Ask any kid in almost any country, and they’ll tell you who Big Bird is. But how well do we really know our feathered friend? On the surface, he’s a lovable character from Sesame Street who stands 249 centimeters tall (8’2″)^[1] and sports orange feet the size of snowshoes. But there are many sides to this famous fowl. In fact, hidden behind all those feathers is a bird brain full of remarkable notions like how to say the alphabet as one big word or how to bid farewell to a special friend.

After 50 years of appearing on the most popular children’s show ever, you’d think we’d know Big Bird inside out, but he still has a few surprises up his sleeve. For instance, Big Bird hobnobs with Darth Vader and the Queen of England. He wields major political clout and once took out a presidential candidate without even lifting a feather. On top of that, he has survived multiple attempts on his life! Not to count our chicks before they’re hatched, but we think you’ll like these fun facts about the flightiest member of the Sesame Street gang.

10 He’s Not Real (Shhh, Don’t Tell the Kiddies)

Yes, it’s true, there’s a person inside that yellow suit. The man who brought Big Bird to life is Caroll Spinney, a puppeteer who met Jim Henson in 1962.

Although Spinney’s childhood years were rocky (a loving mother was overruled by an abusive father), he was still able to convey the wonder and delight of childhood through Big Bird. In an odd-couple pairing, Spinney also voiced Oscar the Grouch.

Maneuvering the bird costume is no easy task. The puppeteer stands upright and raises his right arm to elevate big bird’s head. He moves the mouth with his hand while controlling the eyes with his little finger. The right arm is hooked to the left by a string, and when the left is moved, the right moves in tandem. Big bird’s suit weighs 4.5 kilograms (10 lb), his head is 1.8 kilograms (4 lb), and according to writer Louise Gikow, the heat inside the suit can be “unbearable.”^[2]

As the puppeteer is completely enclosed in the costume and cannot see, he must wear a TV monitor strapped to his chest. Spinney called this his electronic bra. He also taped his script to the monitor, which means he was reading, watching the monitor, and operating all parts of the costume while trying to walk and not trip over carpets, TV cables, and so on. If all of this sounds like a lot to do at one time, you’re right.

In October 2018, Caroll Spinney, age 84, retired from Sesame Street. He turned the character of Big Bird over to his understudy, Matt Vogel.

9 The Fam

It only makes sense that Big Bird should be part of a big family.^[3] He was raised by his Granny Bird, but there’s an occasional reference to a Mommy and Daddy, along with a sister named Esmeralda. Big Bird flew Granny’s coop when he was still a chick, and the next time anyone saw him was on Sesame Street. Apparently, he prefers the seamy side of the ‘hood, since he built his nest next to the trash of Oscar the Grouch.

Some of Big Bird’s relatives include Uncle Slim, a cowbird from Wyoming, and a grandfather who reportedly is an emu. Big Bird has approximately 15 different cousins who are mentioned in various story lines. There’s an identical twin cousin named Herman, Cousin Bubba from the North Pole, and a surfer cousin, Floyd, who lives in Los Angeles. There’s also a baker cousin, a policeman, and a fireman, to name a few.

Big Bird’s human family includes Gordon, Luis, Maria, Bob, and Mr. Hooper. As for Muppet neighbors, over 1,000 have come and gone since the show first aired in 1969. While no one ever says why Big Bird left home in the first place, it’s clear to his millions of fans—who wouldn’t want to live on Sesame Street?

8 The Stunts

Since Big Bird is a stand-alone character able to interact with his environment, the producers of Sesame Street have involved him in all kinds of antics.^[4] Big Bird can roller-skate, ice-skate, dance, sing, write poetry, draw, ride horseback, and even ride a unicycle.

Given the complexity of walking in the suit, one wonders how it’s possible for Big Bird to roller-skate or ride a unicycle. These are skills some people can’t master at all, much less while wearing a giant costume with enormous feet (and don’t forget that the puppeteer is holding his hand up over his head while basically blindfolded).

The Sesame Street staff is actually rather close-mouthed about how it’s all done, and Spinney is modest about his acrobatic skills. When asked about the unicycle stunt, he said, “As for the unicycle, I don’t know how to ride one. It’s the suit, it’s all the suit.” If the test of a great performer is one who can make the impossible look easy, then Spinney fits the bill.

7 Accosted And Stabbed!

Stabbed? Or so it seemed. Sesame Street was doing a live show for a large audience of children. Producers had begun to experiment with the new technology of wireless microphones, and Big Bird had one in his suit. Staffers were unaware they had to clear a channel, and to everyone’s surprise, the mic picked up the voice of a trucker on his CB radio making evening plans with his girlfriend. Before it got too R-rated, the feed was killed, and someone stuck a regular mike through Big Bird’s costume. Problem solved? Not really. To the children’s horror, it looked like Big Bird had been stabbed in the heart.^[5]

Spinney recalled another upsetting incident in the 1970s where Big Bird was attacked. Slated to perform a live show for 6,000 people at Georgia Tech University, Spinney left the suit in an empty storeroom while he went for lunch. Later, as he lounged in the grass outside, Spinney noticed several ROTC members walking away with large yellow feathers tucked in their hats. Alarmed, he raced back to the storeroom and discovered that Big Bird had been accosted. Not only were there several bald spots in the suit, but one eye had been wrenched out in an unsuccessful attempt to take it as a souvenir.

Spinney was heartbroken, feeling like he’d left his child in harm’s way. He vowed to be more careful in the future.

6 Space Age Brush With Death

It was the 1980s, and the US space program was in full swing. Hoping to interest the general public (and distract from the huge cost of the shuttle program) NASA proposed a new marketing idea where an ordinary citizen would be launched into space. Then someone thought of inviting Big Bird!

When the civilian astronaut program was announced, NASA received 11,000 applicants, including Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw, but the happy idea of the goofy yellow bird floating in zero gravity would not go away. While Caroll Spinney never applied for the job, he was contacted by NASA and asked to orbit the Earth as Big Bird.^[6]

After some hesitation, Spinney finally agreed, but as it turned out, Big Bird was just too big to fit in the confined space, and the plan was scrapped. Schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe was ultimately chosen to be on Space Shuttle Challenger.

Fast-forward to January 28, 1986. It seemed the entire US, including millions of schoolchildren, were glued to their TV sets. Spinney and his wife were among the audience and held hands as Challenger lifted into the air. The excitement turned to horror as Challenger exploded, killing all seven people inside.

As a PR plan, this was the worst possible outcome, or was it? Having a beloved teacher involved in this tragedy was bad enough, but what if it had been Big Bird?

5 Globe-Trotter And Spy

Big Bird is the ultimate jet-setter and has traveled the world doing concerts, live shows, and book tours. He’s been to Australia, Japan, all over Europe, and even spent three weeks on location in China while filming his special, Big Bird in China.

According to Caroll Spinney, during the filming, their translators were convinced that the Sesame Street crew were spies and submitted reports on everything they did.

Another of Big Bird’s favorite gigs is making guest appearances with various orchestras. Most memorable was Big Bird’s evening with the Boston Pops, where maestro Arthur Fiedler stepped aside and let the big yellow bird conduct.^[7]

4 Big Bird’s A-List

A celebrity in his own right, Big Bird has hobnobbed with A-listers from all walks of life. He has visited the White House multiple times and appeared with at least six president’s wives, most famously waltzing with Michelle Obama in the produce section of a supermarket. He has appeared on countless TV shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show, Hollywood Squares, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Extreme Makeover, and Saturday Night Live.

Other celebrities who’ve swooned over this fine-feathered fowl, include the Queen of England, Darth Vader, NSYNC, Lin-Manual Miranda of Hamilton fame, the Dixie Chicks, and the Rockettes.^[8] Big Bird takes it all in stride and is just as happy to hang out with the kids who come to play on Sesame Street.

3 Don’t Mess With The Bird

For a fluffy yellow bird who’s eternally six years old, Big Bird has a lot of political clout. It was 2012, and then-governor Mitt Romney was running for president of the United States. He was doing quite well until he ran afoul of Big Bird.

During a debate with Barack Obama, Romney detailed his plan to reduce government spending. One idea was to cut funding to PBS, on which Sesame Street airs.

Romney said to moderator Jim Lehrer, who also worked for PBS: “I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. [ . . . ] I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things we have to borrow money from China to pay for.”^[9]

While cutting spending is always a great platform, the reference to Big Bird was a mistake. People who grew up on a steady diet of Sesame Street felt an immediate stab of anguish. Social media blew up with memes and snarky comments about the coldhearted politician who wanted to kill Big Bird. The focus of the debate shifted from a serious and somewhat wonky discussion of political issues to a media frenzy featuring pictures of a forlorn Big Bird holding a “Will Work for Food” sign.

Of course, comedians and late-night hosts had a field day, and while Romney tried to be a good sport, the damage was done. In the end, Romney lost the election to Barack Obama. Was it Big Bird’s fault? We’ll never know, but it’s a good guess that Romney would like a do-over day.

2 On Dying

Mr. Hooper was one of Big Bird’s favorite people. While somewhat curmudgeonly, the storekeeper loved his fluffy yellow friend and was always good for a birdseed milkshake.

When Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, died of a heart attack in December 1982, the shocked staff of Sesame Street were not sure how to handle it.^[10] Did Mr. Hooper move away or have a sudden change of appearance? The final decision was to make this a teaching moment and address the fact that death is part of life.

The “Farewell Mr. Hooper” episode was one of the most heartfelt of the Sesame Street shows, winning universal praise as well as daytime TV awards. According to Spinney, “It was one of the best things we ever did.”

In May 1990, Jim Henson died unexpectedly from pneumonia. His memorial service in New York City featured Big Bird singing Henson’s signature song, “Bein’ Green.” In a touching tribute to his beloved boss, Spinney managed to get through the song, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Life magazine later described the moment as epic and almost unbearably moving.

1 Species Of Origin

What kind of bird is he, anyway? That’s hard to say, as even Big Bird seems confused. Despite the efforts of expert researchers, his exact species remains a mystery, and answers to the question have been contradictory.

During a 1976 appearance on Hollywood Squares, host Peter Marshall asked Big Bird what kind of bird he was. “I’m a Lark,” Big Bird replied. In 1981, while appearing on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Big Bird said he was a “golden condor.” During 1987’s A Muppet Family Christmas special, Ma Bear refers to him as a huge canary, while the Swedish Chef declares Big Bird is a type of turkey, named “Gobbla Gobbla Humungo.” According to the 1998 book Sesame Street Unpaved, Big Bird’s scientific name is Biggius canarius (presumably again implying him to be a form of canary).

