Translation seems like an easy task these days, with the help of technology such as Google at our fingertips, but it isn’t always so simple. Simple translation when trying to greet someone from another country is one thing, but interpreting major documents or treaties is another. Translators and interpreters are professionals with years of experience, but humans make errors—even computers that translate make mistakes. Bad translations can be very costly and even lead to deadly circumstances. Here are ten catastrophic translation failures throughout history.

Related: 10 Interesting Political Traditions from Around the World

10 Jimmy Carter on Poland

Jimmy Carter traveled to Poland in 1977 for a news conference, but the translation of his speech sounded like seduction. The professional interpreter, Steven Seymour, who was responsible for translating his English into Polish, made many mistakes. Carter told the people of Poland that he had “come to learn your opinions and understand your desires for the future,” but Seymour’s translation showed an erotic desire to “get to know the Poles carnally.”

Another phrase used by President Carter was “I left the United States this morning,” and it was mistranslated to say, “I left the United States, never to return.” Another translator was chosen to take over after the mishaps, but the second translator proved to be just as bad. The translator could not understand Carter’s Southern accent, so the translator made the decision to remain silent for the remainder of the speech.^[1]

9 Mars

Italian Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was observing Mars in 1877 when he claimed to see channels running through the planet’s surface. He used the word “canali” to describe the channels, and it was mistranslated into English as canals. Percival Lowell read about this and was convinced that the canals were real and wrote about it in the Atlantic Monthly. His writings covered the existence of Martians on Mars, due to the canals being created by them.

Several other people believed this, too, and wrote about it, and several works of fiction were inspired by these views. The water-carrying canals were just a product of misinterpretation, and most astronomers now agree that Mars does not have any channels. NASA even said, “Crisscrossing lines covering the surface of Mars was only a product of the human tendency to see patterns, even when patterns do not exist.”^[2]

8 HSBC Slogan

In 2009, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, better known as HSBC, was getting ready to launch a $10 million rebrand of its global private banking operations after a mistranslation. HSBC is known for its memorable ad campaigns, such as the “different points of view” campaign, but its “Assume Nothing” campaign didn’t quite work as well.

The phrase “Assume Nothing” was mistranslated in several countries to mean “Do Nothing.” In December of 2024, their market cap was $174.73 billion, making them the world’s 83rd most valuable company by market cap. Doesn’t look like the bad translation was bad business, after all.^[3]

7 President Carter, Again

President Carter’s mistranslation in Poland was much worse than what happened to him in Japan, but it was once again another translation error. In 1981, the U.S. President visited a small Methodist College in the countryside of Japan to give a graduation speech. He opened with a joke, and the audience erupted into laughter after the interpreter finished speaking. Carter wasn’t expecting the joke to be so successful, and after the speech, he asked the interpreter why he received such a reaction.

The interpreter tried to dodge the question from the former president but eventually admitted that he told the crowd, “President Carter told a funny story. Everyone must laugh.” Carter said it was the best response to a joke he has ever had in his life.^[4]

6 Parker Pen

Parker has been crafting pens for more than 125 years, and they had passed the $1 million mark by 1918. The successful business produced a very unsuccessful advertising campaign when it was translated into Spanish. Parker was the first company to develop a pen that could be carried in a pocket without leaking. They used the slogan, “With no fear to be embarrassed,” and the pen sold very well.

The slogan was later rebranded to “Avoid embarrassment—use Parker Pens,” which was very successful and popular throughout the United States. The company made the decision to start selling its products in Latin America, and the slogan would need to be translated. The word “embarrassment” is a homonym for “pregnancy,” and the translation sounded something like “To avoid pregnancy, use a Parker pen.” The pens were wrongly advertised more as a contraceptive instead of a writing utensil.^[5]

5 The Waitangi Treaty

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by more than 500 tribal chiefs in 1840. It was a written agreement between the British Crown and the Maori people of New Zealand. It paved the way for British immigration to New Zealand and established their government, but it also guaranteed the Maori rights and privileges.

The treaty was imperfectly translated into the Maori language, stating that the indigenous people would have control over the territory but would surrender the governance to the British. However, the English version demanded a surrender of authority in all its rights and privileges. The founding document remains contentious due to the difference in translations.^[6]

4 Nikita Khrushchev

In 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a Cold War-era speech at a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow. In his speech, he was interpreted as saying, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side… We will bury you” to the Western ambassadors in attendance. The phrase was then found on the cover of magazines and newspapers around the world, especially in America. Americans considered this a threat to their country, but the words were taken out of context.

