Fashion is one of the most prominent industries on the planet. Unfortunately, it also is one of the biggest polluters. Environment aside, though, fashion has evolved like no other sector—from the ancient days in Europe when both women and men wore “hideous” garments and called it fashion to the present day when clothing seems to have fewer seams or fabric.

Along the way, designers—especially prominent design houses—have come up with questionable items that have sold for thousands of dollars. Of course, if you can afford it, then you definitely see something that most of us don’t. Below is a list of questionable items produced by fashion designers that still leaves us with visible question marks above our heads.

10 Alexander McQueen’s Hoof Shoe

This shoe came out during the Plato Atlantis Spring/Summer collection in 2010 and is also referred to as the “armadillo boot.” It was said to give the illusion of a ballerina on her tiptoes. The shoe is 30 centimeters (12 in) in height and originally wasn’t meant to be commercially produced. However, loyal fans were eager to buy this shoe.

Why?

No lie, Alexander McQueen’s design style is bizarre and that is what makes it high fashion as well as art. This shoe looks like art, and we would have no objection to ogling it outside an alarmed glass box in a museum. The original shoe is said to be made of wood, but the ones commercially produced were made of python leather.

Despite the shoe’s menacing design, it didn’t stop the women who decided to be daring and pursue the taste of a 30-centimeter (12 in) shoe. Just the look of it makes you imagine a billion ways to fall and land on your face. For example, Daphne Guinness, a fashion icon known for wearing the most daring pieces, fell into a sea of her fans by the cobblestones at a churchyard.

Surprisingly, Lady Gaga snatched three pairs of these shoes and was seen on her Instagram daring to wear them. They originally had a guide price of $10,000, but Lady Gaga bid up to $295,000 to win the auction for all three pairs.^[1]

What women really do for a pair of shoes!

9 Moschino’s Plastic Dry Cleaning Dress

Jeremy Scott debuted this dress in the Moschino Fall/Winter 2017 runway collection. It is a slip-on, sleeveless dress made of polyester with writing at the top and bottom. We don’t know what kind of look the brand’s creative director was trying for or who accepted this dress to go on the runway the way it did.

Stella Maxwell, the runway model rocking this look, was put into a black dress and had the bag—oh sorry, dress—slipped on top of it. To seal this customer-friendly dry cleaner’s look, they put a hanger in her hair.^[2]

Many critics described this new fashion statement as a dry cleaning bag—you know, the one that you put over your clothes after they’ve been dry-cleaned.

The most interesting part is that it sold for $735. Who bought it is still a mystery.

8 Thom Browne’s Dog Bag

Now we have all seen our fair share of interesting accessories—from plate clutches to hangers in the hair. Thom Browne decided to come up with a dog bag, and it does look like an adorable little pooch. It is made from luxurious leather and has a little collar on it. And guess the surprising thing? It is still being sold for over $30,000.^[3]

The famous dog bag was inspired by the designer’s dachshund, Hector, one of the best-known pets on Instagram. You can even see the shape of a dog imprinted on some of Browne’s designs, which shows how much he loves his pet pooch.

7 Margiela’s Distressed Sneakers

Remember when we mentioned that current fashion has fewer seams and fabric?

Well, Maison Margiela has joined the league with heavily distressed sneakers.^[4] So, if this is a trend, don’t you dare throw out the shabby sneakers you have worn for many years. The white-and-yellow high-tops are being sold for $1,425, which probably isn’t bad for a designer shoe. But it is a terrible price for a shoe that looks like it has been chewed up and worn by your ancestors.

Some notable fashion heads referred to this sneaker as “avant-garde.”

6 Hermes Leather Horse

Western has been a popular trend in 2018, but we want to know if it was inspired by this. Hermes came out with this fringed brown horse statue that costs more than a Porsche. Ekta Joshi of Luxury Launches mentioned that “luxury” often means “absurdity,” and we agree.^[5]

Hermes is a notable brand with one of the most expensive bags anyone can own. They all look the same, just with different materials and sizes. (Their micro purse is to die for.) Over the years, Hermes has made a name for itself as one of the top bag brands in the world.

So, why would they create something as absurd as the Marley the Pony statue, which is priced at $133,000?

The purpose of this piece of art is unclear. But from an outsider’s point of view, Marley is art in all its absurd glory.

5 Clutch With Human Hair

Ines Figaredo is known for her unique bag designs. However, we are sure that she put everyone in a horrific panic when she came out with this clutch made of human hair. Again, this hangs question marks above the head.

The bag is just a normal clutch with human hair flowing down the front. Do you know what the scariest part is? Eyes are glued or sewn onto the bag behind the hair.^[6]

A blogger wrote that this bag reminded her of The Ring, a horror film with a character that has long black hair covering her face. If you haven’t watched The Ring but have seen The Grudge, then this Ring female character is similar in appearance to the Grudge female ghost in the house—sort of.

If you want more of a scare, the clutch retails for $1,928. No need for a costume next Halloween, Ines has got you covered.

4 Saint Laurent Hair Ankle Boots

Yves Saint Laurent took it several inches further with their goat hair ankle boots. As weird as they may look, they may have a few functions like keeping your feet warm in the winter.

No need to stock up on stockings, eh?

Well, this pair of shoes that makes one look like a descendant of Bigfoot retails at $1,995. The actual shape is a bit unseen. But from the little peeks in between the hairs, you can tell that it has a somewhat pointed toe and is black with silver studs at the ankle.^[7]

3 LEGO Headpiece

It doesn’t look as bad as it sounds. We think it is quite playful. It would probably be one of those items that are cheap and just for laughs. It would also be a good souvenir, but Luisaviaroma sells it at $5,230.

Jaw-dropping, yes. It makes you wonder if this LEGO beanie piece is actually made of a costly material we can’t see. In any case, why would anyone use expensive materials to create something that serves no purpose at all? We are stunned.^[8]

2 Ostrich Headpiece

This headpiece was carefully crafted from ostrich feathers and has a brooch at the center to hold them into place. If you’re having a bad hair day, this piece will fix you right up and give you a different kind of look at a price of almost $2,000.^[9]

Again, we ask, “Why?” All we can envision is the designer using a woman’s bad hair day as her piece of art and as a moneymaker. This headpiece comes in orange, yellow, and black.

1 Balenciaga IKEA Bag

In 2017, Balenciaga came out with this ultraexpensive bag. As people who can’t afford to buy a bag from Balenciaga unless we saved up really hard for the entire year, you would say that we are haters and jealous. However, the only difference between the notable, cute bags that Balenciaga has sold and this one made people on the Internet laugh really hard.

Yes, we’re talking about the IKEA-looking Balenciaga bag.^[10] It looks almost exactly like the IKEA Frakta tote bag which goes for just $0.99. Meanwhile, Balenciaga sold theirs for more than $2,000. The only visible difference is that IKEA branded its version with its iconic yellow logo on the straps.

In the design industry, fashion-inclusive “inspiration” can be drawn from anywhere as seen when a high fashion design house decided to almost reincarnate the IKEA bag with leather and a higher price.

I am a university student doing design. However, I have worked as a writer, volunteered as an editor and proofreader of anonymous articles, and interned as a blog writer.

When we think of squatters, we usually think of people living in boarded-up sheds or hiding in the ruins of old buildings. But, once in a while, squatters get a ticket to the high life even if it’s only for a little while. Here are ten times squatters lived the high life.

10 Inspirational Stories Of People Who Escaped A Life Of Homelessness

10 Boca Raton Mansion Takeover

In December of 2013, a man moved into a $2.5 million mansion. That’s a pretty cool thing to happen in most cases and definitely comes with bragging rights. But in this case, the mansion was foreclosed and that man who moved in, Andre “Loki Boy” Barbosa, never really owned it in the first place.

Barbosa was a squatter. He took over the mansion for almost two months while trying to claim the property under Florida’s adverse possession law (squatter’s rights). To Barbosa, this was the start of a movement to reclaim vacant properties, but just a start since he was evicted in February of 2014. He failed to claim the building as his own, but he did succeed in gaining some momentum for the movement as adverse possession claims began to pile up once his story went public.^[1]

9 Piccadilly Mansion Renamed “Hippydilly” After Squatters Move-In

During the height of hippy culture, when dirt and grime, free love, and vagrancy were at a high in London, several hundred of these long-haired ganja-smokers found themselves a home at 144 Piccadilly street. You know, the sort of vacant 100-room mansion everyone hopes to live in for free someday.

As a counterculture movement and under fear of eviction, the group of hippies (legit 1960s, “free love” type hippies) organized under the name “London Street Commune” and occupied the mansion for three weeks during September of 1969. The group built a sort of drawbridge for an entryway that went over the dry mote to a ground-floor window, which is the kind of thing you have to do when you barricade the doors. Thanks to the hundreds of “street folk” and drug dealers occupying the residence, the house earned the popular name “Hippydilly.”^[2]

8 How One Australian Became a Landlord Squatter

A property developer named Bill Gertos was walking along one day, doing normal Bill Gertos stuff, when he discovered an empty house in Sydney, Australia. Being a rational man, Gertos did what any other property developer would do: he stole it.

Gertos couldn’t exactly find tenants for his new rental property if he left it in shambles, so he changed the locks and fixed up the property. When the rightful owners discovered what had come of the house, it was too late. Gertos had applied for ownership. The previous owners didn’t know the property existed since they inherited it through a deceased relative, but at this point, Gertos had dropped $150,000 into the project and had been renting it to tenants for twenty years. Ultimately, he won the property due to squatters’ rights under the Real Property Act. Did I mention the property was worth $1.6 million?^[3]

7 Determined Squatters Hop from One London Mansion to Another

Why live in one mansion when you could potentially live in all of them? We assume that’s what a group of London squatters was wondering after they had taken over a £15m Belgravia mansion in London that was owned by a Russian Oligarch. It wasn’t the longest run, lasting only a week, but that’s fine if you’re just sampling. By the time they were kicked from this high-end squat, the group had become accustomed to certain standards and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

Only hours after being removed from the Eaton Square mansion, they’d moved into a seven-story property in Grosvenor Gardens, five-minutes down the road. They told reporters that if they were removed from this one, they’d “just find another place.” Now, that’s what I call “determination.”^[4]

6 A Squatter Wins a Free Victorian Flat in London but Can’t Use the Stairs

Jack Blackburn moved into his home back in 2001, when the building was still derelict and completely owned by somebody else. That owner was the Lambeth council.