Big Bird has also been called a homing pigeon and a Rockin’ Robin after his performance of the eponymous song. He has additionally been pegged as a cassowary, an ibis, and a crane by various people.^[11] Finally, the fact that Big Bird can’t fly is attributed to his Grandpa, who is an emu. Said Big Bird, “Emus can’t fly, but they can run. Every fall, he ran south for the winter.”

In the end, specifics don’t matter. Big Bird makes people happy. He loves everyone, and everyone (well, maybe not Oscar the Grouch) loves him. The Bird has been around for almost 50 years and has no plans to retire. As you read this, Big Bird and his writers are no doubt hatching new and even more exciting adventures to captivate the next generation of kids.

Geanie is a writer by trade and a wanderer by nature, and she loves to combine the two activities whenever possible. You can follow her adventures at Library Lady Travels.

Classic Hollywood had about as many controversies, scandals, and seedy stories as it did guys in fedoras. And since the Academy Awards, or the Oscars to you and me, established themselves as the most prestigious and most coveted award ceremony in Tinseltown, it was natural that it would also garner a few of these controversies.  

10. A Coquettish Tea Party

It didn’t take long before the Oscars found themselves mired in controversy. In fact, it began with the second-ever ceremony thanks to an Academy Award of dubious distinction.

That year, Mary Pickford starred in Coquette. Known as “America’s Sweetheart,” Pickford had been one of the biggest stars of the silent era and this was her first talkie. Expectations were high, but the movie failed to make an impression on the critics or the public. Despite the flop, Pickford decided that she deserved an Oscar for her efforts and intended to convince the Academy of this, as well.

This was a lot easier back then. For starters, Pickford was a founding member of the Academy, as was her husband, fellow movie star Douglas Fairbanks. But more importantly, she only had to shmooze the five people who comprised the Board of Judges, since they were the ones who selected the winners. 

So one day, Pickford invited the judges over for a tea party at her lavish estate, Pickfair. Back then, this was probably one of the most glamorous locations in the country, described as “a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House… and much more fun.” An invitation there was one of Hollywood’s greatest honors so, unsurprisingly, the judges rewarded Pickford’s generosity with an Oscar.

Whether or not the judges were truly swayed by the tea party we cannot say with 100 percent certainty, but we do know one thing. Pickford’s Oscar win caused a big enough row that, the following year, voting was opened to all academy members.

9. The Two Franks

The Moonlight – La La Land mix-up for the Best Picture winner is one of the most noteworthy controversies in recent memory, but something similar happened all the way back in 1934. The ceremony was nowhere near as elaborate back then. The host of the show, Will Rogers, walked up to the podium and announced the winner for each category. When it came time to present the award for Best Director, Rogers simply proclaimed: “Come up and get it, Frank!” 

Just one problem – there were two Franks nominated for the award – Frank Lloyd and Frank Capra. Frank Lloyd was the actual winner but, as you might expect, both men got up and awkwardly made their way to the podium. But here’s how Capra himself described the experience:

“My table exploded into cheers and applause. It was a long way to the open dance floor, but I wedged through crowded tables…The spotlight searched around trying to find me. “Over here!” I waved. Then it suddenly swept away from me — and picked up a flustered man standing on the other side of the dance floor — Frank Lloyd! The applause was deafening as the spotlight escorted Frank Lloyd onto the dance floor and up to the dais, where Will Rogers greeted him with a big hug and a hearty handshake. I stood petrified in the dark, in utter disbelief, until an irate voice behind me shouted, “Down in the front!”

That walk back…was the longest, saddest, most shattering walk in my life. I wished I could have crawled under the rug like a miserable worm.”

8. The Write-In Winner

The Frank mix-up was not the only black eye of the 1934 ceremony. That year, the Academy was also heavily criticized for snubbing Bette Davis, who had received universal acclaim for her role as Mildred Rogers in the movie Of Human Bondage. Life Magazine even called it “probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress.” 

The Academy, however, did not feel like her efforts even merited a nomination. Many were angry, while others even suspected that Davis had been intentionally omitted because her role was that of a semi-villainous, selfish, and unsympathetic character, and the Academy did not want to encourage such roles for their biggest stars.

Anyway, in an attempt to quell the outrage, the Academy made an unexpected change to the following year’s awards – they allowed write-in votes. It’s pretty safe to say that they weren’t actually expecting any write-in to win, but Warner Bros. decided to take full advantage of this new rule and campaigned heavily for write-in nominations in every category where they didn’t already have a candidate. 

And they succeeded. Their guy, Hal Mohr, an industry veteran who previously worked on the iconic The Jazz Singer, won Best Cinematography for A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The Academy dropped the rule soon after, thus cementing Hal Mohr as the first and only write-in winner in Oscar history.

7. The First Refusal

Refusing an Oscar is a very rare occurrence, but it has happened. It’s not like the winners are legally obligated to receive the awards. The most famous example is Marlon Brando, who refused his Oscar for The Godfather in 1973 and, in one of the most infamous moments in the ceremony’s history, sent Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to highlight the protest organized by Native American activists at Wounded Knee. And not only was she almost universally booed but, according to her, John Wayne had to be restrained from rushing the stage to remove her.

The first-ever refusal, however, happened much earlier, back in 1935. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols won the Best Screenplay Oscar for The Informer but did not accept the award due to an ongoing writers’ strike. The Screen Writers Guild was boycotting the Oscars because, as you will find out shortly, the Academy was not a fan of unions. 

Ultimately, though, the matter got sorted and Nichols finally accepted his Oscar a few years later, during the 1938 ceremony.

6. The First Stolen Oscar

At the 1938 ceremony, Alice Brady won Best Supporting Actress for her role in In Old Chicago. The actress, however, was unable to attend the festivities and collect her prize because she was at home with a broken ankle. Instead, a mystery man walked on stage, accepted the award on her behalf, and promptly walked off. Neither he nor the award was ever seen again. That’s the story of the first stolen Oscar or, at least, that’s been the story for eight decades until one curious student decided to investigate it and get to the truth. 

The Academy is extremely tight-lipped when it comes to information regarding “mishaps” involving their awards, so they were no help. Alice Brady died of cancer the following year, so she had never given her version of events. But the intrepid student found an old newspaper photograph of Brady receiving the award post-engraving, so it did eventually make its way to her. 

And as far as the mystery man was concerned, there was no mystery about it – it was the director of In Old Chicago, Henry King. He accepted the award on Brady’s behalf, went out partying that night, and then returned it to the Academy to have it engraved. What exactly happened with it after Alice Brady died remains unclear, although it did make its way to auction in 2008. It was sold to an anonymous buyer so the only remaining mystery is the current location of the first stolen Oscar that was never actually stolen.

5. Marketing for Marty

Just a few years after the Academy Awards came into existence, studios learned that the tagline “Oscar winner” was a great way of promoting their movies and their stars, so they began actively campaigning for Oscar nods. The first film to get this treatment was 1936’s Ah, Wilderness! from Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The studio splashed out on an eight-page advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter, even depicting MGM mascot Leo the Lion in a tuxedo, getting ready to receive an Oscar. 

The campaign was a giant flop and the movie received zero nominations at that year’s ceremony. The failure put off other studios for a few years, but eventually, they came back in full force, and they probably culminated in 1955, with a little movie named Marty. Starring Ernest Borgnine, Marty had a modest budget of around $340,000. However, the studio then spent between $350,000 and $400,000 to promote the movie, thus turning it into the first film where the marketing costs outweighed the production costs. And their strategy panned out – Marty won four Oscars, including Best Picture.

4. Hattie Makes History

The 1940 edition of the Academy Awards featured a landmark moment in American history when Hattie McDaniel became the first Black person to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone with the Wind. However, the circumstances surrounding this momentous occasion served to remind everyone of the racist realities faced by the Black community, even those who were celebrated.

It started on December 15, 1939, when the film premiered in segregated Atlanta. McDaniel wasn’t there for a simple reason – she was not allowed inside the theater where her movie was playing. Then the same problem arose at the Oscars, which were taking place at the swanky Cocoanut Grove nightclub inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The hotel had a “no-Black people” policy and it was necessary for MGM bigwig David O. Selznick to call in a few favors to even get McDaniel accepted inside the venue. And even when he did, McDaniel could not sit at the same table as her white co-stars. Since Gone with the Wind had garnered 13 nominations, it was the heavy favorite, and, unsurprisingly, the stars of the film and O. Selznick himself were seated at a place of honor, front and center. Hattie McDaniel, on the other hand, stood at a small table against the far wall, alongside her escort and her manager.  

McDaniel’s historic win didn’t even help her career. She got typecast in domestic roles and received heavy criticism from the Black community for perpetuating a negative stereotype. As a final insult, her wish to be buried in Hollywood Cemetery was also denied because they, too, had a whites-only policy.

3. The Blacklisted Winner

A unique situation arose at the 1956 Academy Awards ceremony when a writer named Robert Rich won the Oscar for Best Original Story for The Brave One, not to be confused with Best Screenplay. Robert Rich did not appear to accept the award for a simple reason – he did not exist.

The name was a pseudonym. On its own, this would not be too embarrassing. After all, artists use pseudonyms all the time, but this particular nom de guerre had been used by a man who had been blacklisted in Hollywood – Dalton Trumbo.

Trumbo was one of the most successful screenwriters from Classic Hollywood, responsible, among other things, for Roman Holiday and Spartacus. He was also the most prominent member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of writers and directors who had been blacklisted in 1947 for their Communist sympathies. 

Even so, someone of Trumbo’s talents could not simply be discarded, so studios continued using him under aliases or as a ghostwriter. This also meant they could pay him peanuts compared to what he was worth. But his win for The Brave One meant that the jig was up and, even though Trumbo started getting work as himself from 1960 on, it wasn’t until 1975 that the Academy officially recognized him as the winning screenwriter and presented him with his Oscar.

2. Hollywood’s Longest Feud

Some scandals are too big to be contained in a single awards ceremony. Case in point: the legendary feud between two of classic Hollywood’s biggest stars – Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – that lasted for over three decades and culminated at the 35th Academy Awards.