Khrushchev’s words were closer to meaning: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in.” He was ultimately trying to say that communism would outlast capitalism. Others believe he used a more common Russian phrase, “We will be present when you are buried,” which means “We will outlast you.” Khrushchev said himself that he only meant that “socialism will inevitably succeed capitalism.”^[7]

3 Justin Trudeau Speech

Justin Trudeau’s, the Prime Minister of Canada, speech got lost in translation while speaking at the White House. Americans watching the speech from home on ABC News saw several phrases such as “Nazi innings,” “railroad stations in Motorola,” “portfolio of us old guys,” and “recourse to ice packs.” Of course, those weren’t actually the words or phrases that he said.

ABC claimed the translation mistakes were made by a computer program that was automatically translating words from French to English. The computer was unable to understand the phrases said by Trudeau, and there wasn’t an actual person controlling the translations. The speech was Trudeau’s first to a United States audience.^[8]

2 Pepsi Slogan

Some of the most popular Pepsi slogans from the past include “Be Young, Have Fun, Drink Pepsi,” “You Got the Right One Baby,” and “More Bounce to the Ounce,” but one past slogan didn’t work as well once it was mistranslated. In the 1960s, Pepsi released its new “Come Alive! You’re in the Pepsi Generation” campaign.

The campaign was going very well until it was released in China. The slogan translated to “Pepsi—Bring Your Ancestors Back From the Dead.” Of course, it was not able to bring back the dead, and the campaign was short-lived.^[9]

1 The Hiroshima Bombing

One of the most famous cases related to mistranslation is attached to the first atomic bombing. In 1945, Japan was presented with terms of a declaration of surrender by the Allied countries. Once the terms were translated to Japanese from English, it was delivered, and a response was awaited. The terms stated that any negative response by Japan would lead to “absolute destruction,” and it called for the immediate surrender from Japan. The Tokyo Prime Minister did not immediately release a statement and was assessing the situation. He was making the decision to wait before making a public official comment.

The Prime Minister used the word “Mokusatsu” to express his thoughts, which is derived from the Japanese term “silence.” The word can have several meanings, but the translation to English showed that he ignored the situation and “treated it with silent contempt.” The international news organizations published that the ultimatum was “not even worthy of comment” by the Japanese.

Americans felt as if there was no end in sight to the war, and the mistranslation may have led to the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima just ten days later. More than 150,000 people were killed as a result of the bombing, which would make it the deadliest translation error. We may never know the result if the Prime Minister’s words were translated correctly.^[10]

Everyone loves going to a concert. There is a certain thrill to seeing your favorite artist live and up close in front of your very eyes. Even in the biggest of stadiums, you can feel completely at home surrounded by people who share a love and appreciation for something.

But what happens when gigs go wrong? It can be an embarrassment for the artist, a shock for the audience, and an absolute gift for social media. Here, we’re going to discuss the top 10 live music mess-ups, falls, and fails!

10 Michael Jackson
Oslo (July 15, 1992)

When it came to live shows, the king of pop was known for his energetic stage presence and complex dance routines. Unfortunately, such an active stage show means that a live vocal isn’t always going to sound the best. That’s why MJ employed the use of playback—where he would lip-synch to a prerecorded vocal. This is all well and good . . . until it’s not.

During his one and only night in Oslo, Michael started to lip-synch to his opening song, “Jam,” but found the playback vocal wasn’t there. The crew had to hastily switch to Michael’s somewhat wobbly and out-of-breath real live vocal until the playback issue was fixed a little further into the song.^[1]

9 Justin Bieber
Glendale, Arizona (September 29, 2012)

Love him or hate him, it can’t be denied that Justin Bieber is a music sensation. Midway through a performance of “Out Of Town Girl” during the opening night of his tour, Bieber turned from the audience and doubled over before vomiting all over the stage.^[2]

He rushed off while the backing dancers professionally continued on as if nothing was wrong. Sheepishly, Bieber returned a few moments later. After the show, he took to social media and blamed drinking too much milk before the concert for his unsettled stomach. Nice!

8 The Foo Fighters
Ullevi, Gothenburg (June 12, 2015)

During a particularly enthusiastic rendition of “Monkey Wrench” with his band, The Foo Fighters, lead singer Dave Grohl made for the edge of the stage but tripped and stumbled forward, spectacularly nose-diving from the 2.4-meter-high (8 ft) platform. He tried to stand. But unfortunately, his leg was broken and he had to abandon the show.

Medics rushed in and put him on a stretcher. But before being whisked away from the stadium, Grohl said to the crowd, “I’m gonna go to the hospital, I’m gonna fix my leg, and then I’m gonna come back and we’re gonna play for you again!”

He was carried to an ambulance to wild cheers and the audience chanting his name. Rock ‘n’ roll!^[3]

7 Paul McCartney
Quebec (July 20, 2008)

Positioned two-thirds of the way into the ex-Beatle’s mammoth live set, “Live and Let Die” was supposed to be a highlight of a concert containing over 30 songs. However, things didn’t go quite as rehearsed one night in Canada!