Blackburn lived there for thirteen years, making repairs and fighting a drawn-out court battle, before legally winning ownership rights to the Victorian Flat. But, thanks to an anomaly in British law, Blackburn was denied the right to access his new property by way of the stairs . . . for eight years. The pad is worth a pretty penny at £175,000 ($225,000), even if Ol’ Jack couldn’t get to his front door, when you consider he never had to pay for the place.^[5]

Top 10 Homeless Actors Who Became Hollywood Stars

5 Squatters target pubs in Chelsea

In 2012, squatters took over the Black Bull, a members-only club that had closed three months earlier, by crawling through the women’s bathroom window. Which is not the way you should enter a club, unless, of course, that club is vacant and you’re a squatter. The Black Bull squatters claimed they’d only planned to stay a short while, but since the leaseholder had called the police on them, they changed their minds and decided to ride out the court process until eviction. Because petty vengeance is fun for everyone.

The Black Bull wasn’t the first club this group had taken over. They had been living in The Charlie Butler before deciding to call Black Bull home. Other pubs, such as Cross Keys, had also been occupied by squatters. Thanks to a recent British law, squatting had been prohibited in residential settings, but this law had a loophole that allowed squatting in commercial buildings, turning pubs into targets. According to the lease owner of the Black Bull, the squatters had illegally reconnected the electricity and dipped into the bar’s stock. Party time is the only time if you’ve taken over a pub.^[6]

4 A Squatter Called “Jesus” Moved into Borris Becker’s Mansion

A man by the name of Georg Berres, who calls himself “Jesus,” moved into Borris Becker’s mansion back in May of 2018. Berres claimed he didn’t know it was the tennis legend’s residential palace until the German media informed him when they showed up for an interview with the squatter. Borris Becker hadn’t been seen at the mansion in years.

Berres wasn’t trying to keep quiet about this takeover either. He posted a Facebook status saying “The new time begins now,” shared video tours he made, did several news interviews, and everything. According to Express, Berres had lived in several other properties in the area.^[7]

3 One of the Most Famous Squats in the World

C-Squat is famous among squatters worldwide. In 1989 a rundown tenement building on the lower East-side of NYC, lacking stairs and landings, where apartments were connected by a series of ladders, was taken over by a group of squatters. The squatters repaired the building, including making an open venue for punk shows in the basement after the floor above collapsed. C-Squat even had an indoor skatepark by the time squatters got done with it.

In 2002, squatters started the process of making them legal owners of C-Squat, and in 2015, C-squat became a legal living co-op. This was one big step for squatters everywhere, one small step for . . . um . . . rundown buildings in New York City?^[8]

2 A Squatter Took Over a San Francisco Mansion Because He Was Obsessed with Taylor Swift

Everyone wants to live in a mansion at some point in their lives, and several of these squatters have gotten a taste of the mansion-life by camping out in these oversized houses, but few have used these mansions to make a buck.

A man by the name of Jeremiah Kaylor moved into a historic Presidio Heights mansion back in 2015. He lived there for weeks, claiming “To me, I owned the house.” Thinking he owned the $22 million Koshland House is probably what lead Kaylor to believe it was totally cool to sell off the paintings within for a quick buck. It turned out this was just a bonus. The real reason the man took over this particular mansion was his obsession with Taylor Swift who he heard was thinking about buying the place. He was arrested for trespassing and burglary. And, in case you were wondering, he never did become president of the T-Swift Fanclub.^[9]

1 Squatters Turn Mansion into Party House While Millionaire-Owner is Out of Town

Where’s the party at, you ask? Well, in May of this year, it was located at a $6 million mansion in Sydney, Australia, where five guys took over the home while the owner was in Hong Kong on business. News reports say the house was filled with booze and drug paraphernalia, through the bedrooms and bathrooms, and out to the pool. A lone bong sat in one room, probably used for smoking “the drugs.”

The squatters stayed at the mansion for nearly three weeks or, in party terms, a “wild ride,” before being driven out by some plumbers who showed up for maintenance reasons. Party poopers. The group of men claimed to know the owner, but when asked his name, they gave the wrong one. They then ran off when the plumbers tried to take their pictures. One of the men was caught and charged with trespassing. That means, there are probably four guys out there throwing one crazy party right now.^[10]

10 Times A Homeless Person Was A Hero (For Real)

Far be it from us to promote or condone anything illicit, but it’s not out of pocket to point out that people out in the world have, for just shy of forever, been looking for ways to alter their states of consciousness or otherwise get high, as the kids say. And it turns out it’s not even just people who do it. So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most unusual highs that have ever been achieved. 

10. Dolphins Use Pufferfish to Get High

They say dolphins are one of the most intelligent animals on earth, as far as being able to objectively measure such things go. Maybe even close to humans. So what can we make of the knowledge that, like humans, some dolphins love to get high as a kite?

Footage of dolphins in the wild has shown that young ones clearly go out of their way to hunt down and play with certain kinds of pufferfish. These fish produce toxins as a natural defense mechanism and it can be lethal in high enough doses. But, like many drugs, if you are exposed to the right dose it doesn’t kill you, it just gets you high. At least that’s how it seems to work for dolphins.

The dolphins have worked out how to get the fish to release just enough of the toxin to get high by chewing on the fish just a little then handing it off to a friend. In this way an entire group of dolphins can get completely loopy. Their behavior noticeably changes after exposure to the fish, including floating nose up in the water. 

9. Parrots Get Addicted to Opium and Raid Poppy Farms

Opium production is an enormous industry in the world. In Afghanistan alone there are about 233,000 hectares of opium fields, or 575,755 acres. India, on the other hand, produces the drug legally for medical purposes and is the largest producer of it in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its own problems. India has to deal with parrots.

Parakeets and related birds will flock to poppy fields up to 30 or 40 times a day to feed. Larger birds can fly away with an entire pod which could produce 20 to 25 grams of opium alone which works out to around 1 ounce and is more than enough to get a human high, never mind a parrot.

The birds know to fly in quietly to avoid detection and will either destroy the pods to get seeds or take the whole pod away. Farmers have tried using loud noises and even firecrackers to keep the birds away but nothing has been very successful. 

8. People Smoke Dead Scorpions to Get High

Humans have proven to be nothing if not industrious when it comes to getting high and we can turn damn near anything into an illicit substance with some Walter White ingenuity and time. That includes the utterly unpredictable, like dead scorpions.

While Pakistan, like India, has its fair share of opium, there are also street vendors who will sell you scorpions as well. These scorpions can be cooked on a stove or dried out in the sun. The venom in the tail is what addicts crave and the high sounds absolutely bonkers, to put it in scientific terms.

The high lasts about 10 hours but 6 of those are just painful because the venom is incredibly toxic and dangerous. After the 6 hour pain prep, the remaining four hours have been described as enjoyable because “everything appears like it is dancing.”

The venom is more dangerous than many other drugs and there are reports it’s incredibly addicting and dangerous. It can lead to serious memory loss, delusions, and more. 

7. Lemurs Like to Get High on Millipedes

The rest of the animal kingdom is also well aware of the kick you can get from ingesting creepy crawlies in one form or another and that’s why lemurs have shown that they’re really into getting high on millipedes.

Lemurs can be found on the island of Madagascar where they spend their days eating mostly fruit and hopping about in a comical fashion. They have also been observed biting, but not eating, red millipedes. This is the lemur equivalent of what we already saw with dolphins and pufferfish.

The red millipede produces toxins that are meant to keep predators away. The mixture they produce even includes cyanide. For its part, the lemurs get sprayed with this solution and it causes them to salivate something awful. They rub this toxic spit mixture as well as they now spit and poison covered millipede into their own fur. While this acts as a kind of natural pesticide, it also gets the lemur high, putting them into a sort of trance.

6. Wallabies Get High on Opium and Make Crop Circles

Down under in Australia there are fields of poppies being grown for the production of opiate drugs, even ones full of “super poppies” engineered for Johnson and Johnson to be high yield narcotic producers. This has not gone unnoticed by the local wildlife. 

On the island of Tasmania, where the poppies are grown legally, wallabies had a bad habit of raiding the fields, getting completely wasted eating the plants, and then spinning in circles. Not only is the eating a problem but the wallabies’ spinning creates damaging crop circles that destroy even more of the valuable plants, making it a double whammy of marsupial mayhem. 

It’s never been clear why the poppies make the wallabies spin in circles, the same thing happens to sheep and neither of them are trapped in the field, they seem to just get stuck spinning and eating as they get high.

5. Reindeer Herders Get High Drinking Reindeer Pee

This one may qualify as a twofer or some kind of circle of life high. At the very least it’s like a not-quite-human centipede of psychoactivity, which is novel if nothing else.

In the northern parts of Europe there is a large population of reindeer and, as a result, reindeer herders, including the Sami people. The herders have known for a long time that the reindeer like to graze on hallucinogenic mushrooms and, in fact, the Sami people folded this habit into their own rituals. Sami shaman were said to drink the urine of the already-stoned reindeer in order to get the world’s weirdest contact high. 

Now, many sources debunk this story as being untrue and say that of course no one ever drank hallucinogenic reindeer urine. However, that was later retracted by one of the debunkers when he spent time with these people and they told him explicitly that it does, in fact, happen.