Supposedly, their rivalry started way back in 1933. Bette Davis had just starred in Ex-Lady, her first film where her name was prominently featured above the title. However, nobody in Hollywood cared because everyone was talking about Joan Crawford’s public divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This was enough to get the animosity started, but the two women officially became enemies in 1935, when Crawford married the man Davis had fallen in love with, her co-star in the movie Dangerous, Franchot Tone. 

Bette Davis ended up winning the Oscar for her role in that movie at the 1936 Awards, but Crawford still got the last laugh. She threw some vintage shade at Davis when they met following Bette’s big win. Instead of congratulating her, Crawford said “Dear Bette! What a lovely frock.”

The feud simmered for the next couple of decades, with occasional jabs and snipes in the press. In 1945, Joan Crawford won her only Oscar for Mildred Pierce, in a role which, to her delight, Bette Davis had turned down. Then, in 1962, the unthinkable happened – the two women signed on to star in the same movie – the seminal psychological horror What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

According to others involved in production, neither actress shied away from getting physical with the other when the occasion arose, but it was at the 1963 Oscars that their feud reached a climax. Davis had been nominated for her role in the movie. Crawford had not, but she still intended to steal her co-star’s thunder. She started calling up other nominees, offering to accept on their behalf should they not make it to the ceremony. According to Davis, Crawford also started campaigning against her.

Anne Bancroft took Crawford up on her offer. She was busy on Broadway and, as it happened, she was nominated in the same category as Bette Davis. And she won, thus forcing Davis to smile and clap while her arch-rival got on stage to accept the award.

1. No Unions in Hollywood

Nowadays, the Motion Picture Academy is chiefly known for the Oscars since that is its main responsibility, but that’s not why it was created almost 100 years ago. In fact, the Academy’s original goal was to stop actors, directors, and writers from unionizing. 

Officially, its stated goal was to act as a mediator and “help studios arbitrate contracts.” If any kind of dispute should arise between the talent and the studio, the Academy was supposed to intervene and find a reasonable solution so that there would never be a need for any of those pesky unions. They’ll even give the stars some shiny golden statues to make them feel validated.

Nobody bought it, though. Everyone in Hollywood knew that the Academy was the brainchild of MGM bigwig Louis B. Mayer and his executive cronies and that its true goal was to rubber-stamp whatever the studios wanted. That’s why actual unions in the form of the Screen Actors and Screen Writers Guilds appeared just a few years later, followed soon after by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, despite the best efforts of the Academy and the studios.

In any movie or TV show about crime you know things are serious when the FBI shows up. The FBI is like the big leagues of criminal investigation, none of this amateur junk dealing with small time crime. This is for serial killers and organized crime and international drug smuggling.  Yep, the FBI are the real professionals. Except for when they screw up really, really badly.

10. For Decades the FBI Produced Flawed or Altered Evidence in Hundreds of Trials

Many people in the Western world have a passing familiarity with the criminal justice system not by firsthand experience but through fiction. Shows like Law and Order and CSI have routinely been in the most watched television shows for decades with hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. CSI even spawned the idea of the “CSI Effect,” which blames the show for skewing the way jurors expect evidence to be presented in trials, despite the fact that real world evidence of the effect is harder to nail down. 

Whether the effect is real, the anecdotal ideas that come with it are generally accepted. Agencies like the FBI should collect forensic evidence that can be used at trial to help put bad guys away! Except we have evidence that the FBI bungled that harder than you could ever imagine.

In 2015, the FBI admitted that, for nearly two decades leading up to the year 2000, almost all the evidence given at trial by almost all of their experts in the microscopic hair comparison unit was utter trash. Twenty-six of the 28 experts overstated matches, which is a fancy way of saying they lied, in a way that favored the prosecution. They did this in 95% of nearly 300 trials that were reviewed.

This scandal was part of a much larger issue with FBI abuses of evidence that was kicked off all the way back in 1994 by a whistleblower named Dr. Frederic Whitehurst. Whitehurst noted systemic abuses including altered reports, alterations of evidence and people testifying outside their areas of expertise. 

Because he was reporting the FBI to itself, it was years before anything came of Whitehurst’s revelations. A full decade passed before the Justice Department finished their own investigation, which only took place after the FBI ignored Whitehurst and he had to go to outside sources.

Some cases Whitehurst brought up with flawed practices included the OJ trial, Oklahoma City, and the first World Trade Center bombing.

9. Counterintelligence Agent Robert Hanssen was a Russian Spy

Any organization probably doesn’t want a spy on the payroll. That’s as true of a weapon’s manufacturer as it is of KFC, what with that secret recipe of theirs. But a place like the FBI needs to be really careful about moles or else it triggers a whole Mission: Impossible scenario that probably even Tom Cruise can’t fix. 

Luckily, the FBI is on top of this kind of thing as has people on staff whose job it is to hunt down moles and eliminate them. People like Robert Hanssen who, ironically, turned out to be the mole he was hunting. What are the odds?!?

Hanssen became an agent back in 1976. Over the course of his career he provided the Soviet Union and later Russia with an abundance of top secret info for which they paid him $1.4 million. Some of that was even in diamonds, which is very James Bondian. He was caught in 2001. 

Hanssen was a counterintelligence agent, which made him very effective at being a spy since it was his job to detect people doing what he was doing. He even got a CIA agent investigated for two years as both agencies knew someone was leaking info, they just did not know who.

When he was finally caught, it was the result of 300 other agents actively investigating him. He ended up being sentenced to life in prison where he died in 2023. The FBI called him “the most damaging spy in Bureau history.”

8. The FBI Had Trouble Finding Cybersecurity Experts Because Of Their Own Policies

While one stereotype of the FBI sees them as an elite crime-fighting agency, another depicts them as kind of lame. A little bit square, if you will. By-the-book, suit-wearing sticklers for rules and protocol. And that may not be 100% true all the time, it has been true enough that it bit the agency in the butt publicly at least once.

When cybercrime became more than just a weird Hollywood idea for suspense, law enforcement needed to get on board with the new reality that a lot of crime was going to happen virtually. Since “old” agents were not as up to date on technology, they needed newer, tech savvy recruits to head up burgeoning cyber crime units. But that was a problem because of FBI rules.

To be in the FBI you can’t do things like smoke weed, for instance. They’ll drug test to make sure. But when you’re trying to hire hackers from a civilian population, this is an issue because nearly everyone they were interviewing smoked weed. 

In 2014, FBI Director James Comey stated they were having issues hiring and expanding the division because so many of the best people smoked weed and FBI rules wouldn’t allow them to be hired. They were forced into a corner where loosening that restriction was their best option. Later he pulled back and said he was just joking when called out by a senator because weed is bad, kids. 

7. Burglars Once Robbed An FBI Office After Asking the FBI to Leave the Door Unlocked

You would assume it’s very rare that anyone breaks into the FBI offices, Tom Cruise and Scientology (again) notwithstanding. Any regular burglar would have to be very crafty, indeed. Bold and smart and with nerves of steel. How would they even get on premises in the first place?

If you guessed “by leaving a note asking people not to lock the door” then you’d be correct. In 1970, a group looking to explore the secret spying of J. Edgar Hoover was planning raids on FBI field offices and hit a snag in Delaware. They couldn’t pretend to be locksmiths replacing the lock and no one had the skill to pick it. Instead, one of them wrote a note asking for it to be left unlocked. When they returned in the night, it was unlocked. They stole their files and left.

6. The FBI Tried To Infiltrate Mosques Which Then Reported Their Informant as a Terrorist

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the way the FBI did a lot of things. One of their big changes involved a much heavier focus on surveillance of American Muslims. For years afterwards and probably to this day the FBI has focused on infiltrating mosques and other Muslim gathering places in search of intelligence on terrorism. 

In their fervor to find the next bin Laden, they seriously stumbled and no place worse than in Irvine, California. It was there that the FBI sent an undercover informant named Craig Monteilh. His job was to get into the mosque, record anyone saying terroristy things, and have the FBI come and take away the trash!

The problem was that there were no terrorists in the mosque, just people minding their business. Monteilh seemed to fit in at first, converting in front of others and making friends. But as he proceeded to secretly record video and audio of his new friends, he was such a creepy disruption to everyone, talking constantly about violent jihad, that the people of the mosque went to law enforcement to report him and get a restraining order.

5. The 1986 Miami Shootout Was a Blundered Operation That Led to Several Deaths

April 11, 1986 was the date of one of the bloodiest shootouts in FBI history. Agents in Miami were chasing a pair of known armed robbers. They were known to use high powered weapons, and they were violent, so many agents were in pursuit of them – eight in five cars.

The agents tried to run the criminals off the road, and all hell effectively broke loose. The two men had far superior firepower and unloaded on all five cars. The agents were using standard issue weapons and ammo with standard issue bullet proof vests. They did next to nothing.

Two agents died in the firefight, three were grievously wounded, and two more sustained less severe injuries. Only one didn’t get hurt at all. The assailants had ammo that blasted through the cars and through the vests of the agents and eventually led to improved ammo for law enforcement as a result.

While new ammo is maybe an upside, so many things went wrong to get there. Agents in the pursuit were not communicating their position well. Backup was late as a result. Agents on scene also reported a variety of physiological effects like time distortions, auditory problems like not hearing warnings and tunnel vision, all brought on by the intense stress they were not prepared to endure.  Better preparation and training could have saved lives and while the incident led to those things, it was too late for the slain and injured back in 1986.

4. It’s a Wonderful Life Was Investigated by the FBI 

The FBI runs on your tax dollars so it’s good to know they’re spending money wisely. Like how the Bureau investigated the movie It’s a Wonderful Life for being communist propaganda back in the day. 

What set them off? The banker character, Mr. Potter, is portrayed as bad in the film. To the FBI that meant the movie was suggesting capitalism is bad. And the movie also focuses on the main character’s depression, which was also considered anti-American. 

During the investigation, agents noted the screenwriters had been observed having lunch with known Communists. They deemed the movie subversive and then, you know, that was it. 

3. The FBI Allegedly Tracked Falafel Purchases to Find Terrorists

So if you’re in the FBI and you need to find potential terrorists, what do you do? Talk to informants? Dig into people’s background or communications? In 2007, it was reported that the agency was hunting down people who bought falafel and tahini.

