Every generation has its own idea of what “futuristic” means. Fifty years ago, that would have been flat-screen TVs, 24-hour ATMs, and other things we take for granted today.

As technological growth is exponential rather than linear, “futuristic” in 2019 means quite a bit more than it did back then. All bets are off at this point as scientific progress is rapidly leaving even our imaginations behind. Most of us didn’t even know that these 10 futuristic technologies were in development, let alone already in existence.

10 Thought-Controlled Prostheses

Humanity has a long history of going out and doing things that take our limbs away. Compared to our early days, prosthetic limbs have a come a long way. They’re not just pieces of wood vaguely shaped like an arm anymore. Today’s prostheses almost look and operate like real limbs.

However, anyone who has lost an arm will tell you that prostheses aren’t anything like the real thing. No matter how advanced they get, they still can’t communicate with the brain and neural network.

Of course, that was until science decided that it was time to build thought-controlled prostheses—and did. In an experiment funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a man from Florida became the first person to be fitted with an artificial limb that can be controlled by thoughts, blurring the line between imagination and reality.

Even if he still can’t do everything he could with his real arm—like splash water on it or drive—the arm largely works as intended.^[1]

9 Full-Fledged 3-D–Printed Organs

3-D printers can print almost anything as long as the blueprint and material is available. From guns to musical instruments to clothes, people who’ve been experimenting with 3-D printing since the technology came out have done unbelievable things with it. Some of 3-D printing’s truly futuristic applications lie in medicine, like printing and replacing organs damaged during accidents.

Although we have previously discussed a San Diego research firm that successfully printed liver tissue, that was not exactly the same as 3-D printing organs because a human organ is much more than just tissue. Almost all our organs are so intricately designed that even our best machines haven’t been able to replicate them yet.

Until now. A researcher from Rice University recently printed a full-scale model of the lung—complete with air pathways and blood vessels mimicking the real thing.^[2] We’ve also come one step closer to perfectly replicating human tissue. In another lab, scientists were able to reprogram the cells of our tissues into stem cells and make a bio ink out of it. The ink could then be used to print a complicated organ—such as the heart—exactly like the real thing.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re now able to completely make a human body on our own, though these advancements are still something we never expected we’d be able to do so soon.

8 Working Retinal Implants

According to WHO estimates, around 1.3 billion people around the world are diagnosed with vision impairment. Many of them suffer from degenerative retinal diseases that cannot be cured. Completely curing blindness would certainly be considered a futuristic proposition, and thanks to groundbreaking research into retinal implants that perfectly mimic the human eye, we may already have the tech to do it.

Recently, scientists made a retinal implant that works exactly like the real thing and successfully tested it in rats. We’d like to note that eye implants already exist, though none of them could fix the damage done to the retina as it’s responsible for taking the information seen through the eye to the brain. This new tech can fix the eye and be used as a replacement for the retina and photoreceptor cells, something that wasn’t possible before.^[3]

In other research, scientists have created a 2-D material that could be used to make an artificial retina. Combine that with the above implants, and we may already possess the tech required to eradicate blindness. However, it will be at least a few more years until it’s perfected and made affordable enough for the masses.

7 Digital Tattoos

You may have heard of the various types of LED screens that scientists are working on, including superthin, foldable screens that we may be able to carry in our pockets like handkerchiefs. But you may not have heard that the same thing could be done to skin. Based on recent developments, we already have the material to do that.

We’re not talking about replacing actual skin. No, these would be tattoo-like augmentations to the skin that would double as displays. If one Japanese research team is to be believed, we’ve already developed the material with which it would be made.^[4]

It could be used for a lot of things, like monitoring heartbeats and other health readings while connected to an app on your smartphone, storing unlock codes for your various devices, or simply serving as over-the-top, bespoke tattoos for really fancy parties.

6 Grow Organs Of One Species In Another

One of the biggest problems with organ transplants is how choosy the human body is when accepting something it didn’t grow on its own. But there may be a way to get around that problem. In another organism, you grow the required organs that perfectly resemble those made by your own body and then transplant them.

If that sounds like something straight out of the distant future, we’re pleased to report that it isn’t anymore. In fact, scientists have already done it in mice. In a study published in Nature, researchers were able to grow pancreas cells for a mouse in rats. (And yes, they are completely different species.)