Why drink reindeer whiz when the mushrooms are right there? The reindeer filter them. The mushrooms on their own would be too dangerous. Eating them raw would cause vomiting and other side effects. But filtered through the reindeer’s pee makes it very ironically more palatable. 

4. Smoking Crushed Ants Is Popular with Youth in the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is known for being pretty strict when it comes to rules about drugs and drinking. But it seems like the locals have developed one or two ways to skirt the regulations with novel highs. Some people smoke ants, for instance. 

The local samsun black ants produce formic acid when they are attacked as a defense mechanism. The ants are harvested in sandy areas and then crushed and added to tobacco to smoke. The formic acid produces a high that’s compared to marijuana, completely with audio and visual hallucinations. The downside is that, when smoked, the formic acid becomes dangerously toxic and can lead to pulmonary fibrosis and renal failure and damage to the nervous system.

The problem seems to be pervasive with children in the UAE, with reports suggesting as many as one third of all children have tried it. The ants are not illegal to smoke so there’s no consequence for anyone to do so and you can find them literally everywhere, they’re ants.

There’s even a market for the ants for those who don’t want to scrounge them. Packets of them sell for the equivalent of about $100 US.

3. Aussie Dogs Lick Cane Toads to Get High

Licking toads may be the most ubiquitous “weird” high out there, so well known it was in an episode of The Simpsons over 20 years ago. The idea of licking toads to get a buzz is not all cartoon tomfoolery, however. It’s also not limited to humans or their yellow-skinned animated counterparts. Dogs in Australia have learned they can get a buzz this way, too.

Australia is home to over one billion cane toads, each of them protected by a toxic secretion. That toxin, however, is not enough to kill a dog that may stop by for a simple taste. It will get the dog stoned, however. As one dog owner said, it makes the dogs “a little bit crazy” looking.

Veterinarians and officials in Australia readily acknowledge that this is common behavior for some dogs. While any dog may see a toad once and try to play with it, getting high as a result, others have a habit and their owners have observed the frequent results of the behavior.

All of that said, it’s possible that cane toad toxins could harm your dog as well, so if your dog gets to one it’s in your best interests to take them to the vet, just in case. 

2. Marmots Destroy Cars to Get at Antifreeze

Antifreeze has a long and troubling history in the world of consumables. Cats are attracted to it and will often consume it despite how toxic it is for them thanks to the sweet taste. There was an entire scandal in the 70s over Austrian winemakers adding it to their wine, as well. 

While antifreeze is bad for cats and humans alike, marmots are another matter. In California, yellow-bellied marmots have been observed in groups of four or five under cars in parking lots. They climb up into the engine and chew through hoses until they find the one that holds coolant and the group will lap up as much antifreeze as they can. According to officials from Fish And Wildlife, as many as 200 marmots do this in the parking area of Sequoia National Park from May to August, damaging a few dozen cars in the process. 

The marmots started doing it in the 80s and they’ve been observed enjoying what looks like a high, possibly from the ethylene glycol which is technically alcohol, just not the kind most of us should be drinking.

It’s unclear if the marmots can process antifreeze somehow, or they simply consume non-lethal doses, but the fact they keep coming back means it’s not killing them like it would many other animals.

1. Soldiers in Vietnam Would Eat C4 to Get High

Humans have used all kinds of preposterous things to get high. Sniffing glue was popular for a while. Huffing gas, too. We’ll try mass amounts of nutmeg, and even banana peels despite the fact they do nothing. Heck, for a time krokodil seemed to be popular and that chemical cocktail dissolved people while they were still alive. So maybe it’s not too bizarre to learn that soldiers in Vietnam tried to get high by eating C4 explosives. 

C4 was a popular military explosive during the war and is still used in demolition today. Soldiers in Vietnam learned that ingesting small quantities of the plastic explosive produced a high similar to that of ethanol. Of course, it also produces symptoms like seizures, dizziness, vomiting, cardiac arrhythmia, rashes, coma and a host of others. 

Humans are well known for their love of being honoured. In the pursuit of medals and prizes we will do almost anything. Animals on the other hand take a rather relaxed approach to awards. Yet there are times that animals have performed acts so amazingly brave that humans have felt the need to pin tiny medals on their heroic chests.

Here are ten animals that have won high honours from their human colleagues.

Top 10 Cutest Animals In The World (According To Science)

10 Magawa

Rats are generally not the most respected of animals. But this year a rat called Magawa has been presented with a small gold medal for “lifesaving bravery and devotion to duty.” Magawa is a giant pouched rat who has the dangerous job of clearing landmines in Cambodia. Able to sniff out the explosive devices, but too light to set them off, Magawa has helped to clear an area equivalent to 20 football pitches.

Cambodia is littered with millions of landmines and thousands of people have died from being caught in their blasts. With even the best technology detecting them is a long and unsafe task. Magawa works for just half an hour each morning in return for a small treat and finds landmines that can keep his human handlers busy all day.

Magawa is soon to retire but other rats are being trained to take over his role. If they keep up the good work then they too could win a golden medal.^[1]

9 William Windsor

Not all animals that are given high honours live up to the level of expectation of their humans. Since the time of Queen Victoria the 1st Battalion Royal Welch of the British Army has received a goat as their mascot from the monarch. In 2001 they got goat army number 25232301 – also known as William “Billy” Windsor. Not only is the goat a mascot for the soldiers he is an active member of the army. Billy was given the rank of Lance Corporal.

With his rank any soldier that he outranked would have to stand to attention as the goat trotted by. Unfortunately on his first overseas duty Billy acted in a less than soldierly manner. During a parade Billy refused a direct order from his superior and strayed out of line. For this he was demoted to Fusilier.

Billy soon after regained his rank and has since retired from his position. As well as the honour of his rank Billy had other perks. Each day he was given two cigarettes to eat and a drink of Guinness.^[2]

8 Lucca

The Dickin Medal is among the highest awards animals can receive for bravery. Given by the  People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) charity the medal is only presented to animals who show exceptional gallantry in wartime. Lucca, a dog working with the United States Marine Corps, was the first American dog to receive the British award.

During six years of active service in Afghanistan Lucca took part in over 400 patrols. Sniffing out IEDs that were the bane of those serving in the country Lucca no doubt saved many lives. The final device she identified weighed over 30 kg and had huge destructive power. It was moments later that another one detonated and Lucca suffered burns and injuries. Unfortunately her front leg had to be amputated. Once she recovered Lucca was flown to London to be awarded the Dickin medal.

Lucca was also presented with a purple heart, the medal given to members of the US armed services injured in battle. In an unofficial ceremony when he was given one by a Marine who had twice received the purple heart himself.^[3]

7 GI Joe

The first American winner of the Dickin award however was much earlier and was a pigeon given the name GI Joe. During the Allied advance in Italy during the Second World War Allied troops made such a speedy invasion that they found themselves far ahead of where they were expected. When they captured a village that had been in German hands they were at risk of being bombed by their own planes because no one thought they would be there.

With their radio unable to reach the airbase where the planes were about to launch the troops turned to their last hope – Pigeon USA43SC6390, AKA GI Joe. He got through to the base just in time and the bombing was called off, saving over 100 lives.

The citation that went with the Dickin medal presented to GI Joe read: “This bird is credited with making the most outstanding flight by a USA army Pigeon in World War II, Making the 20 mile flight from British 10th Army HQ, in the same number of minutes, it brought a message which arrived just in time to save the lives of at least 100 Allied soldiers from being bombed by their own planes.” Joe went on to a happy and long retirement after the war.^[4]

6 Kuno

Dogs have long been credited as man’s best friend and it certainly seems that in the battlefield they are. Dogs have often come to their handlers’ defence even at the risk of their own lives. One dog named Kuno suffered a great deal of pain when he leapt into a fight with an al-Qaida gunman.

Kuno was serving alongside the elite Royal Navy’s Special Boat Service when they led an assault on an insurgent compound. Pinned down by machine gun fire and grenades the forces were unable to proceed. Kuno tackled one of the gunmen and allowed his humans to successfully take their target. Kuno suffered gunshots in both his back legs but was saved and carried to safety.

A portion of one leg had to be amputated and Kuno became the first British forces dog to receive custom-made prosthetic legs and can now be found running around in retirement. Kuno has become one of the latest recipients of the Dickin medal.

The British Defence Secretary said “Without Kuno, the course of this operation could have been very different, and it’s clear he saved the lives of British personnel that day.”^[5]

10 Ageless Animals That Do Not Grow Old

5 Reckless

The United States Marine Corps has only once given an official rank to an animal. During the Korean War a pack horse called Reckless rose through the ranks to become Sergeant.

Reckless was an unusually clever horse and was quick to pick up her training. When her fellow soldiers called out “Incoming!” she learned to run for the bunker. Her handlers taught her to avoid barbed wire and to lay down to dodge bullets. But it was her ability to act without human guidance that won her a soldier’s honours.

When her marines came under fire Reckless made 51 trips back and forth under enemy fire to deliver them ammunition and carrying the wounded back from the front. During her trips Reckless was wounded by shrapnel twice. Showing bravery not usually associated with flighty horses Reckless served throughout the battle. One of her troops said “Surely an angel must have been riding her.”

Reckless retired having received two Purple Hearts, two Navy Presidential Unit Citations, a Navy Unit Commendation, four Korean Service medals, and a Marine Corps Good Conduct medal.^[6]

4 Sergeant Stubby

Not all military dogs are large and fearsome beasts. Stubby, as his name suggests, was not a tall dog. He was not even a pure bred dog of long lineage. Stubby was found wandering around Yale University where troops were training for the First World War. Stubby was smuggled on board a ship heading for Europe and was allowed to stay when he saluted an officer.