Having obviously missed playing a note during a quiet section, McCartney looked to his drummer and took the wind out of the song’s sails by audibly laughing during the final word of the lyric “makes you give in and cry, say live and let die.”^[4]

Seconds later—as if to compound this goof-up—the people in charge of the pyrotechnics also missed their cue, with the spectacular fireworks coming in several seconds late. Live and let d’oh!

6 Oasis
Toronto (September 7, 2008)

Mistakes are not always the fault of the band, artist, or crew, as happened with Oasis while performing their smash hit song “Morning Glory” at Toronto’s 2008 Virgin Festival. Midway through the song, a man ran up behind lead singer and guitarist Noel Gallagher and forcefully pushed him off the stage.^[5]

Of course, the show was brought to a halt as security tackled the assailant and Gallagher limped into the wings. A few tense moments later, a band member came out and addressed the concerned audience: “Thank you for your patience. Just give us five minutes, and we’ll be right back!”

Much to the delight of the fans, the concert soon resumed without further incident!

5 U2
Vancouver (May 14, 2015)

We’ve all done that thing where we’ve tripped over something or walked into something when we’re not looking where we’re going. Well, a similar thing happened during U2’s performance of their smash hit “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” in Vancouver.

It seemed The Edge was concentrating more on looking out over the expansive crowd than looking where he was going . . . and he stepped right off the edge of the stage. He fell several feet from the platform where he was quickly attended to by staff at the venue.

Luckily, this was the final song of the show. U2 lead singer Bono kept the crowd going and the energy up during the mishap as the rest of the band left the stage in the planned fashion.^[6]

4 Metallica
Abu Dhabi (April 19, 2013)

Performing in front of so many people puts a lot of pressure on an artist as Metallica’s Kirk Hammett discovered while strumming the subdued intro to “Nothing Else Matters.”

After hitting several bum notes, he stopped playing, stepped up to the microphone, and addressed the metal-loving audience: “My hands are really sweaty, and it’s just really hard for me to play. So I’m going to do it one more time, okay?”^[7]

The audience roared their approval, and he performed the intro flawlessly the second time around!

3 Pink
Nuremberg (July 15, 2010)

Pink is renowned for her super energetic and gymnastic-filled live performances. The encore of her 2010 tour consisted of her being whirled around the venue on cables while performing “So What” like some sort of glamorously amazing musical pinata.

Unfortunately, she was not properly secured into her harness in Nuremberg and ended up being dragged off the stage and into the pit below. Clearly in pain and complaining that she couldn’t feel anything in her back, Pink was rushed to the hospital for X-rays.

Luckily, she avoided any serious injuries.^[8] She just had a few bruises to both her body and her ego!

2 Ed Sheeran
London (July 12, 2015)

A huge draw to Ed Sheeran’s live shows is that he is pretty much a one-man band. With the help of his loop pedal, he can do amazing things and sound so much bigger than just one man and his guitar.

But one evening while performing “You Need Me” in London, the loop pedal^[9] went haywire and stopped working. Insisting that the pedal be quickly fixed by the crew so that he could re-perform the song, he told the audience, “We do have a curfew, but I’m not having this!”

1 Paul McCartney
London (July 13, 1985)

This is possibly one of the most widely seen mess-ups in live music history! During his solo performance at Live Aid, Paul McCartney took to the stage to serenade Wembley Stadium (and approximately 1.5 billion people watching live around the world) with The Beatles’ classic “Let It Be.”

However, when McCartney started to sing, he found the microphone wasn’t working.^[10] It turns out that a technician for the band that played before McCartney had accidentally unplugged the mic, meaning that no one in the arena or at home could hear him.

It took over a minute, but the problem was identified and fixed. The very next day, McCartney went to a studio to rerecord the missing vocals for all subsequent broadcasts and releases.

So which of these was your favorite live mess-up? Have you seen musicians mess up, fall, or otherwise fail at any concerts you’ve attended? Be sure to let us know in the comments section below!

I am Josh Gill from Barnsley in the UK. I studied journalism and English literature/language at Coventry University before going on to work as a freelance writer. I love music, sci-fi movies, and dark humor. I also daily vlog on my YouTube channel JoshAndLaurensWanderWorks.

Red carpet events are some of the biggest nights in Hollywood, bringing together the best of the best to celebrate causes and triumphs alike. But, if we’re being honest here, red carpets are for fashion and publicity—whether good or bad. Amidst all the fun, flurry, and camera flashes, epic blunders are not uncommon. In most cases, red carpet fails embarrass stars, and for others, it’s the quickest way to become an internet meme. Here are the top 10 red carpet fails we can’t forget—but the celebrities wish we would.

10 Spilling A Dead Man’s Ashes

Sasha Baron Cohen is one of the funniest men on the planet and probably the best pranksters to ever grace our TV screens. To most, when he’s not busy playing foreign journalist Borat Sagdiyev, he appears as the incorrigible and excessive dictator Admiral General Aladeen. In this red carpet fail, Cohen showed up at the 84th Academy Awards as Aladeen, carrying a very bizarre package—a dead man’s ashes.