According to reports, which the FBI denied, there was an effort in 2005 and 2006 to data mine purchases of Middle Eastern ingredients in stores in California to see if there was a spike in sales of things like falafel. This, combined with other data, would be used to focus on targets. That was the story, anyway. Again, the FBI denied this happened despite other sources claiming to have found evidence of it that later mysteriously disappeared. 

2. The FBI Framed Four Men for Murder 

A good way to make yourself sound paranoid is to talk about how you think the FBI is setting you up. Because that’s crazy talk, right? Why would the FBI ever set up someone for a crime when it’s their job to solve crimes? Heh!

Turns out that yes, the FBI have absolutely set up people for crimes they didn’t commit. In 2007, the FBI was ordered to pay $101 million for framing four men for murder. Why did they do such a thing? To protect the actual murderer who then agreed to become one of their informants. 

The story dates back 40 years prior to the payout, after released documents showed the FBI was trying to cozy up to a pair of mobsters and let them frame the four men to cover their crimes. Only two of the four men were still alive at the time the story broke. All four had been convicted and given life sentences, three of which were commuted from death sentences.

1. The FBI Tried to Build a RICO Case Against the Wu-Tang Clan

Watch enough shows about organized crime, like The Sopranos or Sons of Anarchy, and you’re going to learn about RICO cases. RICO stands for “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act” which is specifically used to target gangs. If law enforcement can prove a gang of people conspired to commit various crimes, not only can they be charged with those crimes but RICO as well which makes it a Federal crime with much stiffer prison sentences. 

For a while, the FBI was investigating the Wu Tang Clan under RICO at the behest of the NYPD. The Wu Tang Clan as in the musicians, not a group of criminals who were using the same name. 

Far be it from us to suggest that Ol’ Dirty Bastard was not prone to bending the odd law, but the man was no Cosa Nostra, either. Despite that, during the 90s and beyond, the FBI was investigating the group for ties to drugs, guns, murder, carjackings and more. They were fully convinced the Clan was up to no good. 

The story came to light after an FOIA request following ODB’s death and it seems like the FBI eventually gave up on their attempts since none of the rest of the crew were ever put away from organized crime-related charges.

We’ve witnessed some jaw-dropping business scandals that raised eyebrows and sent shockwaves through financial corridors. Picture this as an economic rollercoaster with twists, turns, and a fair share of ups and downs. So grab your seat belts as we ride through ten business scandals so big they shook the economy.

Related: 10 Scandalous Pyramid Schemes

10 Deepwater Horizon

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster was an event that sent shockwaves through the business world, leaving an impact on the economy. In April 2010, an offshore drilling rig operated by BP suffered a blowout, leading to a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident resulted in the loss of 11 lives and caused damage to marine life and coastal ecosystems.

At the heart of the scandal were oversights and negligence in safety procedures. The blowout preventer, a crucial safety device, failed to activate, allowing millions of barrels of oil to gush into the ocean for 87 days before the well was capped. The environmental fallout was devastating, with damage to fisheries, wildlife habitats, and the livelihoods of communities along the Gulf Coast.

BP faced immense public backlash, legal battles, and a significant financial toll. The company eventually pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay billions in settlements and fines. The Deepwater Horizon disaster reminds us of the importance of corporate responsibility and the consequences that can arise from negligence in the pursuit of profit.

9 Lehman Brothers

In the mid-2000s, a financial storm was brewing. Lehman Brothers, a giant in the banking world, was at the heart of it. The scandal that rocked the economy was none other than the subprime housing crisis.

Lehman Brothers got tangled up in the subprime mortgage mess like many others. Banks were lending money to people who couldn’t afford it, particularly for homes. These were called subprime mortgages. Lehman Brothers invested heavily in these risky loans, thinking the housing market was invincible.

However, in 2008, the bubble burst. People couldn’t pay their mortgages, and the value of homes plummeted. Lehman Brothers faced a mountain of debt and, shockingly, filed for bankruptcy in September. This wasn’t just any bankruptcy. It was the largest in U.S. history at the time.

The Lehman Brothers collapse sent shockwaves through the financial world, triggering a global economic crisis. Many lost their jobs, homes, and savings. The subprime housing crisis taught us about the dangers of risky financial practices, leaving a lasting impact on how we view and regulate the world of finance.

8 Turing Pharmaceuticals

Turing Pharmaceuticals’ price gouging is a notorious chapter in business scandals that left a lasting impact. In 2015, the company, led by CEO Martin Shkreli, gained infamy for increasing the price of Daraprim, a life-saving drug used to treat infections. The price skyrocketed from $13.50 to a staggering $750 per pill overnight, causing an uproar across the nation.

This scandal shed light on the darker side of the pharmaceutical industry, where profit motives sometimes overshadow humanitarian concerns. Daraprim, a medication vital for those with a compromised immune system, became unaffordable, leading to concerns about access to essential healthcare.

The public outrage prompted investigations, and Shkreli, dubbed “the most hated man in America,” faced legal consequences. Turing Pharmaceuticals’ actions sparked a broader conversation about the ethics of drug pricing and the need for regulations to prevent such exploitative practices.

This scandal highlights the importance of ethical business practices and the potential consequences when companies prioritize profits over people’s well-being.

7 Bear Stearns

Bear Stearns Companies Inc., known for its role in the investment banking industry, faced a tumultuous downfall in 2008. At the heart of the scandal was the subprime mortgage crisis. The housing market collapse triggered a chain reaction across the financial sector.

Bear Stearns, heavily invested in risky mortgage-backed securities, faced severe financial strain. In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, the company faced a liquidity crisis as clients and investors began losing confidence. The situation reached a critical point in March 2008 when Bear Stearns teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

The Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase stepped in with a bailout plan to prevent a complete financial catastrophe. JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns at a mere fraction of its market value, marking one of the most significant moments in the 2008 financial crisis. The Bear Stearns scandal shows risky financial practices and the far-reaching impact a single company’s downfall can have on the broader economy.

6 Valeant Pharmaceuticals

Once hailed as a rising star in the pharmaceutical industry, Valeant Pharmaceuticals faced a staggering downfall. Their demise was caused by a scandal that left investors and the public in disbelief. At the heart of the controversy was Valeant’s aggressive drug pricing strategy. The company would acquire existing medications and then hike prices, sometimes by astronomical percentages. This garnered widespread criticism and drew the attention of regulators and lawmakers.

As investigations unfolded, it was revealed that Valeant had engaged in questionable accounting practices, creating a web of complex relationships with specialty pharmacies to boost sales. These practices inflated the company’s revenues, leading to a false portrayal of its financial health.

The fallout was swift and severe. Valeant’s stock plummeted, erasing billions in market value. Executives faced legal scrutiny, and the scandal sparked debates about ethics and corporate responsibility. The Valeant Pharmaceuticals scandal shows us what happens when companies prioritize profits over integrity. It left a lasting impact on the pharmaceutical industry and prompted a reevaluation of business practices to prevent such issues.

5 Barclays Libor Manipulation

The Barclays Libor Manipulation scandal is a shocking episode that shook the economy. Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate, is a global benchmark interest rate. In 2012, Barclays, a prominent British bank, faced scrutiny when it was revealed that they manipulated Libor rates to benefit their trading positions.

Essentially, Barclays dishonestly reported lower interest rates to appear more financially stable than they were. This deceitful practice had far-reaching consequences, impacting the integrity of the global financial system. The scandal tarnished Barclays’ reputation and raised concerns about the trustworthiness of other financial institutions.

As a result of the scandal, Barclays faced hefty fines and legal repercussions. The incident shed light on the need for stronger regulations and oversight in the banking industry. It served as a wake-up call for businesses and regulators alike, highlighting the importance of maintaining transparency and ethical practices in the financial world.

4 Enron

In the early 2000s, Enron was an energy company that, at its peak, was considered a model of success. However, it all came crashing down when it was revealed that executives had engaged in widespread financial fraud. They manipulated accounting practices to hide debts and inflate profits, painting a rosy picture of the company’s health when, in reality, it was on the verge of collapse.

The scandal led to thousands of employees losing their jobs and retirement, and investors faced significant financial losses. Enron’s tale serves as a reminder that even the mightiest can fall when honesty and integrity are compromised. The Enron scandal prompted a reevaluation of corporate governance and financial regulations to prevent such catastrophic events.

3 Facebook Privacy

Imagine sharing your secrets with a close friend, only to find out they’ve been telling everyone. That’s what happened when Facebook, the social media giant we all thought was keeping our secrets safe, was mishandling our personal information.

In 2018, it was discovered that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, accessed data from millions of Facebook users without their knowledge or consent. This data included personal details, likes, and even friend lists. It wasn’t just a small leak—it was a floodgate opening to potential misuse of information.

The scandal raised concerns about user privacy and sparked a global conversation about the responsibilities of tech companies. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, faced scrutiny as he testified before Congress, promising changes to protect user data. This incident prompted users to rethink what they share online. It led to increased calls for better laws to safeguard our digital lives.

2 Baninter

In the early 2000s, the Dominican Republic faced a financial earthquake. Baninter (Banco International), once a respected bank, crumbled under the weight of fraudulent activities. In 2003, it was revealed that bank executives had been cooking the books, creating a façade of financial stability while hiding debts. The scam reached a staggering $3.7 billion, leaving investors and customers in disbelief.

As the truth unfolded, panic rippled through the nation. People who had trusted Baninter with their savings faced financial ruin. The government had to intervene, injecting billions to stabilize the economy and restore confidence in the financial system.

The Baninter scandal shook the Dominican Republic’s economy and underscored the need for stringent oversight to prevent similar catastrophes. This chapter in financial history teaches us that trust and honesty are the pillars of a stable economy. When those crumble, the repercussions are felt by everyone.

1 Jerome Kerviel

Jerome Kerviel, a former junior trader at Société Générale, found himself at the center of a financial storm in 2008. He accumulated a staggering €70 billion of unauthorized trades, surpassing the bank’s risk limits. His actions shocked everyone, as the losses jeopardized the stability of one of France’s leading financial institutions.

Kerviel’s risky maneuvers included fictitious trades and deceptive practices to hide his activities. When the truth came to light, it led to panic in financial markets. It prompted a massive bailout operation by Société Générale. The scandal exposed flaws in risk management systems within the banking industry and raised questions about accountability.

This real-life financial thriller drives home the need for transparency, oversight, and ethical behavior in business. The Jerome Kerviel trading scandal remains a landmark event that shaped discussions on financial regulations and the need for stricter controls to prevent such economic scares.