For 18 months Stubby served with 102nd Infantry Regiment in 17 battles. Stubby offered many services to his fellow soldiers. With his strong sense of smell he was able to alert them to coming gas attacks. He would also bark when he heard German soldiers on the move. As a last resort he acted as Mercy Dog who searched out injured and dying soldiers to comfort them.

Stubby was injured during his service but survived the war to lead an honoured life. He met Presidents Wilson Coolidge, and Harding and was often placed at the head of parades where people would line up to cheer him. Perhaps his greatest honour was to be promoted to Sergeant in the US Army.^[7]

3 Tirpitz the Pig

During the First World War pigs were often kept on board ships where they could be used as a fresh supply of meat. One pig was stationed on the German ship the SMS Dresden and would have had little hopes of surviving the war. When her ship took part in a battle off the Falkland Islands her chances seemed to sink even lower – as her ship was sunk from under her.

Most of the German sailors who abandoned ship swam for the shore but Tirpitz leapt from the ship and swam towards the British vessels. She was spotted and hauled on board the HMS Glasgow. There she won her name, after the German Admiral von Tirpitz, and was given a mock Iron Cross for staying on board the Dresden after the rest of her crew had fled.

Now a mascot for the Glasgow Tirpitz was treated with great respect. Alas she proved to be troublesome and broke into a chicken coop when out on shore-leave. It took ten men to wrestle her back onto the Glasgow. She was retired from the ship and would have to serve the British forces in another way.

Taken to England she was put up for auction with all proceeds going to the Red Cross. Those wanting to size her up before buying her could pay her a visit at the Grosvenor Hotel. The vast sum of 400 guineas was paid for Tirpitz. Little is known about her later life but she did receive one final, if dubious, honour – when she was eaten her head was stuffed and put on display. She can be seen in the Imperial War Museum in London.^[8]

2 Bucephalus

Alexander the Great did not do anything by halves. When he set out to conquer an empire he created the largest one the world had ever seen. And when he wanted to honour his horse his did that in a suitably grand way too.

Alexander’s horse Bucephalus was his companion from a young age. Originally offered to Alexander’s father the horse proved to be un-rideable and wild. Only a youthful Alexander was brave enough to tame him. Seeing Alexander on the horse his father declared “O my son look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee.” And that is what he did.

In all his campaigns Bucephalus was by Alexander’s side. When Bucephalus died Alexander ordered not only a massive funeral for his old friend he also commanded that a city be founded in his honour. Alexandria Bucephalous was built to the east of the Indus river at the far edge of Alexander’s domain.^[9]

1 Cher Ami

In the mud and gas and terror of the First World War it was easy for messages to go astray and never reach their target. Radio was still relatively new, telegraph wires could be cut, and road were often blasted with deep craters. When Major Charles White Whittlesey and 550 men of his men became pinned down none of the runners they sent with messages asking for aid got through. Soon their own side began shelling them because they did not know they were in the area. Whittlesey turned to his carrier pigeons.

Carrier pigeons were so vital to the war effort that British law offered stiff fines or jail sentences for those found to have killed one. The first two that were sent by the trapped men were shot down. With only 194 men left alive all their hopes were placed on the message given to Cher Ami. “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it.”

Hopes faded immediately when Cher Ami was shot by the Germans in the breast. It fell to the ground but somehow recovered and flew off with its message. The message got through and the men were saved but Cher Ami was left blinded in one eye and with a leg dangling by only a tendon.

Cher Ami was given the best medical care the army had and her life was saved. She was given one of France’s highest honours, the Croix de Guerre, and was sent back to the United States following a ceremony with General John Pershing.^[10]

Top 10 Horrific Ways Animals Were Used For Entertainment

Many people believe high-tech problems require high-tech solutions. It’s not quite so. Complex technologies sometimes require simple, low-tech solutions that may cost next to nothing.

Cheap here doesn’t mean inferior since these solutions are often better than the more expensive, high-tech solutions. This list is evidence that the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle is sometimes the best way to go. As the principle states, most things work best when they are kept simple.

10 Ways Technology Is Changing You For The Worse

10 Ostrich feathers and carmakers

Carmakers put a lot of effort into ensuring your new vehicle rolls out of their factories with a spotless paintjob. That’s why they heavily invest in state of the art equipment like high-tech painting stations, industrial robots and ostrich feathers. Did we just say ostrich feathers? Yes, female ostrich feathers actually.

The smallest dust particle can destroy the best paintjob and no one knows that better than carmakers. This is why they demarcate their painting departments from the main factory. They even blast workers and visitors to the painting departments with air to remove dust and loose fiber that may be hanging on their clothes.

However, that isn’t enough since minute dust particles still find their way in and stick on vehicles awaiting painting. Carmakers get rid of these particles by running the vehicles through giant dusters made out of female ostrich feathers right before painting.^[1]

9 Mirrors and elevators

Early elevators did not have mirrors. Manufacturers only added mirrors because they did not want to invest their time, effort and money into making faster elevators.

It all began several decades ago, at a time when elevators were still a new invention. Users often complained the elevators were too slow. Most elevator manufacturers returned to the drawing board to design faster elevators, which was expensive. However, one company decided to do things a bit differently.

It conducted a research and discovered most users thought elevators were slower than they really were. People only complained because they had nothing to do other than stare at the walls of the elevators while thinking about the many bad things that could happen if the cables snapped and the elevator fell to the ground.

The elevator company concluded they needed a way to distract people. They added mirrors so people could think about their appearance while in elevators. Users instantly lost track of time and now thought elevators were faster than they were.^[2]

8 Angled runways and aircraft carriers

If you’ve seen an overhead photo of a modern aircraft carrier or even seen one up-close, you will notice the runway is always angled and never straight. This contrasts with the World War II era aircraft carriers that had straight runways. Why is this so?

This has everything to do with the invention of the jet engine. World War II era carriers carried propeller-driven airplanes, which required shorter runways to take-off and land. This meant the carriers could launch and recover airplanes simultaneously. However, this changed when jet powered airplanes came along.

Jet engines require longer runways for take-off or landing. This meant the carriers were either launching or recovering airplanes and couldn’t do both at the same time. On top of that, landing jets that missed the arresting wire (which helps in rapidly decelerating a landing airplane) would not have enough runway space to taxi and take-off to attempt another landing.

One solution to these problems was to build larger aircraft carriers with longer runways. This suggestion was cast aside because it did not solve all the aforementioned problems. A second suggestion was to leave landing airplanes hovering above the carrier while other airplanes took off. However, this too was abandoned because jets do not carry enough fuel.

The third option was to tilt the runways on existing carriers to maximize runway space. The angled runways were longer and solved every issue the navy had with shorter airways.^[3]

7 Playstation 3 consoles and supercomputers

A few years ago, the US Air Force used 1,760 Sony Playstation 3 consoles to build the most powerful supercomputer in the US Department of Defense and the 33rd most powerful supercomputer in the world.

The supercomputer was so powerful that it could perform 500 million mathematical operations in one second and analyze over a billion pixels in one minute. The Air Force used it to process high-resolution satellite images, identify unclear objects in space and research into artificial intelligence.

A Playstation 3 cost $400 apiece at the time the air force built the supercomputer while a similar part from a “real computer” cost around $10,000. This put the cost of the entire project at $2 million, which is between 5-10% the price of a regular supercomputer of similar capability.^[4]

6 Xbox 360 controllers and nuclear submarines

A periscope is one of the defining features of a submarine. It’s that tube-like instrument submariners use to see above water while submerged. Periscopes have seen an upgrade of late and have evolved from the traditional tube-like pole with 45-degree mirrors into high-resolution cameras that can see 360 degrees above the submarine.

The US Navy uses these modern periscopes in its latest Virginia-class nuclear powered submarines. However, this high-tech equipment has the most low-tech controls ever, the Xbox 360 controller.

The use of Xbox controllers in US Navy submarines is a recent development. Until a few years ago, the navy controlled its digital periscopes with $38,000 joysticks. It only swapped them for Xbox controllers after junior officers complained the joysticks were huge, heavy and required extensive training.

Xbox 360 controllers on the other hand, cost around $39.95 apiece. They’re light, easy to use and do not require extensive training. They’re also easy to replace since they can be purchased from the nearest game store.^[5]

10 Dangerous Misconceptions About Nuclear Technology

5 VELCRO and NASA

The absence of gravity is one of the most obvious problems NASA encountered in the early days of space travel. As we all know, gravity is the reason everything stays on the ground. In a weightless environment like space, anything that isn’t secured to the ground or walls will just keep floating around.

NASA needed a way to keep tools and equipment from floating around without necessarily bolting them to the ground or wall. So it turned to VELCRO, the inventor of hook-and-loop fasteners and both worked together to perfect a hook-and-loop fastener that will not only keep stuff from floating around but will also survive the extreme environment of space.

NASA uses lots of VELCRO in its projects. It even added them to spacesuit helmets so that astronauts can scratch their noses while spacewalking. Little wonder many people erroneously think NASA invented hook-and-loop fasteners. NASA did not invent hook-and-loop fasteners but as it said about VELCRO in 1969, “We couldn’t fly without it”.^[6]

4 Rats and landmines

Landmines are a huge problem in former warzones. Considering they only explode when someone or something steps on them, they can remain active for decades, even long after the war is over. Every year, thousands of people lose their lives after stepping on forgotten landmines.

Finding and deactivating these landmines is a very difficult and dangerous job, even with bomb detection equipment. Some organizations replace the bomb detection equipment with bomb detection dogs but these dogs are often expensive to transport and complicated to use.

In 1997, an anti-landmine NGO called APOPO stepped in with a cheaper and better solution, rats. These aren’t your regular subway rats but the African giant pouched rat, which are as large as cats. The rats have terrible eyesight but excellent sense of smell, which they use to detect the TNT in the landmines.