Cohen, who modeled Aladeen after former real-life dictator Muammar Gaddafi, arrived in tow with female bodyguards, looking as grand as ever. In his hands, Aladeen held an urn that contained the ashes of his “doubles tennis partner,” the fictional Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. So the only thing to do with these ashes is to “accidentally” spill them all over Ryan Seacrest.

It was a dirty prank that some would call sick for sure. Seacrest later confessed that he “Definitely did not know that he was going to do that!” Luckily, he was cool about the whole ordeal and even commented, “Now you know this isn’t taped.”

9 Falling At The Feet Of Celeb Royalty

Another comedian tops this list of red carpet fails, and this time, it’s none other than stand-up sensation Amy Schumer. Amy Schumer is a comedian who is never too proud to make fun of herself. At 2015’s Time 100 Gala, Amy Schumer noticed Kanye West and Kim Kardashian posing for the cameras and thought she should fake a fall. The problem is that while she fell, Kanye and Kim ignored her antics completely.

Schumer, who made headlines with her bizarre display on the red carpet shortly after, had assumed that Kanye and Kim would have reacted, at least a little bit. To her rude awakening, the couple went ahead with their shoot nonplussed. Schumer later said she thought “falling over was the funniest thing,” but apparently, Kanye and Kim didn’t agree.

The joke backfired, and she ended up apologizing for ruining Kim and Kanye’s red carpet moment. In the end, the “Trainwreck” actress wrecked herself in a moment that will live in infamy.

8 Taylor Swifts Serves Swift Justice To Reporter

Reporters are always searching for the best scoops and interacting with celebrities and asking the most unexpected questions. During the 2015 Grammy Awards, Entertainment Tonight’s Nancy O’Dell was lucky to interview Taylor Swift—but her luck quickly turned sour. In what went down as an embarrassing moment in O’Dell’s career, she found herself on the wrong side of T-Swift.

Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” album is one of her most impactful works, and it seems that even in real life, the songstress is just as fearless. During her interview with O’Dell, the reporter predicted, “You are going to walk with more than a trophy tonight, I think, lots of men.” As you would expect, Taylor Swift was not going to take the comment lying down. With a swift response, she remarked, “I’m not going to walk away with any men tonight.”

The comment, which was served with a death cold stare, proved that Taylor Swift is not to be messed with. As the interview progressed, the awkwardness never faded. On that night, Taylor’s plans only involved hanging out with her friends and going home to her cats.

7 Costly Slip Of The Tongue

Red carpet events are always serious, and from live coverage to interactions with stars, reporters are always on their best behavior. Sadly, the same can’t be said about TNT’s Danielle Demski, who made a costly slip of the tongue when she told Rashida Jones that she was “very tan.”

During the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Danielle Demski commented on Rashida Jones’ appearance, saying she looked as if she just got off an island as seen from her “tan.” The actress is African American. Rashida Jones’s dad is African American, while her mom is Ashkenazi Jew.

Lucky for Demski, the “Parks And Recreation” was calm in correcting her. Rashida responded, “Well, you know, I’m ethnic,” putting an end to the conversation.

6 Of Condom-Drops And Children’s Movies

Parents know this all too well. A child sees something, and immediately, they want to know what it is and how it works. While parents have mastered many tricks over the years, nothing could have prepared them for the time Zac Efron dropped a condom at a children’s movie premiere.

Dropping a condom is awkward in most places, but it’s sure to garner some attention when you are in front of a camera. In 2012, during the film premiere of “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax,” a condom popped out of Efron’s pocket and jumped straight for the floor. The unmentionable mishap at the innocent premier made headlines as many couldn’t help but wonder, “Why, Efron? Why?”

So, how did Zac Efron react? After the not-so-secret object fell out of his pocket, Efron dove with flash-like instincts to retrieve it and, after stashing it back, hid under a dark pair of sunglasses. Those that were looking more closely could not miss his desperate muttering, “Oh my god.” That basically covers everything.

5 We Don’t Matter. This Is Not Our World

Celebrities get microphones to their faces everywhere they go, and most times, reporters treat their statements like gold. Well, Jim Carrey is one celeb who has lots of gold to give. When he attended 2017’s New York Fashion Week, he couldn’t help but share his philosophical thoughts. In a famous tirade, Carrey blasted out that “there’s no meaning” to anything in life.

After a question from E! reporter Catt Sadler who commented on Jim Carrey’s efforts to dress up for the New York Fashion Week, the Ace Ventura star gave an unexpected response. In his “very real” confession, Jim Carrey remarked that he was there only because he “wanted to find the most meaningless thing” to be part of.