First, they injected rats with stem cells and did some other complicated science stuff. Then they transplanted the developed pancreas cells into mice with diabetes. To everyone’s surprise, the mice were cured and their sugar levels were kept down for one year. This technique could be used someday to grow whatever organs we need in other animals.^[5]

5 3-D–Printed Nanobots

Nanobots have been imagined in popular fiction as well as the daydreams of budding scientists for quite some time now. In theory, we’d be able to build robots so small that they could enter the bloodstream and carry out minute operations inside the body, like manually killing cancer cells.

We’ve discussed some progress in that field before, though these devices weren’t technically tiny robots. Instead, they were folded DNA strands from another organism, even if they could be called nanobots for all intents and purposes.

More recently, scientists from Hong Kong developed 3-D–printed nanoscale robots with stem cells, nickel, and titanium and successfully used them to deliver cancer cells to a specific location in mice. Of course, the end goal should have been removing the cancer, but that wasn’t what they were testing. They wanted to see if the bots could deliver a payload to a precise location and used cancer cells because they are the easiest to track.^[6]

4 Sending Taste Over The Internet

The Internet has transformed our lives. We can now see and hear what’s going on in different parts of the world by just clicking a few buttons on our smartphones. However, we can only send information that engages our senses of sight and hearing, and it’s still limited by the quality of the recording equipment and the skill of the person recording it. We have no way of sending, for example, what we smell through the Internet.

But we’re one step closer with taste. In a study conducted at the University of Singapore, researchers were able to successfully send a measure of sourness of a lemon drink to a glass of water in another location. They even had people test it out. Although most admitted that the virtual lemon taste was a bit less sour than the real thing, the participants were largely able to identify the taste.

Of course, this has only been tested on a lemon as of now and researchers cannot reproduce the real flavor without simulating olfaction. Still, it’s pretty unbelievable.^[7]

3 Self-Healing Skin

Wear and tear is a major problem for every industry, whether it’s manufacturing, architecture, or medicine. Everyone has to accept that things are going to break down with time, and we have to take that into account when designing things. The problem is especially noticeable in the human body, which gets weaker and more prone to injuries as we age.

If some recent developments are to be believed, we’re not going to have that problem for long. Scientists at the National University of Singapore recently developed a self-healing material that mimics the skin of a jellyfish. The skin is able to repair itself within minutes of being cut or torn and can even withstand coming into contact with water.

While those with more perverse minds could see this as the next step to building realistic sex robots, it has quite a few other uses as well. It can be used to create realistic prostheses, which could be combined with the previously mentioned thought-controlled mechanism to build artificial limbs better than our real ones. This electronic skin is also sustainable because a material that can heal itself doesn’t need to be discarded as waste.^[8]

2 3-D–Printed Food

In the machines vs. humans debate, it’s clear that we’re going to lose quite a few jobs to our metallic counterparts as time progresses. It’s not all misery, though. It’s just another part of the rapid technological progress of the last few decades, which has also helped us in many areas of life. However, we assume that some jobs will always be strictly human endeavors as machines would never be able to do them.

Cooking is definitely one of those jobs as there’s no way that a machine would have an idea of the right ingredients and proportions to make food taste good. However, machines have already proven they can do it as well as we can.

According to Natural Machines, a 3-D food printing company, we already have the technology required to 3-D print food items like burgers and pizzas. Foodini, as their machine is called, is capable of taking ingredients and turning them into dishes that taste as good as those made by people. The best part is that the company is now focusing on health food and fresh ingredients.^[9]

Many other firms are now developing machines that give you the option to 3-D print food items at home.

1 Remote Touching

A big limitation of getting things done is being there to do them. We know it sounds like a philosophical and edgy argument as you obviously have to go places to do things there (like buying groceries). However, many researchers are hard at work trying to overcome that limitation, no matter how impossible it sounds.

Imagine a world where you could have sex with someone across the world like you were there or conduct a remote conference with a version of yourself that could replicate everything you do, including handling things from far away. The concept is so futuristic that we aren’t even able to wrap our heads around how it could be possible. However, a technology developed by researchers at MIT is already able to do just that to a large extent.

Known as inFORM, it’s a shape-shifting interface that can take input from a remote location and precisely replicate those actions in another. inFORM is only the name of the interface, though, as they’re now building quite a few other applications on top of it.^[10]

Take Materiable, which is one of those applications that allows you to remotely handle objects and has even been successfully tested in the lab. It’s able to mimic the properties of a lot of materials found on Earth, like sand, water, and rubber.

