That same buddy tackled Jake before he ran outside to make a scene and that magically woke him up."
"Whenever there were get togethers he would saying he's gonna hurt himself when people weren't interacting with him. People stopped paying attention cause he would say it every single time and when he realized it he'd start throwing a tantrum that everyone hates him and that he has no friends so no one would care. I responded, "the police will care. Let me call them" he stopped that act real quick"
It's A Strategy?
"As an American seeing those soccer (football) players just fall over and start screaming when another player brushed past is just weird. I've heard various explanations for it but it's just a really weird thing to do as a pro athlete."
"As a British person who watches NHL and regularly sees players taking pucks to the face and being checked into the boards, I also wonder why football players do this!"
Kids might be the most attention grabby. Once they find that one method to make sure all their friends and the adults in their lives are gazing upon them with interest they'll definitely keep doing it.
We All Know You Don't Have This Condition, Ashley!
"One of my classmates got an asthma attack and everyone was flocking over to them to make sure they were okay."
"On the other side of the room another one of my classmates also got an asthma attack, even though it was common knowledge that she didn't have asthma (there were very few people in class that had asthma and we all knew just in case it was an emergency). They faked the hard breathing and exaggerated gasps."
"It was weird that someone would do something like that just so they would have attention."
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Don't. Tell. Anyone.
"A kid in elementary school faked a speech impediment so she'd keep getting out of class for speech therapy."
"Initially it was real, but speech therapy had totally cured it. She just didn't want anyone to know. One of the words she mispronounced was "yellow." She would say, "Lellow" instead."
"One day we were on the playground together and she said, "I'm gonna tell you a secret!" she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "YELLLLOWWWW," with a hard "Y" at the beginning. Then she laughed and said, "Don't tell anyone!"
"So I didn't, until just now."
Pretending It's Something Serious
"Took care of a bunch of 7 year olds at my old job as a camp counselor and one of them thought it would be really funny to fake a concussion and say he has amnesia....safe to say my work called an ambulance and when they got there he didn't have a concussion and it turns out some kid told him if you hit your head hard enough you loose your memory."
"We didn't think he had amnesia but we were afraid of brain damage and the kid refused to stop joking around so they had to call 911. The kids dad wasn't pleased, tried to blame me and get it taken out of my paycheck but that's illegal and got stuck taking care of him for two more summers as my "punishment"
Forming Fake Familial Connections
"When I was in middle school, a girl who was a senior at the high school died."
"This girl in my class said it was her cousin, she even broke down crying in class, shaking, hyperventilating..etc."
"Turns out it was not her cousin, in fact, she never even met or knew of her till she died."
Then there's these people, who felt the need to try and snatch some eyes and turn some heads even when it's not appropriate, or socially acceptable, to do so.
Lying About A Tragedy
"Overheard a cousin of mine telling people that our uncle died in the 9/11 attacks. I punched her so hard because she was making a fool out of her entire family."
Solid Decision If You Don't Want To Lose
"My grandmother faked a heart attack because she and my dad got into an argument at Thanksgiving."
"Grandfather was so embarrassed."
Incapable Of Letting Go
"Oh man, I could write a book about my dads ex wife"
"Once he decided he was going to move out this time for good, she started walking with a cane saying her back was so bad she couldn't work anymore and cried the whole time walking about with the cane while my dad and brother-in-law were moving his stuff out. Couple weeks later she shows up at my dads duplex without her cane exclaiming she read a book and now her back is better and she could go back to work!"
"And when my dad was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2016 (before they broke up for good), a few weeks later she kept saying she had Cancer in her ear, he was so worried about her. She went to the doctor and it turned out she just had ear wax build up. It was when he got sick and started seeing counsellors he finally realized how unusual her behaviour was."
Can't Beat Biology
"A girl I knew pretended to be pregnant because her best friend was pregnant at the time. Then she got her period in class and pretended it was a miscarriage to not get caught."
When You Can Look It Up Online But Can't Say Anything
"One of our senators is the lunatic daughter of a late dictator"
"She never finished college, but keeps insisting that she graduated from Princeton, as well as one of the top law schools in our country. She doesn't show any paperwork, photos, degrees, diplomas, or records of any kind."
"She just insists it's true despite it being the easiest thing in the world to debunk (as it was, over and over through a simple email or phone call to the schools in question.)"
"Her bizarre, elaborate statements to dodge simple yes/no questions about her academic credentials have become somewhat of a meme."
There's definitely something off if you're lying about which school you attended to try and stay in power. That's just one opinion, and perhaps these people should reconsider what they're doing with their lives if that's the path they're on.