In the unexpected retort, Carrey continued to express his nihilistic viewpoints about life. He ended this happy speech with, “We don’t matter. There’s the good news.” To all that witnessed the interview, it was quite an unexpected response. To Carrey’s credit, a red carpet even is pretty meaningless. Yet, if his response had been relevant, it wouldn’t be on this list.

4 Kissing The “Man In Black”

As far as red carpet fails go, they don’t get better than a slap on the face. Comedians are always seeking to score some form of publicity, and when Ukrainian comedian Vitalii Sediuk tried a “hilarious” prank, he got a stinger in return. Many years after the incident happened, we can’t forget how “Men in Black” actor Will Smith stung Sediuk with a slap on the cheek.

Will Smith was on tour promoting “Men In Black 3” when Vitalii Sediuk approached him for a hug. Smith has been a celebrity for a long time, and hugs are always welcome. But soon enough, he realized that Sediuk had more in mind. In the classic Russian tradition, Sediuk greeted Smith with a kiss on the left and right cheek. But Smith had to cut his fun short when he went for a kiss on the lips.

After pushing off, Sediuk exclaiming, “What the hell is your problem, buddy?” Smith quickly fired up the backhand and slapped the guy across the face. Smith later said that people think they can do whatever they want to you just because you are famous. All in all, Sediuk learned that kissing strangers is not the best thing to do on a first date.

3 Don’t Hug Me. I Don’t Know You!

In another epic hug flop, Jerry Seinfeld found himself in an awkward position after a “mysterious lady” tried to hug him. As you probably know, hugs are usually reserved for people who know each other. Seinfeld certainly observes this rule. 

During 2017’s “A Night of Laughter and Song” event, Ke$ha, who is a big “Seinfeld” fan, approached Seinfeld and asked for a hug. To her dismay, Seinfeld turned her down. Ke$ha insisted asking, “Just a little one?” “No thanks,” was Seinfeld’s only response. Seinfeld stepped away from Ke$ha so that she couldn’t touch him. The famous encounter quickly became a meme on the internet.

But Jerry Seinfeld wasn’t rude. Anyone who has personal boundaries like that is never rude—you’re the one invading their space. Anyway, rant aside, Seinfeld just never hugs strangers. Later in the evening, the two stars got to know each other better as they laughed about the incident. Yet, according to Seinfeld, Ke$ha never got her hug. Guess it was not her day!

2 Stranger Pops Up Under A Dress!

America Ferrera looked forward to her first-ever appearance at the Cannes Festival but little did she know that someone else had eyes on her. All cameras were on America Ferrera as she arrived at the premiere of “How To Train Your Dragon 2.” She was having the time of her life! But, in a split second, a prankster had made his way under her fluffy white dress, stealing the spotlight.

As it turns out, Vitalii Sediuk, a notorious Ukrainian red-carpet prankster and journalist—remember him from the Will Smith story?—had jumped under her dress. While security responded swiftly to get the comedian out from under her, Sediuk made things worse by latching on to Ferrera’s ankle. Ferrera later described the event as a “weird crazy dream” since she couldn’t believe it was happening to her on such a special night. 

Luckily for Ferrera, her fellow co-stars and Cate Blanchett were there to ensure that she was okay. Well, little can be said about Sediuk, who obviously doesn’t know when to stop. Needless to say, the comedian got arrested for his antics.

1 Kissing The “Black Widow”?

Scarlett Johansson is one of the most beloved female actresses in the world. In Hollywood, she is among the highest-paid. While we can say a lot of great things about the actress, we’re going to talk about her super cringy encounter with John Travolta. In 2015, during the Oscars, Scarlett Johansson got a surprise kiss from Travolta that left everyone feeling uncomfortable. Hey, Travolta, this isn’t “Saturday Night Fever,” okay? What made the situation worse is that Travolta clasped his hands around Johansson and kissed her on her right cheek.

From Scarlett Johansson’s blank expression, which instantly became an internet meme, you could tell that she didn’t expect it and she didn’t look any pleased. I wouldn’t either. While Johansson later defended Travolta, saying that he’s a “class act,” many couldn’t shake the feeling that it was strange and creepy, if not inappropriate. Either way, the stunt was a huge red carpet fail and all the press it garnered is proof.

Around a century ago, the world’s technology was far different from now. Even the most intelligent scientist would have thought the notion of the internet sounded like crazy witchcraft at the time. Automobiles for the ordinary citizen were just becoming widespread, the television had yet to be created, and the internet had yet to be invented. But, despite all the breakthroughs we’ve seen in technology and all the ways it’s improved our lives, it’s far from perfect. Every day, technology fails, and there have been some spectacular failures in recent memory.

Here are ten recent techs fails and disasters that I’m sure the creators should have rethought.