Hands up, who’s got a smartphone? All 2.71 billion of you. Now keep your hands up if you know a) how it was made, b) how it gets disposed of when you’re on to your next one, and c) what it does to your health and freedom in the meantime. 

That probably only five people still have their hand up is by no means an accident; it’s good for business. Because if you had known you probably wouldn’t have got one in the first place. You certainly wouldn’t want to keep the one you have — although, for reasons we’ll get into, it may be too late for you now.

From utterly horrifying to utterly, utterly, disgustingly horrifying, here are 10 things Big Tech would rather keep a secret.

10. Smartphones are designed to fail

Although smartphones could easily last more than three years, most people dispose of them sooner. Why? It’s not, as it should be, for all the reasons here, but because of planned obsolescence. This is a business strategy comprising various techniques to ensure there’s always demand for new phones. 

These techniques include high repair costs (e.g. for screens) versus buying a new device, the scarcity of genuine parts, short warranties, and clever marketing. All of these approaches are coercive more than anything. But planned obsolescence more specifically refers to failures built into the software or hardware of your (their) device. Apple, for example, has been accused of deliberately slowing down iPhones with an “update”. They deny it, of course, but have nevertheless agreed to settle with its customers (products) for $25 per device.

9. Your smartphone diminishes your quality of life

There are two ways to use a smartphone — consciously (what researchers call the ‘Aware’ mode) and unconsciously (the ‘Unaware’ mode). Most of us will immediately recognize the difference as that between us using the technology and the technology using us. Unsurprisingly, high levels of smartphone use in the Unaware mode have been linked to diminished quality of life (measured in positive feeling, competence, and functioning).

What’s worrying about this is that smartphones aren’t a habit afflicting just a few, like smoking. It’s total. Hence the concerns for generations raised in a world where smartphones have always existed. ‘Generation Z’, for example, or ‘iGen’, differs starkly from its predecessors, the ‘Millennials’ — more starkly than Millennials from ‘Generation X’ and than any other generation has from its own predecessor.

One key difference is in how they spend their time. Since the release of the iPhone in 2007, teenagers are reportedly spending less time hanging out with friends, dating, having sex, or even sleeping — and more time feeling lonely. Instead of meeting up, teenagers tend to inhabit virtual spaces online — apps and websites. And it’s not making them happy. According to the Monitoring the Future survey, those who spend more time looking at their smartphones, and social media, are far more likely to be unhappy with their lives.

8. Smartphone apps are intentionally addictive

How many times a day do you check your smartphone? In typical addict fashion, even heavy users probably underestimate it; the average for Americans is 262 times per day. What is our fascination with these little black mirrors?

Well the truth is it’s not our fault, or even our choice. Smartphones are addictive by design. According to app developer Peter Mezyk, “the success of an app is often measured by the extent to which it introduces a new habit.” Why? Because attention pays. The more time our focus languishes on social media and other apps, the more ad revenue their creators rake in. Your mind is the product, not the customer. Former employees of Apple, Google, Facebook, and others have placed this beyond any doubt. 

In fact, there’s now an industry standard for encouraging addiction. It’s based on a model devised by Stanford psychology professor B.J. Fogg, and works by generating a stimulus around negative emotions such as boredom or loneliness. 

7. “Your” smartphone is a surveillance device

Edward Snowden famously risked his life to reveal how closely the US and other governments monitor their citizens. It’s part of the reason why VPNs are, for some of us at least, the new normal. But we still carry the snoops in our pockets. Thanks to virtually untraceable spyware, all governments now have the ability to access our smartphones without our knowledge. And it’s an ability they exploit.

It’s not just America. The Polish government has gathered data from dissenting journalists’ phones for use in smear campaigns against them; the Hungarian government has deployed spyware to monitor NGOs; Greece has used it to cover up corruption; the Spanish have used it to monitor individuals involved with the Catalan independence movement… The list goes on. And it’s hardly surprising. 

What is surprising is the ignorance of smartphone surveillance capabilities even among those most at risk. Protestors, for example, continue to carry their personal tracking devices — allowing police to identify and track them with ease.

6. Checking your smartphone ruins your eyesight and skin

Most smartphone users don’t care about their eyesight; either that or they don’t know the risks. According to the Vision Council, 80% of Americans look at their devices for more than two hours per day — and 59% have digital eye strain. Worryingly, this damage to retinal cells can lead to age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, eye cancer, and growths on the whites of the eyes. Making matters worse is people tend to blink less when looking at screens. You’ve probably felt your eyes drying out and the headaches that result.

If you think you’ve got youth on your side, beware: the opposite is true. Children’s eyes actually absorb more blue light, placing them at greater risk of diseases.

But it’s not just the eyes. High levels of artificial light also stress the skin — both indirectly, by upsetting sleep patterns, and directly, by oxidative stress. Studies have revealed that exposure to short-wavelength visible light (such as blue light), even for short periods of time, can generate cell-destabilizing molecules (reactive oxygen species) and consequently the early death of skin cells. The result is accelerated aging and wrinkles. But there is a silver lining: Given the concurrent damage to your eyesight, it may be less visible in selfies.

5. Smartphones cause debilitating mental illness

The most obvious and widespread mental harm associated with smartphone use is the stress of being constantly networked. Users feel compelled to respond to every message they get, when they get it, so as to maintain this connection. Studies show us what we already feel numerous times each day: that notifications activate the sympathetic nervous system, releasing adrenaline that in turn increases the heart rate and muscle tension. It takes 30 minutes for the body to stabilize again, and this is 30 minutes many of us never get. 

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Other chronic problems include sleep disruption, cyberbullying, emotional dysregulation, depression, anxiety, impaired cognitive function, low self-esteem and social avoidance.

We don’t need studies to tell us these things, but surveys of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders between 1991 and 2016 show that adolescents spending less time on electronic communication were happier.

4. Smartphones are physically hurting you

We’ve already mentioned how blue light can be damaging to the eyes and skin. It gets worse. By disrupting your circadian rhythm and diminishing sleep quality, it can also contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The manual labvor involved in using a smartphone (unnatural repetitive hand and neck movements) could also lead to trapeziometacarpal osteoarthritis and neck strain. In fact, the force of strain on the neck is 40 pounds at a 30-degree tilt and 60 pounds at 60 degrees — the equivalent of having a child sitting on the back of your neck every time you look down at your phone.

But it’s not just the blue light; it’s also the exposure to radiofrequency-modulated electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs). Spending just 50 minutes on a cell phone call has been found to increase brain glucose metabolism in the region of the brain closest to the antenna. And while it’s not clear what harms this might cause (including to young people’s developing brains), RF-EMF emissions are linked to cancer, and phone use to increased risk of brain tumors. Even on a day-to-day basis, since RF-EMF frequencies sometimes correspond to those in neuronal tissue, it’s feared they could interfere with cognition. Even tiny interferences could have a butterfly effect. It has also been shown that EMFs can penetrate cells and interact with mitochondrial DNA, ultimately destroying through oxidative stress. At the very least, it could lead to electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

And while it’s easy to forget while looking at your smartphone, we still share this world with other creatures — many of whom have been negatively affected by the spike in EMF radiation. There’s heaps of evidence for harms caused to ants, birds, frogs, bees, rodents, plants, and other wildlife. Bees, for example, when exposed to cell phone EMFs for just 10 minutes per day for ten days, don’t return to their hives. This is because they rely on the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate.

3. Smartphones are assembled in sweatshops

Workers’ (and human) rights abuses at FOXCONN in China, where Apple and Sony get their phones made, are relatively well known — and entirely unresolved. Workers are still paid less than they need to get by, even on overtime hours (which are often not paid as a punishment for not meeting quotas). They’re also exposed to toxins without protection and lied to and abused by their managers (who, for example, have promised double pay to ramp up production but only paid standard in the end). If they want to resign, they have to ask permission, and permission is often denied. They are, in other words, slaves. So it’s no wonder suicide is common there.

But it’s not just FOXCONN or Apple or Sony. All smartphones rely on cheap labor. Another example is Samsung’s sweatshops in Vietnam, where among the mostly female workforce miscarriages are a routine and expected occurrence. Most of their time, even while pregnant, is spent standing causing dizziness and fainting. The toxic fumes don’t help, or the haphazard mix of day-shifts and nights. Even “free time” is painful, since factory dormitories intentionally keep mothers separate from their families.

2. Children die mining cobalt for batteries

More than half the world’s cobalt supply, which smartphone manufacturers depend on for the batteries, comes from hand-dug mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Euphemistically known as ‘artisanal mines’ (ASM), these places are hell on earth.

The true extent of the horror isn’t clear because most of it gets covered up. But what we do know paints a chilling picture. Tens of thousands of children as young as seven years old, all on less than $2 per day, work up to 12 hours a day carrying heavy loads, breathing toxic dust, and contracting skin diseases underground. Accidents are common, resulting in loss of limbs and life, with many bodies left buried in the rubble.

And while the big brands claim to be against child labor, the truth is they’d be smaller without it. So it’s no surprise that, according to Amnesty, they’re not even investigating suppliers. After all, since few smartphone users in the developed world really care, there’s very little pressure to do so. The problem is now so entrenched that “ethical” smartphone alternatives like Fairphone find it impossible to separate ASM-supplied cobalt from other sources. 

1. Smartphones are ravaging the planet

Although your smartphone activity might feel relatively carbon neutral — at least between charges from a power outlet — the data centers required to process all the information involved consume masses of energy. Phone towers too. In the US alone, 4G uses 31 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year, which is enough to power 2.6 million households. 5G is expected to use triple this amount. 

Beyond this, there’s the even bigger impact of manufacture and especially mining. Mining (not just for cobalt but for all the materials invovled, including gold and silver) accounts for as much as 95% of your smartphone’s total carbon footprint during its lifetime… which isn’t very long.

Once you’re done with it, it continues to wreak havoc on the planet. Discarded electronics (or ‘e-waste’) reached a mass of 43 million tons in 2016 alone — equivalent to 4,500 Eiffel Towers. But it’s out of sight, out of mind for most Americans. The hellscapes of e-waste dumps are far away in the developing world, in China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, and other countries where regulations are lacking.

Extortion not only sullies the reputations of the accused, but it also typically results in serious time behind bars and may include thousands of dollars in fines for the extortionists themselves. Such crimes frequently make the news, especially when their victims are as famous as the actors, models, producer, celebrity chef, late-night television host, and rock-and-roll star’s widow on this list. No doubt about it: shakedowns can, and do, backfire big time.