African giant pouched rats are faster and better than humans and dogs. A rat will cover 2,000 square feet in just 20 minutes. A human equipped with bomb detectors will cover the same distance in four days. The rats are also light enough to walk over landmines without triggering them. APOPO’s rats have detected over 13,200 landmines in several countries so far.^[7]

3 A $10 domain name and WannaCry

A few years ago, the world experienced one of the worst ransomware attacks ever seen. WannaCry as it was called, infected over 300,000 computers in 150 countries. The virus locked owners out of their computers and instructed them to pay hundreds of dollars in Bitcoin as ransom.

WannaCry continued ravaging the world until a man identified as Malwaretech bought a domain name. Domain names are not expensive. They cost around $10 on average. However, that simple action was enough to render WannaCry docile. It instantly stopped spreading and removed itself from every computer it had infected. How did this happen?

This happened because Malwaretech exploited the same thing that made WannaCry successful. Unlike regular viruses, ransomwares always maintain a communication channel that links the attacker to the victim. While this may sound dumb, the attacker actually needs this channel to send payment information to their victims, collect ransoms and unlock their computers after payment.

However, this communication channel works both ways because law enforcement agencies could use it to track the attackers. Attackers counter this by building kill switches into their virus. This allows them to shut down their viruses the moment they suspect they’re being tracked.

For WannaCry, that kill switch was a domain name. The attackers programmed the virus to check the internet for an unregistered domain name at intervals. The virus would continue spreading if the domain remained unregistered but will instantly stop the moment it was registered. Malwaretech found that kill switch and registered the domain name, stopping the virus.^[8]

2 Speed tape and airplanes

We all know airplanes require regular maintenance since pilots cannot park on the nearest cloud whenever they run into issues. However, maintenance is a big word here since it could refer to something as basic as holding the airplane together with speed tape.

Think of speed tape as the duct tape for airplanes. Like duct tape, they can fix everything even though aviation authorities limit them to holding noncritical parts of the airplane together. They’re considered a temporary solution and the fault will be usually sorted out the next time the airplane goes into maintenance.

Speed tape costs a few hundreds to thousands of dollars. While that may seem expensive, it is cheaper when compared to the thousands or even millions of dollars airlines will lose if airplanes were taken out of service every time they have issues.^[9]

1 iPhones and the US Army Special Operations Command

The US Army Special Operations Command uses many specialized mobile apps during top military operations. However, instead of developing expensive devices to handle those apps, they turned to a cheaper alternative, iPhones.

While we do not know what the majority of these apps do, we know of one that uses the split screen feature of the iPhone. The operator sees a live footage shot from a flying Unmanned Aerial Vehicle on one part of the screen and a map showing the route taken by the UAV on the other.

A Business Insider report revealed the army previously used Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Note smartphones before switching to the iPhone 6s. The switch was necessary because the apps often froze on Samsung, constantly requiring the operators to restart the device. On top of that, the iPhone 6s also had better screen resolution, which made photos and videos sharper.

Before this turns into another Samsung-iPhone, Android-iOS or Google-Apple war, we should add that the Department of Defense pitched the older Samsung phones it was using at the time against the newer iPhone 6s during tests.^[10]

10 Pieces Of Technology That Won’t Exist In 20 Years

It’s no surprise that life is a bit easier for highly intelligent people, as they’re able to identify and solve life’s problems much more effectively than someone with average or below-average intelligence. Intelligent people are also generally more successful and well-educated, as should be obvious.

However, much like all good things, high intelligence comes with its own set of caveats, some of which may even come as a surprise to most people. While being too intelligent is not a problem many of us will ever have to deal with, for those who do, here are some unexpected ways high intelligence can have negative effects on your well-being.

10 More Mental Disorders

There’s no doubt that intelligent people lead healthier lives and have higher life expectancies, as you’d expect them to. While it may seem intuitive and expected, the reasons for this aren’t exactly known.

If we talk about mental health issues like mood and anxiety disorders, however, studies indicate the exact opposite. In a study conducted on Mensa members, who are the top two percent of the general population in terms of IQ, researchers found that psychological disorders like anxiety are more prevalent.^[1] They also found that the subjects were three times more likely to have environmental allergies than the national average, something that they can’t really explain.

Their ongoing theory is that higher intelligence also translates to a more hyper body, which reacts to external challenges in a more severe manner than usual. For an example, a highly intelligent person is perhaps more susceptible to anxiety at the workplace due to having a better understanding of the gravity of a stressful situation.

9 Worse Social Relations In Adulthood

It doesn’t take a detailed scientific study to know that as you grow older, your friend circle diminishes, which may have something to do with not having as much of a life as you did when you were younger. It’s a natural part of growing up, and almost everyone goes through it. What is surprising, however, is that intelligent people are much more likely to have troubled relationships with their social groups than others in their adult years.

In a study conducted at Stockholm University, they looked at how IQ affects adjustment for adolescents of varying IQ scores. They found that highly intelligent people were somewhat worse at adjusting to an aging life when it came to friend relations.^[2] They also tend to be less satisfied with life in general as they grow older, though we’ll get to that one in detail below.

8 Less Financially Responsible

Financial responsibility is often much more important than earning a lot, as long as the bare necessities are covered. Many older rich people would tell you that every penny saved is a penny earned, and they would be correct, as there’s arguably no point earning a lot if you don’t know how to keep it. It should seem obvious that more intelligent people would get that better than others, though according to a study, the reality isn’t what you might expect.

The study, done by a researcher at Ohio State University, involved 7,400 Americans in their forties and examined how their IQ scores compared to their average earnings. He found a definite relationship between IQ scores and high earnings, as every IQ point translated to an additional income of $234 to $616 per year. Counterintuitively, the study also showed that people with higher IQs are a bit more likely to be in financial difficulty than those with lower scores.^[3]

7 Disadvantages During Early Days Of Evolution

One of the most widely believed facts about intelligence is that it gave us an edge during our early days, which sounds intuitive. After all, being able to calculate how far ahead a predator is just by observing aspects of its footprints, for example, must have provided a higher chance at surviving long enough to procreate.

As a lot of research suggests, though, that’s absolutely not the case. During our early days, being intelligent wouldn’t actually have been much of an advantage, as early humans were already mentally equipped to deal with problems of that time by evolutionary design. Sure, extra intelligence gives you an advantage over the others in modern times (e.g. being good at numbers may make you better at accounting jobs than others), but it wouldn’t have been needed that often in earlier times, as novel problems were generally uncommon.^[4]

On top of that, intelligent people are more likely to engage in risky behavior than others and to live in solitude, and confidently so, too, which would have been a definite disadvantage back then, with no added advantages against the environment compared to other people.

6 More Likely To Abuse Substances

It doesn’t need to be said that drugs are bad. Sure, many people may be able to recreationally partake without absolutely ruining their lives, but more often than not, getting into drugs is not a healthy lifestyle choice. One would think that more intelligent people would be more likely to abstain, though according to some definitive studies, that’s not the case.

Research conclusively proves that highly intelligent people are more likely to get into drugs then their less intelligent counterparts, something that still surprises scientists. We’re not talking about relatively harmless drugs like marijuana, either, but heavy-duty stuff like cocaine and ecstasy.^[5]

While we don’t quite understand why that’s the case, science says that it may be due to the evolutionary novelty of these substances. Many of today’s drugs didn’t exist for most of human history, and intelligent people may be more drawn toward new experiences than others, as well as more likely to believe themselves to have a better idea of the risk, even if it’s highly likely that they don’t.

5 Less Likely To Confront Their Biases

Whenever we talk about irrational beliefs—like believing in the flat Earth theory or that evolution doesn’t exist—we assume that people with lower intelligence are more susceptible to them. Well, there are no surprises there, as that is absolutely true. Higher intelligence does mean that one is less likely to believe things that are not based in reason and logic, as you’d think.

It’s the exact opposite, however, when it comes to looking inward and being able to challenge one’s own beliefs when irrefutable evidence is provided to the contrary.^[6] Studies indicate that people with higher cognitive abilities are less likely to budge from their positions when an alternative viewpoint is presented with facts, no matter how reasonable or unreasonable their current stand is, something that’s much easier to gauge for obviously dumb beliefs like the Earth being flat.

For an example, smarter people with a particular set of scientific beliefs tend to not budge from them, even if those beliefs are decisively proven inaccurate with a newly published study.

4 More Likely To Fall For The Gambler’s Fallacy

The gambler’s fallacy is a logical fallacy we’re all prone to falling for due to how our brains our designed. While it’s a bit complicated to explain in a single sentence, in essence, it’s the belief that because something has happened a lot in a given period of time, it’s less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa), even if there’s no reason to believe that’s the case. It’s applicable in a lot of cases in real life, the most apparent of them being gambling (hence the name), where gamblers keep expecting a different outcome for the next round based on repetition in previous outcomes.

Surprisingly, smarter people are much more likely to fall for the gambler’s fallacy than others, according to a study conducted on a group of highly intelligent Chinese college students.^[7] While we don’t quite understand why that is, it’s possible that intelligent people are also more rigid in their emotional decision-making, which doesn’t allow them to rationally ascertain the likelihood of future events based on past occurrences.

3 More Likely To Be Overwhelmed Under Pressure

The ability to perform under pressure is an increasingly valuable trait in most modern workplaces, as it’s a competitive and tough world out there. It also happens to be one of the things we brag about on our CVs, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Many people are naturally good at delivering under high-stress situations, and as studies have found, they’re largely people with lower intelligence levels than their high-IQ counterparts.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, studies show that highly intelligent people are more likely to crumble under pressure, especially when the end goal is performance- and reward-related. One of the reasons may be that they tend to be more anxious about the outcome than the others, as they’re used to breezing through challenges in the earlier, less competitive stages of their lives.