Related: Ordinary Items That Made People Rich

10 Juicero

What is it that fashionable, hip, aggressive go-getters like above all else? You would have your finger on the pulse if you guessed juice and/or useless devices. The worldwide juice business is approaching $200 billion annually. So, yeah, we like our juice. The annual revenue from kitchen gadgets is over $17.6 billion. Putting them together is a match made in heaven! Or, at the very least, it should have been.

Juicero seemed to be a fantastic idea in 2017. To prepare excellent juice, you need a sophisticated kitchen device, right? How it worked: Individual fruit packets were pressed in an internet-connected machine sponsored by some big-name investors’ $120 million investment.

The machine worked like a vise, squeezing pre-made vegetable and fruit packages with four tons of force to produce delicious and healthy fresh juice. Then someone discovered you could simply tweak the packets by hand, eliminating the need for the $699 juice press. When reporters put it to the test, they found that they could obtain just as much juice and do it quicker if they did it barehanded.

Even after lowering the price to $400, the Juicero had already had a disastrous debut. They went bankrupt after just a few months in business.^[1]

9 Zillow’s AI

Zillow is a real estate firm that has received much attention in recent years due to its market domination. Unfortunately, they spent so much of 2021 grabbing up homes that they had to put a stop to it for a few months. They’d experienced a major technical failure due to a combination of overconfidence and—probably—stupidity.

Most consumers had no idea Zillow really purchased and sold properties, mistaking it for a place where real estate brokers could simply display their listings. The fact was that the corporation was in the business of flipping houses and had built A.I. technologies to help them do so. They were so confident in the A.I. that they allowed it to make cash bids on homes. That proved to be a horrible decision.

By November, the firm—as Zillow Offers—had a backlog of 7,000 properties worth $2.8 billion that needed to be sold. As a consequence of its sloppy spending, they were forced to shut down its A.I. algorithm and cease property purchases, illustrating once and for all that you can’t let a website invest in real estate across a whole nation.^[2]

8 Tesla Bot

Tesla is one of the most well-known firms today. With Elon Musk’s shenanigans in the headlines all the time, the firm can’t help but be mentioned regularly as well, and not only about his antics. Don’t forget that Tesla is still the market leader in electric vehicles. They regularly release new and innovative products to keep their name on everyone’s lips.

In August 2021, Tesla held a press conference to announce that they were developing a humanoid robot. According to Musk, the objective was to construct a machine capable of doing people’s dull, risky, or repetitive activities. So far, everything has gone well. The rollout was the issue.

For whatever reason, Musk opted to show off the concept of the robot before anybody had built one. So instead, they sent out a guy dressed as a robot in a spandex jumpsuit. Then he danced, and it was a disaster.

It didn’t matter whether it was intended as a joke or not. The next day, the corporation was slammed in the press. Many observers chalked it up to a publicity gimmick to divert attention away from poor headlines, but whatever the underlying purpose, it made one of the world’s largest corporations and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals appear silly.^[3]

7 The Freedom Phone

A segment of the American population sees everything unpleasant or scary as a direct assault on their freedom. And their retaliation is to start labeling anything that supports their point of view “freedom” in a random and illogical manner. Remember when someone attempted to call French fries “freedom fries” because of France’s opposition to the Iraq War? Anyway…

In more recent history, the Freedom Phone was created for MAGA supporters who wanted to break free from “Big Tech’s” control by using a smartphone that didn’t censor them or promote a leftist ideology. It would feature an uncensored app store and an anti-surveillance operating system. And, sure, that’s fine if that’s your politics. It’s profitable to appeal to individuals depending on their political convictions. The issue was that the phone’s politics were not in line with its own.

To begin with, the Freedom Phone was nothing more than a rebranded, low-cost Chinese phone. The $499 Freedom Phone turned out to be a $119 Umidigi A9. Umidigi is a name you’ve probably never heard of. And neither had anybody else. So it wasn’t produced in America.

The concept that it was free of monitoring and restriction since it came from China, where neither of those qualities is highly prized, turned out to be a bit of a joke. There were no specifications on the website for purchasers. The OS was swapped with one produced by the Big Tech giants. Their unregulated app store poses serious privacy problems, and practically every tech website has recommended consumers avoid this item like the plague. Also, the phone would still use American cell networks for service.^[4]

6 Quibi

What do you have to say about Quibi? This is possibly the most powerful bomb of 2021, a reality only softened by the fact that everyone but those directly engaged appeared to see it coming from a mile away.

Quibi seemed to be a fusion of conventional TV and movies with something more fast-paced and consumable, such as YouTube and TikTok. The shows were all going to be brief, like five minutes or less, so you could watch them during your morning commute, and they were going to star Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, Sam Raimi, Idris Elba, and a slew of other famous names in Hollywood. How did so many well-known people show up? It’s possible that the approximately $2 billion in investment funds had something to do with it.