Related: Top 10 Pieces Of Nazi German Propaganda That Backfired

10 Driving Ms. Ono

It wasn’t enough that Yoko Ono’s chauffeur, Koral Karsan, of Amityville, New York, wanted $2 million of her money; he also felt it necessary to have hit men standing by to murder her, a prosecutor said. Karsan’s attempt to shakedown John Lennon’s widow backfired big time when he was arrested on December 13, 2006, for first-degree attempted grand larceny. The driver said that Ono had engineered his arrest to prevent his pursuit of a sexual harassment case.

Karsan claimed to possess “embarrassing recordings and photographs of Ono,” a New York Times article states, and, once he returned home to Turkey, he planned to publish statements about them in a book, distribute the recordings to “European broadcast stations,” and showcase the photos on a secure Iranian Internet site.

After he ruined her life and those of her children, Karsan told Ono’s lawyer, Jonas Herbsman, he would have Ono killed. Karsan had been in Ono’s employ for six years or more, and he received an annual salary between $150,000 and $200,000 from her. Apparently, he wanted more.

In 2007, the charge against Karsan was reduced to attempted grand larceny in the third degree, a felony to which he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to time served, which amounted to 60 days. He was released into immigration officials’ custody, his business visa having expired.

According to a “prepared statement,” Karsan admitted to having demanded $3,000, not $2 million, from Ono, which falls within the legal definition of third-degree grand larceny. In his statement, he admitted to “using hidden cameras to take pictures of Ms. Ono, and [to recording] Ms. Ono’s private conversations with her friends and family,” but, The New York Times reported, his statement expressed no “apology, regret, or remorse.”

He seemed to hint that he was motivated to do such harm to Ono because, as The New York Times observed, he claimed that she had “humiliated and degraded him, wrecking his marriage and making him so nervous that he ground eight of his teeth to the bone.” Although he suggested that he might share an account of his experiences, Karsan also signed a binding confidentiality agreement forbidding him from revealing such “details.”

9 “Terrible, Terrible Things”

In October 2019, late-night television talk show host David Letterman shared intimate details of his life with his audience, admitting to having participated in sexual relationships with women on his staff, to having written a phony $2 million check, and to having testified before a grand jury concerning these activities.

His awkward confession was set in motion by threats he had received in a package that included a letter advising him that its sender knew that he had done “terrible, terrible things.” Moreover, the sender threatened, “I can prove that you do these terrible things.”

However, “a large sum of money” would buy the sender’s silence, Letterman was assured. The package’s contents “contained . . . proof,” Letterman told his listeners, that the talk show host had, indeed, done “terrible, terrible things.” ABC News reporters Michael S. James and Lindsay Goldwert suggest that, if Letterman’s audience thought he was joking, they would soon learn that there would be no punchline to his monologue.

At the meeting at which Letterman handed off the fake check, his extortionist confessed that he intended to write Letterman’s biography as a “companion piece to the screenplay” that he also hoped to write; the book would include accounts of Letterman’s “infidelities.”

Letterman told his audience that the extortionist’s charges were true: the talk show host had, indeed, had multiple sexual encounters with women on his staff.

However, the shakedown didn’t go exactly as Letterman’s extortionist, Robert “Joe” Halderman, had hoped. Instead of $2 million in cash, a best-selling biography, and a hit movie, Halderman received six months in jail and was sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service.

8 Cops and Robbers

Edis Kayalar wanted $100,000 for the photograph he had of Cindy Crawford’s 7-year-old daughter. It was not a picture, he must have figured, that the supermodel would want the public to see. After all, the gagged child was bound to a chair.

Taken by the girl’s nanny, the photo would fetch big money from tabloid newspapers, Kayalar, “a former friend of the nanny,” advised Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber, CBS News writer Kealan Oliver reports.

A German citizen who was in the United States illegally, Kayalar was arrested and deported to Germany. His close call, apparently, had not been close enough; two months later, Kayalar telephoned Crawford, demanding $100,000. His attempt at extortion backfired. Instead of receiving the money he was after, he was charged; the same month, he turned himself in to German authorities.

At his trial in March 2010, he insisted that he had never tried to extort any money from Crawford. The $100,000 he had requested was simply money with which he would “cover costs” he had incurred as a result of being a good Samaritan in trying to warn Crawford that her nanny was a bad influence on the model’s daughter.

The trial judge, Joachim Spieth did not buy the defendant’s defense. “The attempted extortion was at an advanced stage and failed,” Judge Spieth said, and Kayalar was sentenced to 2 years in prison.

The reason for the photo? The nanny took the picture “as a joke during a game of ‘cops and robbers,’” Oliver reports.

7 An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

Thomas George Paculis, of Newfield, New York, tried to hit up Paula Deen for $200,000. Instead, in a plea deal with prosecutors, he received a 2-year federal prison sentence for extortion and a year of supervised release.

According to an Associated Press account that appeared on the USA Today website on August 2013, Paculis had “tried to make a deal”: he wanted a non-disclosure agreement after having “threatened to publicly reveal damaging information” about the celebrity chef.

Deen had already “lost major endorsements,” the article observes, due to her having allegedly discriminated against employees based on race. She wouldn’t want any more bad press, Paculis had probably reasoned. What had prompted Paculis’s failed extortion attempt? He had experienced “bad economic times,” he said.

According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Brad Snider, Paculis e-mailed Deen’s attorney, Greg Hodges on June 27, with his demand for the money, after he had sent a June 24 e-mail message in which the extortionist had invited Hodges to “make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

Later, a Savannah Morning News article by Jan Skutch reports, during a conversation that was monitored by the FBI, Paculis agreed to take $200,000 in exchange for his silence. His arrest followed, on July 5. The newspaper states that, in addition to allegations of racial discrimination, Deen was being sued for sexual harassment, but “the [federal] case was dismissed with prejudice” in August 2013.

6 No Show

Extortionist David Hans Schmidt figured the stolen photos of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s nuptials were worth a cool million dollars. The pictures might even have gone for $1.3 million, he reckoned.

Authorities disagreed. For them, the stolen photos were worth a couple of years in prison for Schmidt. That’s what was on the table after Schmidt had agreed to plead guilty to extortion. He was under house arrest until October 11, 2007, when he was scheduled to appear in court to enter his guilty plea and accept the consequences of his actions.

Schmidt failed to show up, but he had a good reason for being a no show: apparently, he had committed suicide. The tracker he wore indicated that he had not left his home. When police arrived at his townhouse at about 3:00 pm., they found him dead.

Ironically, although he had agreed to a stretch in prison, Schmidt had also planned to ask for probation. Why he would kill himself before he learned whether his request would be granted is a mystery that Schmidt took to his grave.

5 Hijacked Claims

Michael Avenatti wanted $25 million from Nike; instead, his attempt to extort the company cost the “celebrity attorney” a prison sentence. The lawyer’s attorneys argued for leniency. They pointed out the facts that his extortion attempt hadn’t worked, that he was a non-violent offender, and that he had been held in solitary confinement for 24 hours a day in New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, the same hellhole that had confined Joaquin (“El Chapo”) Guzman. U. S. District Judge Paul Gardephe was unpersuaded. On July 8, 2021, the judge sentenced the disgraced lawyer to 2.5 years in prison.

According to reporter Michael McCann, the charges against Avenatti resulted from Avenatti’s insistence that, in addition to paying his client, former American Athletic Union coach Gary Franklin, $1.5 million, Nike should also pay Avenatti “and a co-counsel as much as $25 million to investigate company [recruiting] activities” or simply pay the $25 million “outright.”

The company had terminated Franklin’s employment, and, McCann says, Franklin had hired Avenatti after becoming concerned “about his possible legal exposure from seeing bribes of top recruits to attend particular colleges.”

Judge Gardephe declared that, in hitting up Nike, Avenatti was “hijack[ing] his client’s claims . . . to further his own agenda, which was to extort millions of dollars from Nike for himself.” The Manhattan federal jury agreed, McCann observes, and “convicted Avenatti of trying to extort $25 million from Nike while “depriving . . . Franklin of a right to Avenatti’s honest services.”

4 Topless Shots

Before fame claimed her, Cameron Diaz posed topless. After she became famous, John Rutter, the photographer who had snapped the pictures of her, tried to claim $3.5 million from her for the risqué photos, the price he hoped they would fetch from an interested buyer. Instead, he was sentenced to up to 5 years in the slammer for his attempt at grand theft and for committing forgery and perjury. Upon Rutter’s July 2005 conviction, Judge Michael Pastor, who considered the photographer a flight risk, “sent him immediately to jail,” according to a Seattle Times article concerning the crimes and punishment.

Rutter said that Diaz had signed a “model release,” but expert witnesses refuted the defendant’s claim, saying that the photographer had forged Diaz’s signature with the help of a computer graphics program.

Although Rutter’s attorney blamed Diaz for his client’s situation, arguing that his trial had pitted “a rich and famous celebrity [against] a hard-working photographer,” prosecutor David Walgren declared, “We don’t . . . tolerate serious crimes like forgery [and] perjury . . . be it against a celebrity or anyone else.”

3 A Memoir as Good as a Deathbed Confession

He was heir to a fortune, but, when police and FBI agents stormed the New York City apartment in which he was being held captive, they found the kidnapped victim unshaven, foul-smelling, [and] bound and blindfolded,” states Alex Traub, a reporter for The Irish Times.

The authorities arrested the apartment’s tenant, firefighter Mel Patrick Lynch, and one of his accomplices, Dominic Byrne, both of whom confessed to having abducted the victim. They also explained how they had committed the crime, showing the authorities “two garbage bags containing a $2.3 million, or €1.95 million, ransom,” Traub says.

At their trial, Lynch and Byrne were convicted of extortion, but not of kidnapping. In July 2020, shortly before his death at age 91, Byrne’s attorney, Peter DeBlasio, published his memoir, Let Justice Be Done, in which he finally told the truth: his defense of his client had been based on a lie.

The kidnapping was really just a hoax, DeBlasio had argued at his client’s trial. The victim, Samuel Bronfman II, the heir to the Seagram’s distilling fortune, had only pretended to have been kidnapped by Lynch and Byrne. The so-called kidnappers had intended only to shake down Bronfman’s family for money; it had been Bronfman’s own idea to “stage his own kidnapping.”