Surprisingly, they perform better when the goals are rearranged to be learning-oriented than based on results.^[8] Well, it’s a good thing that most jobs allow you to do your best and learn rather than outright fire you if you don’t meet your monthly targets, then.

2 More Likely To Feel Unfulfilled

The less intellectually gifted among us might assume that the only thing standing between them and complete fulfillment is their intellect. If only they could be better at math or science, they’d definitely be able to leave their boring dead-end jobs and lead a life of utter contentment and happiness. And most of them would be wrong, as high intellect isn’t helpful if satisfaction is your end goal.

On first look, it may seem to not make sense at all, but think about it: Highly intelligent people grow up thinking they can accomplish anything. However, as the real world loves to remind us time and again, no one can achieve anything they want, no matter how gifted they are. So due to unrealistic expectations of themselves, the highly intelligent are prone to being less satisfied with their achievements, even if they’re perfectly good achievements on their own.

This isn’t just some crackpot assertion, either; studies on high-IQ individuals over several decades indicate that high intelligence is directly related to feelings of not having lived up to one’s potential in later periods of our lives.^[9]

1 Less likely To Have Sex In Adolescence

If you’ve ever seen a movie on teenage life, you’ll have come across the oft-repeated “virgin nerd” trope. There’s always that one student who’s supersmart and good at studies. They talk down at others, do smart people stuff, and graduate without ever having found a sexual partner. Of course, we know those people go on to become successful startup founders and other rich professionals in the future, as we’ve all seen The Social Network. So the lack of sex is definitely not true for later life, but what about the adolescent stereotype?

Science says that the movies got that one thing right for sure. Many studies show that smart people are much less likely to have sex at younger ages.^[10] They don’t have to be outright nerds, either, as the data was uniform for anyone with a high IQ score compared to those with average IQs.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

When I was in high school, I saw a ghost.

Or, at least, I thought I saw one. The school was running a fundraising event one evening, and I joined a group of classmates headed to a temporary classroom on the far side of the building to retrieve fold-up chairs. Approaching the classroom, we saw a green face pressed against the inside of one of the windows in the dim night light. Needless to say, we wasted no time hightailing it out of there.

The next day, after plucking up the courage to approach the classroom again before the first bell, we burst out laughing (mostly in relief) when we saw that it was a green rubber mask squashed against the inside of the window.

But sometimes, it’s not just a spooky Halloween mask. On this list are some haunted high school stories, some creepier than others, that still make the rumor mill from time to time.

Related: 10 Haunted Retail Stores

10 Turakina Māori Girls’ College, New Zealand

In 2015, two students boarding at the Turakina Māori Girls’ College left the school and refused to return after allegedly being threatened by the apparition of a man in a black cape and hat. It was soon revealed that the school administration had accused the two girls of fabricating the story, which led to their parents getting involved and losing their temper over the handling of the matter. Some parents said that the school administration was in denial about the ghost (kehua) haunting the school hostel and also reacted angrily when a local reverend suggested the ghost had been made up by the girls.

A former student then spoke up about her own experiences at the hostel dating back 20 years. Thirty-eight-year-old Kelly Sliepen told a local news outlet that when she was a student, she and a group of classmates once saw a cup careen across a table by itself and drop to the floor. She said that a local minister had been called to bless the building but that she saw an apparition on the main stairs not long afterward.^[1]

The school closed in 2016 after financial problems caused student enrollment to drop from 152 to just 47.

9 Hibbing High School, Minnesota

Hibbing High is not your average hum-drum school building. Here, the staircases are marble, the railings are brass, and art deco walls hold the whole, almost medieval, design together.

The auditorium was modeled after the Capitol Theatre, which is a sight in itself. And when Bob Dylan was still Robert Zimmerman and a student at Hibbing High, he performed on the auditorium stage during a talent show.

But even with star performers and a stunning design, it’s a lone seat inside the auditorium that attracts the most attention. The story goes that the first stage manager, Bill, was employed at the school from 1927 to the late 1960s when he died after a chandelier fell on his head.

Rumors soon flew that Bill never really vacated his favorite seat in the theatre, namely J-47. In the early ’90s, Chuck Perry, who at that point had been stage manager since 1979, took a series of photographs of the auditorium after a woman reported feeling a cold chill as she walked around the J-47 row. And lo and behold, one of the photographs, taken with a Polaroid camera, showed a man sitting in J-47, wearing formal clothes and a top hat. Oh, and you could see right through him.^[2]

8 Downlands Sacred Heart College, Queensland, Australia

This secondary school in Toowoomba was used as military quarters during wartime, and as such, many ghost stories have sprouted up starring the school as the featured location. These include the urban legend of a man on fire, stumbling and screaming his way through campus, the tale of a priest still roaming the on-site chapel, and the apparition of a woman appearing in the administration building.

In 2015, a local ghost hunting group published a historic class photo taken at the school, which they believed showed a ghost amid a group of boys. The blurry figure toward the top right of the photograph seems to be wearing the same uniform as the rest of the students. The photo can be seen hanging on a wall inside the school and is considered proof of ghostly activity.^[3]

7 Old Maui High School, Hawaii

With the arrival of missionaries and sugarcane plantation owners in Maui came the construction of the Maui High School in 1913. The school relocated in 1972, leaving the old building to slowly begin rotting away. Today, only the shell of the once-imposing structure remains. That, and a handful of eerie ghost stories.

In Hawaii, the general belief is that those who have died always return to the places they frequented in life. At Old Maui High, it is said that some of the students and teachers still walk the grounds and sometimes even interact with the living. There have been reports of students exploring the ruins of the school, only to be choked within an inch of their lives by invisible hands. Visitors to the area have also reported hearing the heart-breaking sobbing of a girl in what used to be a bathroom.^[4]

6 Rizal High School, Phillipines

The Philippines is well known for its ghosts. And in 2015, one was allegedly captured in a photograph in a bathroom at Rizal High School. Two students posed for a selfie in front of the basins and happily went about their merry way. Until they reviewed their selfie, that is. As they commented about how cute they looked in the photo, they spotted a figure in the background, crouching next to a trash can.

Upon closer inspection, it looked like a girl with long black hair wearing black clothes, staring at the two best friends.

It didn’t take long for the selfie to go viral, and social media users immediately pounced on the fact that the “ghost” looked a lot like Samara from The Ring. The students denied faking the photograph, and more students started reporting that they’d seen ghostly apparitions on the school premises.

The school administration, at the time, considered having the building blessed to rid it of any and all ghosts.^[5]

5 Old Portland High School, Michigan

The old high school in Portland, Ionia County, Michigan, originally opened in 1881. According to a longstanding urban legend, a 14-year-old student was crushed to death underneath a pile of gym bleachers that collapsed on her in 1918. The janitor, who failed to fix the bleachers after learning they were faulty, disappeared. It is believed that the student’s father killed the janitor out of revenge for his daughter’s death. He then burned the body and set fire to the school. The school was rebuilt and reopened in 1920. However, the ghosts of the girl and the janitor remained.

Decades later, the school was converted into a housing complex named Old School Manor. It served as housing between 1992 and 2008, and during this time, several tenants reported that their household items would disappear, only to be found stacked on top of one another in a different room. Others reported hearing the disconnected school bells ringing, and some have even encountered the ghost of the student, who allegedly slapped them on the back.

One tenant, in particular, had a horrendous experience with the janitor’s ghost. She alleged that the ghost would terrorize her two-year-old daughter and demanded that she tell her mother they had to move out of their apartment.^[6]

4 Nightmute High School, Alaska

Even if this Alaska school wasn’t haunted, the name is creepy enough to warrant an eerie story or two. And the story of the lonely girl is the one most visitors are told about.

It is said that the spirit of a young girl has been encountered in the school’s bathrooms, where she flushes the toilets or makes the lights flicker. If basketballs are left out in the gym, you might just spot them hurtling toward the hoop, driven by an unseen force.

In life, the girl had no friends and would skulk around the edge of gatherings and groups before being chased off. It has also been rumored that a burial was found underneath room 106, which just so happens to be the place where the girl’s ghost was often spotted as well.^[7]

3 Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore

If you’re looking for more than a handful of haunted schools in one country, then look no further than Singapore. There are at least 20 haunted schools, of which one of the most infamous is the Hwa Chong Institution in Bukit Timah. This secondary school is surrounded by tall trees. These same trees need to be avoided at night, and you should definitely not shine a flashlight up toward the branches.

Doing that will make the bodies of those murdered and hung by Japanese forces during WWII appear. And if that isn’t creepy enough, it is believed that the statues on the school grounds are haunted too. If a person walks up behind the statue of Tan Kah Kee, for instance, it will turn around and ask for the time. The statue of Lee Kong Chian had its eyes covered after they started glowing at night.

Some say that the field at the school used to be shaped like a tombstone, and that it was the initial reason for all the hauntings here.^[8]

2 Jeppe High School for Boys, South Africa

In Kensington, Johannesburg, stands the illustrious Jeppe High School for Boys. The history of this school is closely related to the history of Johannesburg itself. Four years after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, the need to educate the children of miners eventually resulted in the construction of the first school building. The main school building and war memorial erected on the grounds were declared national monuments in 1986.

Jeppe Boys’ is also the place where a ghost retraces her steps through the corridors on a regular basis, scaring the pants off the boys that stay in the on-site hostel during school terms. It is whispered that the ghost of a woman has walked here ever since she committed suicide after the death of her husband during WWI. Another version of the story says that the woman was the mother of a Jeppe Boys’ student and that she witnessed him dying on the sports field after being accidentally impaled by a javelin. She committed suicide by jumping from a nearby hill. She was somehow decapitated and is said to roam the corridors of the school, holding her head while crying for her son.^[9]

1 Las Vegas High School, Nevada

Las Vegas is all glitz, glamour, money, and… ghosts. There are quite a few haunted places in Sin City, including Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum, Westgate, and The Luxor.