Remote handling is only one of its applications as we don’t even know everything that it could be used for yet.

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.

In 1973, the illusion of a perfect family (as portrayed by TV programs such as The Brady Bunch) was shattered by the introduction of a 12-hour documentary series on PBS called An American Family. This was acknowledged as the first reality TV series and named as one of TV Guide’s “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.”

An American Family had viewers on the edge of their seats as the day-to-day lives of the Loud family were chronicled and their dirty laundry aired for all to see. At the time, the documentary-style series itself was enough to make people go “WTF!” However, An American Family paved the way for more complex and less “perfect” depictions of families in the shows that followed, including Roseanne and The Simpsons.

These days, reality TV is anything from baking to coupling up to being stranded on a deserted island and having to partake in grueling challenges. There are many such programs on various media outlets. Some shows are mundane, while others are extremely strange.

On this list are just some of the WTF moments that form part of everyday reality TV.

10 Appallingly Real Moments In ‘Reality TV’ Programming

10 Levitating Onstage

If Simon Cowell pulls a disdainful face or rolls his eyes, nothing good is in store for the person about to perform on the America’s Got Talent stage. Sometimes, the face and eye roll are premature as was evident with Susan Boyle’s audition. Other times, it is spot-on.

On the day that a contestant named Special Head took to the AGT stage in 2013, Simon Cowell was not one of the judges. Howard Stern was on the panel with Howie Mandell, Heidi Klum, and Mel B. None of them was prepared for what Special Head was about to do.

The 28-year-old man produced a deep, throaty hum and wasn’t even thrown when Stern slapped his buzzer. Special Head hummed louder as he pressed down on a walking stick with one hand while the crowd booed him.

The audience was shocked, however, when Special Head suddenly lifted off the ground and levitated in the air with the same hand still holding onto the walking stick. Then his legs fell to the ground and a puff of smoke arose to the sound of the now-cheering crowd. He received four “yesses” from the judges.

Afterward, some sites “exposed” Special Head’s trick. They said he held a cane that was somehow attached to a small seat beneath his robe, which made it look like he was levitating (when he wasn’t). It still made for quite the WTF moment, though.^[1]

9 Stop The Violence

Jersey Shore is not everyone’s idea of a good reality TV program. In fact, there have been Facebook pages, Reddit threads, and Internet forums dedicated to people ranting about their hatred for the show and everyone on it. Jersey Shore ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2012 and introduced the world to The Situation and Snooki alongside six other people who shared a vacation home.

Despite the hate, the show was a pop culture phenomenon and returned for a reunion series in 2018. During the show’s original run, there were a lot of “audible gasp” moments, including The Situation ramming his head into a wall (on purpose) and Snooki getting punched in the face by a man.

One of the weirdest moments, however, came when housemates Snooki and Angelina had a physical fight. It is truly a fight to remember . . . or not.^[2]

8 The Wrong David

Big Brother follows the lives of “Houseguests” who live together in a specially constructed house while isolated from friends, family, and the public. The Houseguests wear microphones, and their activities are monitored by several cameras. The last person “evicted” from the house wins a cash prize.

The original Big Brother reality TV series first aired in 2000. Several spin-offs and adaptations have seen the light since. A South African version aired its first season in 2001, and that winner, Ferdinand Rabie, is remembered mostly for taking a dump in the garden on live TV.

As a whole, the show has seen multiple meltdowns, tantrums, shocking moments, and more. Some of the most WTF moments in Big Brother history happened during the celebrity version. A few examples include Megan McKenna completely losing it over mashed potato, Kim Woodburn being escorted from the house by security, and Charlotte Crosby wetting her bed.

David Bowie’s ex-wife, Angie, was a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother in 2016 when she was told the news of Bowie’s death in the “diary room” of the Big Brother house. She spoke to a fellow housemate about the devastating news and exclaimed, “David is dead.” Her housemate, Tiffany, misunderstood and thought another housemate named David Gest had died.^[3]

Cue the chaos.

7 ‘The Tribe Has Spoken’

Those words have followed some of the most shocking and controversial “tribal council” moments in Survivor history. The program started out with a group of Americans on the shores of Borneo who faced judgment every three days at Tribal Council.