Reluctant to go along with the fraudulent abduction, Lynch was pressured into doing so when Bronfman threatened to tell the fire department that Lynch was a homosexual. In reality, this claim was as false as the allegation that Bronfman had masterminded his own kidnapping. Nevertheless, the jury had believed the defense and found Byrne and Lynch guilty only of extortion.

Forty-five years later, with DeBlasio’s publication of his memoir, the truth was finally established: “I want it to be clear to all who . . . read these pages that Samuel Bronfman was not a part of the kidnapping,” DeBlasio wrote. “Neither he nor Lynch were gay as far as anyone ever knew and certainly they were not lovers.”

Ironically, as Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, points out, DeBlasio’s confession was a breach of legal ethics, intended not so much to set the record straight, perhaps, as to clear the lawyer’s own conscience. DeBlasio’s “obligation to his client continues forever, even after his client’s death,” Gillers declares, so DeBlasio’s saying that “’My client, who was acquitted of kidnapping, is really a kidnapper’ [is] exactly what he’s not allowed to say.”

Despite what amounts to DeBlasio’s “deathbed confession” (he died a few months after his memoir’s publication), Bronfman’s reputation never truly recovered. “It poisoned the atmosphere forever for Sam,” says the case’s prosecutor Geoffrey Orlando. “He will forever be tagged with that allegation.”

2 Compromising Photos

Add actor John Stamos to the growing list of celebrities who have been shakedown victims. In October, five years after they had become friends during Stamos’s visit to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, in 2004, and they had attended a party together, Allison Lenore Coss sent the actor a series of e-mails, advising him that a man calling himself “Brian” had obtained “compromising photos of them,” the FBI website reports.

Stamos was suspicious, since “nothing untoward [had] happened at the party.” Coss not only insisted that she herself had seen the pictures, but claimed that she had acquired one herself, for $10,000. However, she never sent Stamos a copy of it.

A month later, the plot thickened, as “Brian L.” himself began to e-mail Stamos. He demanded $680,000, to be paid in unmarked bills and dropped off at a “clandestine” point. Stamos contacted the FBI, one of whose agents began to communicate with “Brian L.” The extortionist encouraged the money drop-off at a location at which he was already present. Both Coss and “Brian L.” were arrested on the spot, while “Brian L.” was still on the telephone with the FBI.

An examination of the defendants’ computers and e-mail accounts left no doubt that “Brian L.,” who turned out to be Scott Edward Sippola, and Coss were the authors of all of the e-mails “Brian L.” had sent to Stamos. Neither The National Enquirer nor The Star Magazine had offered to buy, or had even seen, the “compromising photos” that Sippola and Coss claimed to have tried to sell the publications’ reporters. Likewise, neither defendant ever showed either Stamos himself or FBI agents any of the photographs they claimed to possess, presumably because no such pictures existed.

During the conduct of the investigation, FBI agents discovered that Coss and Sippola had previously tried to extort money from Stamos. In the earlier attempt, Coss and Sippola, posing as “Jessica T.,” claimed to be pregnant by Stamos and said they had “compromising photos of him.” At trial, the defendants admitted that these claims were false. As a result of their convictions, Coss and Sippola each received four-year prison sentences.

1 High Rollers

Universally condemned, the disgraced former movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was victimized by extortionist Vivek Shah, who also preyed on other high rollers.

An actor, Shah had had bit parts as a bank hostage in The Dark Knight (2008) and as the maitre ‘d in Our Family Wedding (2010). He supplemented his acting career with his second job as an attempted extortionist, Besides Weinstein, Shah targeted Relativity Media’s CEO Ryan Kavanagh; coal industry millionaire Chris Cline; Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky; Playtone owner Gary Goetzman; oil heiress Dannine Avara; and Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula.

Shah planned to collect $120 million in liquid funds. According to West Virginia Metro News, he also had a secondary goal: he hoped that his “crime spree might bring some attention to his stagnating acting career.” His modus operandi was as simple as it was heinous: he mailed threats to kill the spouses and children of his victims if his demands were not met.

He demanded various amounts of payments from his victims. From Weinstein, he expected $4 million, but $16 million from Lefkofsky. According to the FBI, Shah also set up an elaborate system to conceal his ill-gotten money. “He fraudulently opened financial accounts in his victims’ names . . . . [and] made purchases using prepaid debit cards that he registered under aliases.” He avoided “being traced when he committed criminal acts using his computer . . . . [and he] created numerous accounts with the U. S. Postal Service under false names.”

His criminal career caught up with him when FBI agents arrested him in Schaumberg, IL, on August 10, 2012, and his dreams of wealth ended, when, as the FBI states, he was “sentenced to seven years and three months in federal prison for orchestrating [his] multi-million-dollar extortion scheme.”

You’d think it’s safe to assume that some businesses aren’t going anywhere. From Coca-Cola and Nike to Apple and Microsoft, these businesses seem more like permanent structures than vulnerable companies right now. But take a picture and make a Xerox of it—or share it on your Myspace page—because these moments don’t last forever.

Many businesses grow and grow until they seem too big to fail. Here is a list of ten companies that thought they were too big to fail, but then they ended up doing just that. Many of the companies on our list have recognizable names, and all have made a major impact, but ultimately, they totally flopped!

Related: 10 Insanely Popular Companies That Nearly Went Bankrupt

10 Kodak

Kodak started back in the 19th century in 1888. Throughout the majority of the 1900s, Kodak was the dominant leader in the photography and film industry. Kodak became associated with photography and film of all kinds. Their slogan “Kodak moment” is still ingrained in our culture and sometimes heard today. A “Kodak moment” was something worth remembering by taking a picture, and Kodak was a giant in the photography industry until digital photography emerged.

Despite developing the first digital film camera back in 1975, Kodak never fully embraced digital photography. Kodak failed to innovate quickly enough and was outpaced by its competitors. Kodak created some innovative technologies but was unable to market them effectively to the public. Kodak acquired a photo-sharing website called Ofoto in 2001. However, Kodak was ineffective in using this technology to further its brand. Due to a general lack of adaptability, Many competitors caught Kodak off guard, notably Canon and Nikon, forcing the company to file for bankruptcy in 2012.

Though Kodak reformed in 2013, it will never again achieve the market dominance it attained in the 20th century. The newly formed Kodak is far smaller and now serves primarily commercial clients.

9 Xerox

When someone says “Xerox,” you know what they mean. A Xerox machine is just another word for a copy machine, like Kleenex is another word for a tissue. That’s how influential of a company Xerox was in their heyday. In 1959, Xerox launched the first commercially available photocopier.

The Xerox 914 photocopier was a truly revolutionary product. According to the National Museum of American History, the Xerox 914 was fast and economical, creating 100,000 copies per month. The National Museum of American History describes the Xerox 914 as one of the most successful Xerox products ever. The machine weighs a whopping 648 pounds. This just goes to show you how much copying technology has improved since this time.

The Xerox 914 earned Xerox over $500 million in revenue by 1965. However, Xerox didn’t stay at the top of the mountain forever. Xerox employees invented many early elements of personal computers, but the company wasn’t focused on computing. Some concepts designed by Xerox employees were given away to Apple and Microsoft. At no cost.

Apple and Microsoft developed these technologies and then marketed them to consumers. This strategic blunder left Xerox behind, while Apple and Microsoft have become the behemoths of the tech world that we know today.

8 Polaroid

Another film photography company that plummeted is Polaroid. Founded in 1937, this company is best known for its instant film and cameras. It’s easy—just point, shoot, and shake the photograph. At the time, this was a very cool invention since film took a significant amount of time to develop. However, an innovation came along that completely took away Polaroid’s major advantage: digital photography.

Unfortunately, Polaroid didn’t innovate its products effectively. Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001. Oddly, Polaroid was most popular in the early ’90s, hitting its peak revenue in 1991. Still, Polaroids are often referred to in popular culture, including by the group OutKast. Though not the giant it was, the brand has left its mark on popular culture.

7 Yahoo!

Yahoo! The company that’s so exciting, they added an exclamation point to their name. You can’t even read the name without hearing their famous “Yahooooooooo!”

Yahoo! was a powerhouse in the internet revolution. In 2016, Yahoo! was the sixth most visited website in the world. In 2011, Yahoo! was the third-largest email provider worldwide. Today…not so much.

Yahoo! is still holding on but has lost a lot of ground in the last decade. Google, Facebook, and others have pushed Yahoo! out of the market. Reportedly, Yahoo had a deal in place to buy both Google (in 2002) and Facebook (in 2006). Yahoo! didn’t follow through on either deal and continues to struggle in the wake of the two giants. Yahoo! may have been an early tech giant, but due to some poor strategy and mismanagement, its yodle has fizzled.

6 MySpace

If you were a teen in the mid to late 2000s, you know all about MySpace. MySpace launched in 2003 with a top friends list, custom homepages, and walls. These were all huge features at the time, and MySpace was the first truly major social networking site (sorry, Friendster).

MySpace excelled because it offered users customization and a chance to connect with their network of friends. It also allowed for bands, comedians, and other artists to use their pages to promote themselves. In 2006, MySpace was the most visited website in the world.

In case you have not checked your MySpace page lately, this is no longer the case. Thanks to Facebook and some other social media sites, MySpace was driven out. MySpace was purchased twice, first in 2005 by News Corporation, then by Time, Inc. in 2011. MySpace is still an active website but is used almost exclusively by bands and musical artists for promotion.

In 2007, it would have been laughable to suggest MySpace would totally flop. However, the first social media giant was not too big to fail after all. In 2019, MySpace embarrassingly lost 12 years of music and other uploaded content. That’s a good way to get moved off the top friend’s list.

5 Sears

Sears used to be synonymous with the retail industry. Founded in Illinois in the late 19th century, Sears began selling watches and developed to sell just about everything. From 1969 to 1989, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. However, competition from the likes of Target, Wal-Mart, and eventually online retailers like Amazon, began to garner more market shares.

In 2005, Sears acquired K-Mart. But this acquisition seemed to do little to help the business get back on track.

With a general lack of innovation, particularly in the realm of e-commerce, Sears has been almost wiped off the map. Sears only had 182 stores in 2018, far less than the 3500 Sears stores nationwide in 2008. And in 1990, Sears and Walmart were generating similar amounts of revenue. However, Walmart took a more strategic approach (targeting discount shoppers) and eventually pushed Sears far out of the picture.