In 1931, the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts was known as Las Vegas High School. It was the first official high school in the city and the place where the ghost of a former teacher, Mr. Petri, roamed after he died in a mysterious fire. Even after the school converted into the arts academy, rumors of the haunting continued. Some people reported seeing a man in a white tux occupying a particular seat in the theater, while others felt sharp temperature drops and experienced intense feelings of sadness and despair whenever they entered the building.

A teacher, John Morris, was skeptical about these stories, but he did admit to having a strange experience of his own. The high school once put on a play called The Spoon River Project, and the stage was set up with a fog machine and makeshift cemetery. The director of the play approached Morris and told him she saw a small naked Mexican boy standing right next to her during the production. The boy told her that he needed clothes before disappearing.

Morris rolled his eyes and tried to convince the director that it was all in her mind. The rest of the night went off without a hitch, and after everyone left, only Morris and his three-year-old daughter were left inside the theater. Morris was making sure all the doors were shut and locked before calling his daughter so they could go home. She was playing on a mound of grass used in the play and told her father she didn’t want to go yet because she was playing with a friend.

Morris didn’t see anyone, and believing she was talking about an imaginary friend, he indulged her by saying she could play for a few more minutes. His daughter then said, “It’s that little boy over there; he doesn’t have any clothes on.”^[10]

They say that there are only two things guaranteed in life: death and taxes. And you can at least commit tax fraud for a while if you try. But that death thing has so far managed to catch up with literally everyone. If it were only as simple as one day being alive and another day being dead maybe it’d be less stressful and less anxiety inducing, but no such luck. When you start to look into it, there are so many ways to die, so many contributing factors and so many unexpected and unpleasant statistics about mortality that it might make you want to just hide indoors for the rest of your life. 

10. Brazilian Butt Lifts Are the Deadliest Cosmetic Surgery Procedure

We accept that some things in life are deadlier than others. Trying to pet a tiger is going to be more dangerous than trying to pet a house cat. You’re at greater risk from open heart surgery than you are from having a bunion removed. But there are some truly staggering statistics when it comes to one unlikely procedure that you may not be aware of. A Brazilian butt life is the deadliest plastic surgery procedure going. 

The procedure, meant to make your butt look rounder, perkier and fuller by injecting fat from places in your body where it isn’t wanted into your butt, has the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic procedure that is around one in 3,000. 

The procedure can cost as much as $15,000 to get done. In 2020 alone, over 40,000 butt procedures were done despite the risks. In the UK, surgeons have been advised to not perform the procedure at all, though it’s not banned. 

In a survey, three percent of doctors responded that they’d had a patient die from the procedure. Most deaths can be attributed to pulmonary fat emboli which is when fat ends up in your pulmonary system. Some occur and are not fatal, but others are not so lucky. 

9. Munchausen by Proxy Mortality Rates are About 9% to 10%

Factitious disorder imposed on another is the current name for the condition better known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It’s a mental disorder in which a caregiver makes as though the person they are caring for is sick with something they do not actually have. The condition often seems to be a way for the caregiver to get attention and sympathy, perhaps to be seen as brave or strong for trying to help someone else overcome their illness, when in fact they are the cause of that illness. This may be as simple as gaslighting the alleged patient, especially if they are a child, by convincing them they are sick, but often may also go as far as the caregiver harming the victim in some way by medicating or even poisoning them to make them fit the symptoms. 

Because the entire syndrome is based around a fake illness, it seems like the victim may not be in all that much danger, but the opposite is true. The would-be caregivers often go to great lengths to make the victim fit their false narrative to the extent that the mortality rate for the condition is around 9%.

8. Catch and Release Fishing Mortality is About 18% But Up to 40%

It’s not just human mortality rates that can be depressing. Our unfortunate fish friends in rivers, lakes and streams around the country that we thought were benefiting from catch and release practices are not doing nearly as well as you’d think. 

The idea behind catch and release fishing seems noble enough. You catch a fish, take it off the hook and let it go again so you get the enjoyment of fishing and the fish gets to live another day. Unfortunately, the mortality rate for the fish is between 18% and 40% according to various studies.

A number of factors contribute to what may cause the fish to die even after it’s released, with the location of the hook when the fish is caught being the greatest contributing factor,  but it’s safe to say that they’re not all going to swim off and tell the story to a friend. 

7. Pro Wrestler Mortality is Far Higher Than The Wider Population

If you’re a lifelong fan of professional wrestling, then you no doubt have had to watch a number of your favorites from the past die young. It’s no secret in the industry that wrestlers die young. Many succumb to addiction or health issues related to past drug use. But there are also a number of accidents or other violent deaths that occur as well. In the end, it’s very rare for a pro wrestler to live to a ripe, old age.

For wrestlers between 45 and 54, their mortality rate is nearly three times greater than that of the wider population. When it comes to deaths related to cardiovascular conditions, wrestler deaths occur at a rate 15.1 times greater than the population at large. Cancer deaths among wrestlers are 6.4 times higher. And drug overdose deaths are astronomically higher at 122.7 times more than the wider population. 

As has been noted, some of this can perhaps be attributed to the lifestyle of pro wrestlers, especially in the past. In the 80s, many wrestlers were widely known to and have admitted to using cocaine, steroids and other drugs. And because, unlike most sports, wrestling has no off season, these athletes were pushing their bodies non-stop for years. 

6. People Who Read Have a 20% Lower Mortality Rate

Good news for those of you who like to curl up with a good book, you’re statistically more likely to have extra time to read those books than someone who doesn’t. People who read have a 20% lower mortality rate than those who don’t. 

Specifically, you need to read books to achieve the statistically significant benefits of reading, and magazines or newspapers won’t cut it. The speculated reason is that a book engages your mind in a way magazines and newspapers can’t, which translates into greater mental engagement and a tangible benefit to your overall lifespan.

5. Ford Fiestas Have the Highest Mortality Rate of Any Car

Have you ever heard that you have to pay higher insurance on red cars because they get stolen more often? It’s true that certain types of cars present unique risks for car owners but if you want to really get into which car is best or worst to be driving, you may want to think seriously about certain vehicles like the Ford Fiesta. 

In 2017, data showed the Fiesta as the deadliest car on the road with a death rate of 141 per 1 million registered cars. Compare that to something like a Chevy Corvette at 54 or a Porsche Cayenne with 0. 

Luxury SUVs actually have the lowest death rates overall while small cars have proven to be the least safe.

4. Human Mortality Goes Up in Areas Where Trees Die

Some things in life are inexorably linked together. If there are no bees, for instance, then flowers would suffer from a lack of pollinators. So what happens when trees start to die? People die, too. 

Research has shown that, as the emerald ash borer devastated tree populations, there was a marked increase in diseases in human populations. Cases of heart disease and pneumonia began to rise. Over a 10 year period, 100 million trees died as a result. In the states where the trees died, 15,000 more people died from cardiovascular disease and 6,000 more succumbed to respiratory disease when compared to areas without the tree infections.

The data spanned 1,296 different counties and tried to factor in other variables as well. In the end it became clear that fewer trees equals higher mortality.

3. Too Much (or Too Intense) Exercise May Increase Mortality Rates 

Surely if you want to live longer, then part of the key is to maintain a healthy lifestyle which includes plenty of exercise. Well, yes and no on that one. There’s plenty of evidence that living an active lifestyle is good for you but there’s also that “everything in moderation” saying.

The World Health Organization suggests that, every week, you get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity. And no, most people don’t get that much at all. But there is some limited data now that too much exercise at too great an intensity can start having the opposite effect of that desired. This stems from a study of joggers in which a couple of participants who went extremely vigorous in their exercise routine died. 

Other studies have also shown that you may be at risk of cardiovascular problems if you frequently engage in serious endurance exercise like running marathons. These results are all still being debated, but there is also limited evidence that you get any benefit from pushing your workout to extremes, so the safest bet is probably to stay in the middle somewhere. 

2. Taller People Have a Higher Mortality Rate 

Some traits are seen as more desirable in modern, Western society than others. A lot of these traits are physical and we only have so much control over them on an individual basis. There’s little you can do, for instance, if you want to be tall but you aren’t. And yet it’s hard to deny that many people see being tall as desirable and attractive. So good news for the vertically challenged, there’s some evidence that being tall isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Taller people, in general, have a higher mortality rate. 

In one study, every four inches of height increased the risk of all types of cancer in postmenopausal women by 13%. Each additional inch in height for men turns into a 2.2% increased chance of death from literally any cause compared to shorter people.

1. Robert Liston Performed a Surgery with a 300% Mortality Rate

We touched on some of the dangers of surgery either but even among the deadliest of surgeries the mortality rate is often a number that makes sense, at least mathematically. But there is at least one case when that didn’t happen and a single surgery managed to end with a 300% mortality rate. If you’re doing the math yourself, that means one person got surgery and three people died as a result.

You have to take some gentle liberties with this tale but it’s been documented well enough to hold some water. To start, the procedure was performed by doctor Robert Liston, a surgeon in the early 1800s before the invention of anesthesia.

Liston was apparently known to be fairly competent but, most importantly for the time, fast. If surgery had to be done with no anesthesia, then you can imagine why speed would be of the essence. And for this surgery Liston Was to be performing an amputation. He accomplished his intended goal as well, removing a patient’s leg in just two and a half minutes. We know the time because Liston, apparently somewhat arrogant in regards to his skill, asked to be timed. 

In two and a half minutes, Liston had condemned three people to death. His first victim was an observing doctor who was there to watch the procedure. As Liston was sawing the patient’s leg off at the hip, he switched from one cutting implement to another. In his haste, he slashed through the coat of the observing doctor and though he never cut the man, apparently the fellow was overwhelmed by the fact he saw spurting blood and felt the pull on his coat as Liston tore through it. He died of a heart attack.