After every “courtroom” meeting, one person would be voted off the island and have their torch extinguished. The show has had a 40-season run with the 41st season having been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Many jaw-dropping scenes have aired throughout the show’s history, such as one contestant suffering third-degree burns on his hands after passing out in a fire. Other such scenes include naked contestants, medical evacuations, unexpected kisses, and the illegal removal of coral from the Great Barrier Reef.

In Season 13, the word “tribe” suddenly took on a whole different meaning and audiences worldwide were not happy (to put it mildly). The showrunners decided it would be a good idea to divide the tribes by race. These tribes were African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, and European-American.

After sponsors Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble dropped out, Survivor rethought this idea and rearranged the tribes.^[4]

6 An Enemy Of My Sister

It is almost as though the Osbourne family was born to have their own reality TV show. Between Sharon’s no-holds-barred swearing, Kelly’s unique sense of humor, and, well, Ozzy, there was never any doubt that their program would be worth watching.

Throughout the show, there have been several memorable scenes, such as Sharon throwing ham at her neighbors, the family hiring a dog therapist, Ozzy swearing at the ocean, and Ozzy and Jack throwing firecrackers at pelicans.

During Season 2, Kelly became violently angry after learning that Jack had danced with her sworn enemy, Christina Aguilera, at a party. Shouting at her brother wasn’t enough, so Kelly started punching and kicking him. Sharon had to step in and break up the fight.^[5]

The final episode of The Osbournes aired in March 2005, but the wacky family made a comeback on the Travel Channel on August 2, 2020, with their new show, The Osbournes Want To Believe.

Top 10 Murders Caused By TV Shows

5 Have Some Water

American Idol is synonymous with Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, and, of course, controversy. This reality show enjoyed unmatched rankings during its first eight years on the air. It went on hiatus for almost two years after its 15th season and was eventually revived in 2018.

Audiences worldwide have been known to shout at their TV screens (or computer screens) after voting results are revealed on the program. This was especially true after the controversial elimination of Chris Daughtry in Season 5 and Adam Lambert’s loss to Kris Allen in Season 8.

However, it seems that people mostly watched during the beginning to experience Simon Cowell’s acerbic comments. He once called a contestant a “bush baby” because he had big eyes. Cowell also said to a female contestant, “You’re ugly when you perform.” Finally, he insulted another one with “you sounded like Dolly Parton on helium.”

Not everyone took the criticism lying down, though. During Season 3, 18-year-old Jonathan Rey stumbled his way through Shakira’s “The One.” Afterward, Simon said, “I think we’re going to have to cancel this competition . . . that was terrible.” Rey slowly walked up to the judges’ table, picked up a cup of water, and flung it at Cowell.^[6]

4 Be Anyone But Yourself

Tyra Banks’s America’s Next Top Model is well known for the cringey poses of the models and the catfights inside the house in which they live during the show. In 2020, Banks has also received a lot of criticism for goings-on during the program’s several seasons. Creative director Jay Manuel admitted that many moments made him “uncomfortable.”

Many of these incidents involved Banks herself. In one episode, she discouraged contestant Kim Stolz from being too open about her sexuality. After Stolz revealed that she was gay and really proud of it, Banks responded, “I think there’s a certain thing of being proud. Like, I’m black and proud, you know what I mean? But I’m not walking down the red carpet: ‘I’m black. I’m black.’ ”

Danielle Evans, one of the winners on the program, refused to have a gap in her teeth closed. Banks remarked that the gap wasn’t a “marketable” feature and asked Evans whether she really thought she could win a CoverGirl contract with a gapped-tooth smile.

In addition, many photo shoots depicted white models in blackface. In a truly terrible segment from Cycle 15, a contestant named Kayla was pressured into kissing a guy even after she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted as a child. After she was guilted into going through with the kiss, she was told well done “for pushing aside your painful memories.”^[7]

In May 2020, Tyra Banks apologized via Twitter. She agreed with those who were shocked about the “insensitivity” of some episodes. She also said, “Looking back, those were some really off choices.”

3 Evil Mom

On Say Yes to the Dress, Randy Fenoli regularly urges brides who come into Kleinfeld Bridal in Manhattan to choose a wedding dress that they love and feel beautiful in. He doesn’t want them to settle on a gown merely to please their entourage.

Some take the advice to heart and go with their gut when it comes to choosing a dress. Others are completely lost in the background while one of their family members or friends takes over the appointment and forces their opinion on the bride.