Quibi survived approximately seven months. There was no-one on board. Only a mobile phone could be used to view Quibi. It was impossible to screencap Quibi shows. It was way too pricey for what it was, and, more significantly, almost everything they produced was mediocre at best. Nearly every program on the platform was unanimously criticized by critics and spectators alike.^[5]

5 Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most anticipated games in recent years when it was launched at the end of 2020. For God’s sake, it even included Keanu Reeves. It was also one of the fastest-selling games of all time, with almost five million pre-orders and 13.7 million copies sold overall. Isn’t that a big victory? Well, not quite.

Because the game was so unstable that it was practically unplayable, it issued refunds to over 30,000 customers. The game was eventually deleted from the PlayStation Store.

On both the PS4 and Xbox One, the game was incredibly buggy. Lawsuits were brought when hackers acquired information from the developer for making the games run poorly on previous-generation platforms.

Even when folks were able to enjoy the game and have it operate flawlessly, the game ended up being barely acceptable in the end. It’s all right. It never lived up to the anticipation, and since its debut, many people have largely forgotten about it.^[6]

4 Coolest Cooler

It takes a lot of effort to turn a cooler into a tech flop. A cooler can’t be that hard to sell, even one as simple as a styrofoam box, so a corporation has to go above and beyond to make it a failure, let alone one that was teeming with technology. But that’s precisely what the Coolest Cooler accomplished when it first appeared a few years ago.

The Coolest Cooler was one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever in 2014, raising a staggering $13 million, which no one could have predicted. Who’d have guessed that coolers were so popular?

The Coolest Cooler was designed to be able to charge electronics such as your phone and have its own blender and Bluetooth speaker, among other features. By 2019, the corporation had filed for bankruptcy, and the cooler had finally gone up in flames.

The CEO blamed Chinese tariffs for the device’s demise. However, product evaluations from 2016 had previously shown that the cooler was mainly useless. With a price tag of $399, you’d think a high-tech cooler would at least operate properly, but this one didn’t. The blender was subpar at best, with a battery life of just around four minutes of blending time.

The cooler was never issued because the firm ran out of money during the Kickstarter campaign. Therefore backers who still wanted one had to pay an extra $96. Additionally, folks who did not fund the Kickstarter and instead purchased one on Amazon received theirs sooner.^[7]

3 Galaxy Fold

The notion of folding technology has intrigued us for a few years in science fiction. Phones and tablets that can be rolled up and bent seem practical since many of us have dropped or crushed phones and shattered the displays, making this a desired feature. As a result, Samsung moved ahead and created a screen that could not be rolled but folded. Or at least that was the plan.

In 2019, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Fold, which resembled a wallet. You could fold it in half and unfold it, and your screen would be right there, giving you double the screen capacity of the size in your pocket. This fantastic technology costs just under $2,000 to purchase. Things did not go as planned.

When Samsung finally allowed reviewers to use the phones, they failed miserably. Most reviews merely needed a day or two to point out that their folding displays didn’t function. Some units produced bulges, while others only operated on one side of the Fold. Other reviews said they removed a protective layer since they didn’t know not to, thereby destroying the phone.

Samsung claimed to have sold one million copies in around four months after the phone’s debut but swiftly backtracked, claiming the one million was what they wanted to sell. Later, Samsung’s CEO humiliatingly recognized that the Fold was released too soon.^[8]

2 Breached Sex Toys

Everyone understands that hackers are lurking around every corner and must secure anything that connects to the internet. We all have a slew of passwords to safeguard everything we possess. For a good reason: hackers can get into almost everything. And sex toys are included in this category as well.

In a strong and expanding industry, some adult toys can be linked to the internet to enable remote control by other users for reasons you may imagine. The issue is that few of these gadgets have any security built-in.

Any personal data acquired by hackers from a linked device is the most obvious security danger. This may not seem to be much at first, and it might just be humiliating facts about your sex toy usage. That’s not all, however.

According to one Twitter user, someone acquired access to their Metamask. This browser plugin allows people to access Ethereum and other crypto businesses. After their machine was hacked, the user lost several NFTs and dollars, and the only unique item on their network that they could think of was a sex toy that they’d plugged in “to charge.”^[9]

1 WeWork

WeWork was a digital firm that helped new businesses and startups find shared office space. So it was really simply commercial real estate, albeit they experimented with virtual spaces alongside actual ones and worked very hard to deceive people into believing they were doing things when they weren’t. The firm would rent huge office buildings for a long time, then break them up into smaller rooms for more short-term tenants to utilize as their day-to-day office space. This concept managed to get a $47 billion value at the outset.

SoftBank invested $8 billion in the firm, and WeWork began purchasing office space in key cities throughout the nation. They estimated their company’s market to be worth more than $3 trillion, and no one thought they were crazy. They arrived at this figure by concluding that everybody who worked at a desk in a city with an office was eligible to join.