Meanwhile, Liston needed the patient to be restrained for obvious reasons, so an assistant had to hold the poor man down. Liston cut the assistant’s fingers off as he removed the patient’s legs.

Both surgical assistant and patient went on to develop gangrenous infections and die a short time later, this cementing Liston as the only doctor ever to kill three people in a single surgery.

It’s been said that America is a litigious society, and Judge Judy might agree. But there has long been a pervasive myth that courts are bogged down with frivolous lawsuits even though, statistically speaking, relatively few lawsuits actually meet the criteria of frivolous. That may be because, in between the conception and execution, some people realize their lawsuits are terrible ideas. Like these 10 cases of high-profile lawsuit threats that range from almost reasonable to utterly preposterous. 

10. George Lucas’ Lawyers Threatened to Sue Mad Magazine

When it comes to copyright infringement, the lawyers of the world have crept out of the woodwork in the internet age to destroy any and all potential violators. But pre-internet things were a little different. For starters, it was harder to even violate a copyright. What were you going to do, write your own Star Wars parody? Well, if you were working at Mad Magazine in 1980, then yeah. 

Lawyers for George Lucas contacted Mad, artist Mort Drucker, and writer Dick DeBartolo, for their parody of The Empire Strikes Back called The Empire Strikes Out. They sent a cease and desist letter demanding the magazine recall all the published issues. Today, such a letter would be potentially terrifying with the power of Disney behind it, but even back then, it would have been at least a little intimidating if not for another letter that DeBartolo had received earlier.

The earlier letter was from George Lucas himself, who had seen the parody in the magazine and liked it so much he wrote the team to praise them and request some of the original art. They wrote back to his lawyers, pointing out that their employer really enjoyed it and attached a copy of Lucas’ letter.  Unsurprisingly, no further legal action was pursued.

9. Disney Threatened to Sue Day Cares

Speaking of Disney, the House of Mouse has a bad habit of showing up on the wrong side of legal issues and one of their most egregious Goliath vs. David cases was when they decided to pursue legal action against some Florida day cares. You know, the places where people take care of children all day? 

Back in 1989, the company learned that three separate child care facilities had brazenly painted Disney copyrighted characters on their walls. Apparently working from a position that no child shall receive joy from their intellectual property without paying each and every day, though the official position was that they feared people would think Disney had somehow sponsored the schools. The day cares were given time to remove the images before any legal action was taken, which they did. This also gave Universal the opportunity to swoop in and replace the lost artwork with images of their characters like Woody Woodpecker, the Flintstones, and other Hanna-Barbera characters owned by the company, making them look like heroes. And yes, Disney was legally right in their claims, but the PR hit couldn’t have done them any favors. 

8. Producers of Witches of Eastwick Threatened to Sue Susan Sarandon if She Didn’t Learn the Cello

Witches of Eastwick came out in 1987 and has become something of a cult classic. In the film, Susan Sarandon plays one of three women that Jack Nicholson’s character, who is just a little bit demonic in nature, takes a shine to. Years after its release, in 2020, Sarandon was speaking before an Eastwick-themed event when she let loose a little dirt from the film’s production.

Aside from claiming her role had been stolen by Cher just before production began, she also learned she’d need to learn how to play the cello for her new role. She had no idea how to play the cello. And you’d think maybe she could fake it for the film but instead the producers threatened to sue her if she didn’t learn. Since her character does have a very memorable cello scene in the film, it’s safe to say she got the job done. 

7. Microsoft Threatened a Teenager Named Mike Rowe 

For the quarter that ended on March 31, 2022, Microsoft earned $49.36 billion. The company is doing pretty well, financially speaking. And maybe they make all that money because they’re almost bafflingly cheap when it comes to conducting business, as witnessed by their threatened lawsuit against a Canadian teenager.

Seventeen-year-old Mike Rowe registered a website called MikeRoweSoft.com, clearly a fun little joke based on his own name. Microsoft does not like jokes. In early 2004, they threatened the teen with legal action. They requested he transfer the domain to them and, in exchange, they would pay him $10. That’s one zero, or the price he paid to register the domain name at the time. 

Rowe countered with an offer for $10,000, saying he was just starting his own graphic design business and he’d spent a lot of time working on the website he was using. Microsoft’s lawyers replied with a 25-page letter accusing him of cyber squatting and requesting an admission of guilt, among other things. 

The story got huge media attention and made Microsoft look ridiculous. Microsoft doubled down, accusing him of drawing things out for a bigger payday. They ended up backtracking later, saying they “took it too seriously.” As for Mike, he ended up giving up the domain, but not for $10 or $10,000. He got an Xbox. 

6. Uri Geller Threatened to Sue Nintendo Over Pokemon 

Uri Geller was famously exposed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for being unable to live up to his claimed psychic abilities. Since then he’s been notoriously prickly about attacks on his person, so much so that he threatened to sue Nintendo over a Pokemon character in the year 2000.

The character, Kadabra, can bend spoons. Uri Geller famously claimed to bend spoons with his mind, though he couldn’t in front of Johnny Carson with spoons he hadn’t had access to ahead of time. Called Yungerer in Japan, Geller believed this was a clear reference to him. 

Nintendo axed the character, and the lawsuit was later dismissed. It wouldn’t be until 2020 when Geller finally decided maybe he’d overreacted and, based on letters he received from fans, allowed Nintendo to go ahead and use the character again. 

5. ASCAP Threatened to Sue the Girl Scouts 

When Girl Scouts aren’t busy selling you addictive cookies, they’re doing things like making crafts, hiking, camping, and good deeds for the community. But let’s backtrack a second to the camping part. What goes along with camping? Marshmallows, tents and camp songs. And that right there is a lawsuit, or it almost was.

Back in the mid-’90s, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, had a beef with camp songs in the most embarrassing way. The organization is supposed to be a non-profit that works to protect the rights of singers and musicians by licensing the rights to members’ music for public performances. This means a singer gets paid when the radio plays one of their songs. They handle billions of dollars this way.

Despite what sounds like good work that they do, the organization has been accused of obnoxiously chasing every copyright dollar it can find. In 1995, they told the American Camping Association they planned to charge for music performed at their camps because they are public performances. This arguably included campfire songs. The association told its members, including about potential fines if a $250 fee wasn’t paid. Their members included Girl Scouts. 

The PR nightmare was swift and brutal. ASCAP was quick to say they never threatened the Girl Scouts, which was sort of true but sort of not. In the end, they relented and camp songs were free once more. 

4. Fyre Festival Threatened to Sue Critics

In 2017, the Fyre Festival was quite the debacle. Advertised as a massive music festival, it turned out to mostly be a fraud. Attendees paid thousands of dollars a piece for luxury accommodations and gourmet food on a tropical island. What they got were repurposed tents, no festival, poor quality food and many were stranded with no power and little food and water.

The organizer ended up getting six years in prison plus an order to pay back millions, though he’s already out of prison now. Remarkably, while the legal cases were ongoing, McFarland and his co-organizer, rapper Ja Rule, were threatening critics with their own lawsuits. They claimed the people using social media to trash the festival were inciting civil unrest. Despite the threat, it didn’t seem to work. 

3. Harrods Department Store Threatened a New Zealand Restaurant

Most of us haven’t heard of the New Zealand town called Otorohanga, but you know who has? Lawyers for Harrods Department Store in the UK. All thanks to their would-be lawsuit from 1986.

The town, which has a current population of just over 3,000, was also home to Harrods Restaurant, owned by resident Henry Harrod, who named the place after himself. Despite being a tiny business in a tiny town, the owner of one of the world’s most famous department stores threatened to sue if the name wasn’t changed. 

The problem with a lawsuit like this is that you can’t really try to strong arm a small New Zealand town. Rather than acquiesce, the entire town briefly changed its name to Harrodsville and almost every single business in town changed its name to Harrods as well. This gathered enough international media attention that it shamed the owners of the department store into dropping the suit. 

You can actually visit the town’s Facebook page and read conversations between locals reminiscing over the time it happened

2. FOX News Threatened to Sue The Simpsons (on Fox) 

The Simpsons has been on TV since 1989. That’s over thirty years, and in that entire time it has aired on FOX, which is very important to remember when you get deeper into this story. Back in 2003, Simpsons creator Matt Groening spoke about how the show was threatened with a lawsuit for including a joke news ticker in an episode. The would-be victim? FOX News Channel.

On the cartoon, the news ticker on FOX News was scrolling a number of silly headlines meant to mock the notoriously anti-Democrat channel, including lines like “Do Democrats cause cancer?” It’s not 100% clear what violation FOX News felt was happening or what crime they had fallen victim to, but, as Groening pointed out, the cartoon had the upper hand. In order for FOX News to sue FOX Entertainment, it would basically require the head of the company, Rupert Murdoch, to pay to sue himself. So, yeah. There was no lawsuit.

1. Parents of Kids Who Trashed A House Threatened to Sue the Victim

No one likes people who demonstrate a sense of entitlement, but this story goes to a new level. NFL player Brian Holloway used to have a vacation home. Over the Labor Day weekend of 2013, about 300 local teens broke into the empty house to throw a party. They caused about $20,000 worth of damages. 

Teens being teens, they organized and celebrated a lot of the party on social media. That included posting pictures of themselves in the home. So Holloway did what anyone trying to figure out who trashed his house would do: he tracked down the kids based on the pictures they took to identify them for the police. He posted them on his own website, asking for help to identify the culprits.

He ended up collecting 170 tweets and photos. This rubbed the parents of some of the children involved the wrong way and they actually threatened to sue Holloway for posting their kids’ photos; the ones the kids posted depicting themselves committing crimes to social media for the whole world to see. 

Several teens ended up being charged and there is no evidence the lawsuits from the offended parents ever went anywhere.