In the episode “I’m The Evil Mom Here,” even softhearted, soft-spoken Randy couldn’t contain his irritation with bride Samantha’s mother. She made comments like “I don’t like that dress. It’s ugly.”

When the “evil mom” was reminded that she had liked that dress when it was still on a mannequin, the mother said, “Yeah, not on Samantha. On her, it’s ugly.” Then the mother laughed.

Samantha had lost over 50 kilograms (110 lb) after learning that she was borderline diabetic. Now she just wanted to find a dress that made her feel beautiful. (She had already visited at least 100 bridal stores prior to her appointment at Kleinfeld.) Instead, her mom ridiculed her relentlessly and even called one of her favorite dresses a “curtain.”

Randy had to excuse himself during the appointment. He said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore.”^[8]

2 Love Is Hard

It feels like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have been on TV forever. There have been various spin-offs of these shows, and different versions have popped up in several other countries.

This reality series has had quite a few wild moments, including a contestant sleeping with a producer and a “Bachelor” choosing neither of the two final contestants. Another “Bachelor” channeled Ross Geller and said the wrong name at the rose ceremony.

Yet another one broke up with the contestant to whom he proposed so that he could be with the runner-up. Oh, and let’s not forget Bachelor J.J., who still lived with his parents at that point, trying to pick up Amy Schumer during Season 11.

The Bachelor seems to want to keep the WTF moments going, and Season 20 was just one of many examples. One contestant, Lace, thought it would be a good idea to kiss bachelor Ben Higgins right after she exited the limo on the first night of the season.

At one point, Ben told contestant Sam that she smelled “sour.” Then, in the spirit of empathy, contestant Olivia decided to complain about her “cankles” right after Ben revealed that two of his close family friends had died in a plane crash.^[9]

1 Keeping Up With . . . A Lot

A list like this really wouldn’t be complete without an entry dedicated to the crazy world that is Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The Kardashian family announced in September 2020 that the reality show would be ending after 20 seasons, and it seems that fans aren’t taking the news well.

Over the years, the Kardashians have arguably created more WTF moments than all the other reality shows combined. They have offended several sectors, accused one another of cheating, and shocked their audience with unexpected pregnancies and secret births that led to several conspiracy theories. There have also been arrests, sibling fights, a “shocking” decision to pose for Playboy, meltdowns, and breast milk issues.

Some of the family’s most controversial moments included an extended feud with Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner appearing in a widely criticized Pepsi advert, Kim being accused of using blackface to promote her KKW beauty line, and Kim apparently “promoting” appetite-suppressant lollipops.^[10]

Top 10 Over-Exploited Reality Show Genres

The concept of reality TV has always been fraught with danger. The average viewer often asks themselves, why would anyone willingly subject themselves to being on such shows?

Following reality TV’s birth in the 1990s and explosion in the early 2000s, it’s evolved to a curious state and it’s easy to cringe in hindsight at some of the concepts or episodes from previous years.

But that’s with justification because there’s been some horror examples when reality TV producers and executives have treaded over the acceptable line and gone too far, exploiting unwitting contestants, creating unnecessary risks and/or simply coming as across tone deaf.

Top 10 WTF Reality TV Moments

10 Fear Factor Goes Donkeys

NBC pulled an episode of ‘Fear Factor’ in early 2012, when contestants were forced to drink jugs of donkey semen and urine. Eating or drinking gross things isn’t unusual on some of these TV shows but typically the producers or networks fall back on the line that they’re a foreign delicacy. However, chugging donkey semen and urine is far from that, so once photos emerged of the stunt, it got producers nervous before they opted to yank it before it aired.

The episode, titled “Hee Haw! Hee Haw!” eventually got out, strangely via Danish TV, before ‘Fear Factor’ posted it on their YouTube channel two years later. The contestants, who were all twins competing to win $50,000, actually completed the disgusting stunt, albeit with a lot of dry retching, nose holding and all-round discomfort.

Host Joe Rogan had said in advance: “I say, in the real world, in a healthy society, you’re not supposed to eat animal d###, but guess what, here you have to eat animal d### if you want to win $50,000”. NBC never publicly explained their decision not to air it, or film it in the first place, but they also insisted contestants couldn’t speak to the media about it either. That was the last episode of ‘Fear Factor’ ever filmed by NBC.^[1]

9 That Thing About Miriam

On the topic of short-lived reality TV, 15 years on it’s hard to believe British Sky1 show ‘There’s Something About Miriam’ went ahead in hindsight. The show had a simple premise, six men vying to woo a female, Miriam Rivera, much like ‘The Bachelorette’. But there was a shock plot twist which the viewers knew about but the contestants weren’t privy to until the very end. That twist was that Miriam was pre-op transgender. She was born a woman and still had a penis.