The CEO and his wife were well-known for their lack of business acumen, which was ludicrous. He used to work barefoot in the workplace and do tequila shots, while she once dismissed someone because their “energy” was wrong.

Its sole true strength seemed to be its ability to mismanage funds. It lost $1.9 billion in 2018 on $1.8 billion in sales, and its stock continued to plummet. The CEO had to leave just to restore trust in the company, but even that didn’t work. Their initial public offering (IPO) in 2019 was a flop and had to be canceled. They lost more than $2 billion in the first quarter of 2021 alone.^[10]

This article features some mysteries of human behaviour that science can’t explain. The ten things we don’t understand about humans. Scientists have split the atom, put men on the moon and discovered the DNA of which we are made, but there are some mysteries of human behaviour which they have failed to fully explain. Why do we dream, kiss, blush or shy? These are the basics of human behaviour, scientists still don’t have a clue.

The Following are 10 Mysteries of Human Behaviour scientists still can’t explain.

10. Shyness

The feeling of apprehension, lack of comfort, or awkwardness experienced. when a person is in proximity to, approaching, or being approached by other people, especially in new situations or with unfamiliar people. Shyness may come from genetic traits, the environment in which a person is raised and personal experiences.

9. Art

Painting, dance, sculpture and music could all be the human equivalent of a peacock’s tail in showing what a good potential mate someone is. However, it could also be a tool for spreading knowledge or sharing experience.

For instance, a study by Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico shows that women prefer creativity over wealth when their fertility is at its peak. Others believe the drive to seek out aesthetic experiences evolved to encourage us to learn about different aspects of the world – those that our brain’s have not equipped us to deal with at birth.

8. Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development generally occurring during the period from puberty to legal adulthood. The period of adolescence is most closely associated with the teenage years. No other animal undergoes the stroppy, unpredictable teenage years. Some suggest it helps our large brain reorganize itself before adulthood or that it allows experimentation in behavior before the responsibility of later years.

7. Picking Your Nose

One in four teenagers engage in the habit, at an average of four times a day, a study found. The unappealing but common habit of ingesting ‘nasal detritus’ offers almost no nutritional benefit. So why do a quarter of teenagers do it. on average four times a day? Some think it boosts the immune system.

6. Superstition

Superstition is a pejorative term for belief in supernatural causality. That one event leads to the cause of another without any physical process linking the two events. such as astrology, omens, witchcraft, etc. that contradicts natural science.The unusual but reassuring habits make no evolutionary sense. however, ancient humans would have benefited from not dismissing a lion’s rustle in the grass as a gust of wind. Religion seems to tap into this impulse.

5. Altruism or Selflessness

Doing good deeds is part of human nature. They just can’t decide why we do them. Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious traditions. though the concept of “others” toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions.

After all, what is the point of helping others, if they are not guaranteed to return the favor  Robert Trivers of Rutgers University in New Jersey argues that natural selection favored our altruistic ancestors because they could expect to benefit. However these tendencies became misguided as we developed a globalized world.

4. Kissing

The act of pressing one’s lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, affection, respect, greeting, friendship, peace and good luck, among many others.

There are theories that it is associated with memories of breastfeeding and that ancient humans weaned their children by feeding them from their mouths, which reinforced the link between sharing saliva and pleasure. Another idea is our foraging ancestors were attracted to red ripe fruit and so developed red lips to tempt sexual partners.

Kissing has been shown to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol and increase the bonding hormone oxytocin, so is good for our health and happiness.

3. Laughter

An involuntary reaction to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can arise from such activities as being tickled, or from humorous stories or thoughts. It is considered a visual expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness, relief, etc. On some occasions, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, apology, confusion or courtesy laugh.

Laughter boosts levels of feel-good endorphins, helping us bond with others. ‘Laughing at’ can be used to push people away.

2. Blushing

A uniquely human trait. Blushing, the involuntary reddening of a person’s face due to embarrassment or emotional stress. It has been known to come from being lovestruck, or from some kind of romantic stimulation. It is thought that blushing is the result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system.

Charles Darwin struggled to explain why evolution made us turn red when we lie, which alerts others. He called it the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. However, some think it originally used it to diffuse aggressive approaches by more dominant individuals. Over time it became associated with higher emotions such as guilt and embarrassment.

1. Dreaming

Dream, the experience of envisioned images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep. Dreams help us process and consolidate emotions without the rush of stress hormones that would accompany the real experience. They also help with memory and problem-solving. People are better at recalling lists of related words and links between them after a night’s sleep than after the same time spent awake in the day. It was recently discovered that we can dream even outside of REM sleep. REM dreams were found to involve long stories with more emotion, while non REM dreams often involved friendly interactions.

Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams expressing our subconscious desires have been generally discredited and it is recognised that they help us process emotions, but the reason why we see such strange visions has not been properly explained.