4 BlackBerry

A relatively young company for this list, BlackBerry was founded in 1984. BlackBerry was one of the first major smartphones, selling more than 50 million units at its peak in 2011. According to Business Insider, BlackBerry once controlled 50% of the smartphone market in the United States.

President Barack Obama even used a BlackBerry. Of course, five years after its peak in 2011, BlackBerry stopped manufacturing phones altogether.

The reasons for this flop are many. BlackBerry devices had a very small keyboard. In 2011, this was a usable and innovative technology. However, as smartphones have developed, all of them have adapted to use touch-screen technology. BlackBerry never made this adjustment. Despite the extreme popularity of their early models, BlackBerry was simply never able to keep up with the innovation of its competitors. Even Obama doesn’t use his BlackBerry anymore.

3 Blockbuster

Blockbuster was a staple if you grew up in the late ’80s or ’90s. An iconic brand, Blockbuster was the go-to for movie nights at home—the giant of video rental. At its peak, Blockbuster had over 9000 stores, but now it has only one.

See, Blockbuster made one huge strategic error.

In 2000, Netflix (a small, struggling streaming innovator at the time) offered to sell their company to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster refused the deal and instead invested their money elsewhere. Obviously, this was a devastating decision for Blockbuster.

The launch of Redbox in 2004 was just another nail in the coffin. Blockbuster went from the biggest name in rental to a punchline in movies in just a couple of short decades.

2 Borders

Borders was a book and music store founded in 1971. It was a juggernaut in the media industry for years. Unfortunately, due to a series of errors, this iconic bookstore went from “too big to fail” to “failed” in a Thanos-esque snap.

First, they were too slow to innovate e-commerce. This allowed companies like Amazon and Overstock.com to slowly take their market share. Borders also opened too many brick-and-mortar locations. According to Time, 70 percent of their stores were competing directly with a nearby Barnes and Noble.

Finally, Borders was taking on too much debt. At the time of the recession, Borders owed about $350 million. The company was never able to clear this debt and closed down its stores nationwide.

1 Toys “R” Us

Toys “R” Us was a toy store that was made for kids. In the late ’90s, Toys “R” Us was the largest toy retailer in the United States. It was every child’s wonderland, heralded by a lovable giraffe named Geoffrey. That is, they were until this iconic company was edged out by Walmart as the largest toy retailer.

Toys “R” Us pivoted to e-commerce through a partnership with Amazon, signing a ten-year deal to become their exclusive toy provider in 2000. At this time, toysrus.com would redirect to amazon.com.

Big mistake, Geoffrey.

Amazon became the top online destination for toys and sold toys of their own as well. Toys “R” Us eventually sued to get out of their contract, but at that point, it was too late. Toys “R” Us was a toy giant at one time. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from fairy tales, it’s that giants usually fall down.

In 1949, Eric Blair, known by the pen name of George Orwell, published 1984; a novel that has shown its predictive power manifested in the current state of society. Blair coined the term “Big Brother” for the symbolic figurehead of the totalitarian state, Oceania. In the dystopian society, every citizen is under constant surveillance with the government’s slogan: “Big Brother is watching you,” a reminder of the state’s omnipresence. Our government has taken a slightly different approach, but the end game is much the same. The leaks by Edward Snowden bring to light what many of us already believed, that the United States is moving closer and closer to a society where its citizens have nearly all actions monitored. In light of this, here are 10 ways that we’re living in a Big Brother Society without knowing it.

This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!

When making donations, it can be hard to find the right charity. You want a charity that supports a worthwhile cause, but you also want your money to have the most impact. To help you in your search, we have compiled a list of ten little charities making big impacts on the world. (Be prepared to have your heartstrings tugged.)

So, whether you are making a large donation or a small one, choosing a charity carefully can help your money reach a good cause and go a long way. This list is in no particular order; these are all worthwhile charities that will continue to benefit others. Let’s get into it!

10 Acadia Center

The first organization on our list is based in Maine but has offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island too. Named for the national park, the Acadia Center is focused on research, advocacy, and generally planning to find ways to mitigate changes to the earth’s climate.

According to its website, this organization “Forms strategic alliances and engages all stakeholders—legislators, business and community leaders, advocacy and environmental justice groups—to press for next-generation solutions and ensure long-term results.”

The Acadia Center’s targets include:

• Replacing gas cars with electric cars
• Advancing environmentalist policies
• Pushing for a transition to non-traditional energy sources

They also state a specific goal with a specific deadline. Acadia Center’s overall goal is for the Northeast United States to cut carbon dioxide creation by half or more by 2030.

9 Puppies Behind Bars

Who doesn’t love puppies? The Puppies Behind Bars charity helps in several ways, but its adorable name references the gist of its mission. Puppies Behind Bars trains inmates to raise dogs for the following services:

1. Service dog for wounded veterans and first responders
2. Law enforcement dog to detect explosives
3. Therapy dogs for police departments

Inmates are provided with a puppy to train; at just eight weeks old, the puppy is taught basic skills and commands. At 24 months old, the puppy is returned to Puppies Behind Bars for further assessment and training and eventually is placed with its full-time handler.

Inmates can learn valuable skills from caring for a Puppies Behind Bars puppy, such as providing love and care to someone else. They also learn to provide something positive to their community rather than negative. The final benefit of Puppies Behind Bars includes the services the dog provides to their full-time handlers.

If you love dogs and their services to others, Puppies Behind Bars is a great organization to support.

8 Charity: Water

This charity, as it sounds, is focused on providing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Their founder, Scott Harrison, transitioned from a nightclub promoter to the founder of a non-profit after a life-changing experience near Liberia, where he saw the dangerous effects of dirty water.

Since Charity: Water was founded in 2006, they have funded over 90,000 projects, serving more than 14 million people across 29 countries. What we find refreshing is they are upfront about where their donations go and what they have achieved because of the donations.

7 To Write Love on Her Arms

The next charity on our list relates to something that affects almost every single one of us to some degree. Over the last decade or more, mental health has become a greater focus for our society. Many of the stigmas surrounding mental health have lessened or disappeared entirely. This organization, To Write Love on Her Arms, is a charity with mental health goals in mind.

Their website states that they aim to find help and present hope to people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. To Write Love on Her Arms was founded in 2007 by Jame Tworkowski and named for a story he wrote about his friend (who was struggling with mental illness) on the website MySpace. Since its small beginnings, To Write Love on Her Arms has donated over $2.5 million to treatment and recovery from mental illness, depression, addiction, and self-harm.

While the charity’s work is impressive, we know that they have more work to do. Mental health issues are something that many people struggle with daily, and this great organization aims to continue its work.

6 FSHD Society

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a rare genetic muscle disease that affects the muscles of your child’s face, shoulders, upper arms, and lower legs. These muscles weaken and shrink (atrophy).” Unfortunately, there is no cure for this condition.

Fortunately, however, the FSHD Society is there for patients and families to turn to. Since being founded in 1991 by two FSHD patients, Steve Jacobsen and Daniel Perez, this charity has grown a lot, investing more than 10 million dollars into determining the causes of FDHD.

According to the FSHD website, they have four main goals:

1. To solve the biological disease process
2. Build infrastructure to accelerate research
3. Improve nationwide patient care
4. Expedite treatment development

FSHD has already accomplished a great deal since its founding in 1991. However, there is still no cure for this disease, and this organization can always benefit from additional support and more people learning about its efforts.

5 India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF)

The next charity on our list is based in North Bethesda, Maryland. Despite its location, the organization focuses on India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. India Development and Relief Fund emphasize national empowerment in these areas. In their words, “Our method puts power, not charity, in the hands of the poor.”

Charity efforts often make more difference when they are locally supported and run. IDRF subscribes to this idea. In the countries of Sri Lanka, Nepal and India, the IDRF is fighting several issues. They are fighting poverty, lack of westernized education, lack of infrastructure, and more. This fantastic organization has won its fair share of awards for transparency and accountability.

4 Pencils of Promise

Pencils of Promise is an impactful organization with a great origin story. Their founder Adam Braun asked a young boy in India what he wanted most in the world, and the boy told him he wanted a pencil. The boy’s desire for a pencil inspired Braun, and he made it his life’s mission to help provide education and educational supplies for those in need.

Since then, Pencils of Promise has supported teachers, training more than 3,000 around the globe. Furthermore, they have helped to build or improve schools in poor areas. Having a clean workplace is vital for students to do their best.

Across Laos, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, over 100,000 students are currently enrolled in their programs. From a simple pencil to providing many teachers and students with support! Despite being a little charity, Pencils of Promise has made a very big impact.

3 Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW)

Due to the huge wealth involved, many environmentalist charities exist these days, but the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide is unique. ELAW is focused on law. Boasting members across 80 countries, this organization truly is globalist.

ELAW was founded in 1989, making it one of the longest-running organizations on our list. They concentrate on their goals through the use of advocates, such as scientists and environmental lawyers. ELAW has over 300 advocates involved, including 13 who have won the prestigious Goldman Prize for grassroots environmentalists, dating back to 1990.

2 Oxfam International

Another international organization, Oxfam International, includes 17 organizations. These 17 organizations collaborate with local communities in more than 90 countries worldwide. Oxfam has shown a commitment to grassroots organizations that work to fight poverty.

Oxfam helps raise awareness, provides support, and responds to crises. Along with poverty, Oxfam International aims to take on all the latest things. With such a broad umbrella, it is no wonder that Oxfam International has been helping people since World War II. As they put it on their website, “We believe in equality. That’s it. Plain and simple.” I think that is a message that we can all get behind.

1 National Pediatric Cancer Foundation

The National Pediatric Cancer Foundation was founded in 1991 by two mothers, Melissa Helms and Risa Tramel. The two met in Florida under sad circumstances. At the time, both of their daughters were infants and undergoing treatment for cancer. Fortunately, their daughters both recovered, but the story does not end there. Because of this shared experience, Helms and Tramel recognized the need to fight pediatric cancer. So they formed the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation.

Years later, in 2005, they formed Project Sunshine, a program designed to identify top doctors and researchers and expedite a potential cure for pediatric cancer. Since Project Sunshine began in 2005, they have dedicated more than 30 million dollars to research for pediatric cancer and have funded four clinical trials. This is quite an impact for a charity that just started with two mothers in a crisis.