Miriam revealed this to the contestants after picking the winner, Tom Rooke. The other contestants initially giggled while Rooke was completely shocked. Once the dust settled and the contestants realized how they’d been duped and how the show would portray them, they filed a lawsuit to prevent Sky1 from airing it given its deceptive nature. The men eventually settled for an undisclosed amount (reportedly as much as £500,000 each) and the show aired in 2004, with responses generally unfavourable as exploiting transgender people and deceiving contestants for the sake of a cruel reaction.^[2]

8 The Swan’s Cosmetic Surgery Horror Stories

Early 2000s reality TV show ‘The Swan’ was once described as the “the most sadistic reality series of the decade”, so it had to make this list. The concept is based on the fairy tale ‘The Ugly Duckling’ whereby contestants have an extreme makeover with the aid of specialists, including cosmetic surgery, with one eliminated each week depending on their progress and eventually one would be declared the winner, thus The Swan. It was widely criticized for its superficial message.

As you can imagine this cringe-worthy concept, inspired by “body culture media”, didn’t lend itself well to many of the contestants. Season two contestant Lorrie Arias has since had mental health problems which she attributes to the show for their lack of follow-up once eliminated, including bipolar disorder, lupus and depression.

She’s also had issues with unresolved surgery complications. Arias said: “I had the most surgeries of any Swan in the history of the show and it has all gone to absolute sh#t. I am a 300-pound mess of a person who is afraid to go outside.”^[3]

7 Pageant Mom Gets It Horribly Wrong

American reality TV show ‘Toddlers And Tiaras’ is awkward for most at the best of times but the outrage police got fired up in 2011 when a three-year-old was dressed up like a prostitute at one pageant. To be precise, the three-year-old’s pageant mom Wendy Dickey opted to put her daughter Paisley in a costume that resembles one worn by Julia Roberts’ prostitute character Vivian Ward from the 1990 film Pretty Woman.

The outfit included a tight blue mini skirt, thigh-high black boots, blonde wig and a waist revealing white blouse, with young Paisley strutting around oblivious to the obvious connotations.

There’d been controversy on the show before, including a child with Dolly Parton’s breast padding and one imitating smoking cigarettes, but sexualizing a child was a step too far. ABC’s The View host Sherri Shepherd said: “Your job is to protect your child … if you don’t think pedophiles are watching this show, I have a bridge I want to sell you.”^[4]

6 Naked And Afraid’s Near-Death Experience

Australian survivalist Manu Toigo had a near-death experience in the Panama Jungle when she appeared on an episode of ‘Naked And Afraid’, a Discovery Channel program where contestants are tasked with surviving in the wilderness for 21 days. Toigo made it through the 21 days but was bitten by a mosquito along the way and contracted the potentially fatal dengue fever, which is a mosquito-borne tropical disease. She was rushed to hospital three days after completing the challenge as her symptoms – fever, nosebleeds and gum bleeding – worsened to the point where she was bed-ridden.

In hospital she was diagnosed with dengue hemorrhagic fever, which is the worst kind of dengue fever. Toigo said she arrived in hospital just in time, otherwise she may have died. She spent two weeks hospitalized before several months in physical therapy recovering. It didn’t deter her though, describing it as “the most epic experience I could have ever done” and she re-appeared on ‘Naked And Afraid’ in 2019.
The original episode occurred in 2013 and a few years later a vaccine became available.^[5]

10 Appallingly Real Moments In ‘Reality TV’ Programming

5 Hot Or Not?

Believe it or not, there was once a TV show called ‘Are You Hot?: The Search for America’s Sexiest People’. The premise was as simple and superficial as the title suggests. Contestants would appear on stage, prance around, show off their ‘hotness’ and be evaluated by a panel of judges on how physically attractive they were. Sounds pretty basic? Yep.

Sadly for Network ABC the viewers didn’t really fancy the 2003 series which was canned after only one series of terribly low ratings despite airing at prime time. It’s easy to look back now at early 2000s reality TV shows and think discernibly towards them for their pure superficiality and lack of inclusiveness, but this one takes the cake.^[6]

4 Big Brother’s Turkey Slap

The concept of a ‘turkey slap’ is vile and equates to sexual assault. If you’ve not heard it before, according to Urban Dictionary it is “to be slapped in one’s face, possibly other places, with a male’s penis”.

Unfortunately such an incident occurred on the reality TV social experiment ‘Big Brother’ where contestants are isolated inside a house and filmed 24/7. The presence of cameras everywhere didn’t deter two male contestants on the Australian Big Brother in 2006 in a booze-fueled incident where ‘blokey fun’ went way too far and turned into sexual assault.

Female contestant Camilla Severi was pinned down by fellow contestant Michael “John” Bric, while another male Michael “Ashley” Cox slapped her face with his penis. Remarkably the incident was aired on Big Brother’s Adults Only late-night show. Outrage followed, the pair were removed from the house and the late-night show axed. No police charges were ever laid, but Bric and Cox received death threats and were called rapists in public, while the Australian Prime Minister said the show should’ve been pulled off air.^[7]

3 Shots Fired During Vehicle Repossession

Things went badly wrong during filming for an episode of ‘Repo Games’, which ended up with a man charged with attempted murder and eventually sentenced to jail time. The concept of the short-lived show was the hosts, two repo men, would offer owners of vehicles in danger of being repossessed one chance to have the debt fully paid off by playing a trivia game; simply answering five questions. If the owner got three right, the debt would be paid off. If not, they’d tow away the vehicle.

During an episode in Las Vegas, that didn’t sit well with Carlos Barron. It must be noted, the Repo Games crew weren’t visiting Barron’s home or threatening to tow away his vehicle. In fact, Barron was enraged that the crew had parked a van which blocked his driveway, when visiting a neighbour on the same street. As a result, he decided to confront the crew, turned irate before randomly opening fire. The crew fled the scene after Barron shot at their van.

No one was hurt. Charges were laid and Barron faced up to 22 years in jail although some charges were dropped, meaning he was sentenced to 90 days in county jail and five years of probation.^[8]

2 Gay Bachelor’s Cruel Twist

Bravo’s ‘Boy Meets Boy’ lasted one season back in 2003. It had the same concept as ‘Joe Millionaire’, ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’ but that the leading man was gay along with all the suitors. The idea was initially applauded for its inclusiveness, before it was later revealed that half of the contestants weren’t actually gay. They were simply pretending.

The cruel part was that Bachelor James Getzlaff wasn’t informed of that until late in the series. At that point, the twist was that if James picked a gay partner he’d win a cash prize, trip for two to New Zealand and potentially love (which really is what the show should be about!). But if he chose a straight partner, he’d walk away with nothing and the male who fooled James would win a $25,000 cash prize. Despite the deception, some viewers actually liked the twist, but others did not. The show never returned, although that’s partly because its popularity meant it was impractical to repeat given the twist.

And for the record James actually picked a gay partner but they split up before ever going on the New Zealand trip.^[9]

1 Transgender Outing on Survivor

Season 34 of the ‘American Survivor’, titled Game Changers, took an insensitive and unfortunate turn at Tribal Council in episode six when contestant Jeff Varner outed his tribe-mate Zeke Smith as transgender. You see, Zeke hadn’t revealed to his tribe mates that he was born a female, such is his right. But Jeff was trying to use his knowledge of that to desperately show that Zeke wasn’t trustworthy and should subsequently be voted out. “Why haven’t you told anyone you’re transgender?” he asked.

The immediate outrage from fellow contestants was clear for all viewers to see. The move backfired big time. All contestants were furious with Jeff’s insensitivity while host Jeff Probst also rebuked his tactic, but most disturbingly a silent Zeke appeared shattered by the public revelation which should have been left to him whenever, and if, he felt comfortable.

As a result, host Probst decided to take an open roll call instead of the traditional formal vote and Varner was promptly dismissed 6-0. Probst later said: “I cannot imagine anyone thinking what was done to Zeke was okay on any level.”^[10]

Top 10 Murders Caused By TV Shows

About The Author: I am a Media/Communications professional and long-time Australian freelance journalist, having written for global publications including AAP, Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and many more. Follow me on Twitter @BenSomerford

To quote the great Albert Einstein, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” This phrase has become truer over the last 100 years as our technology continues to revolutionize how we see the world around us. After many riveting revelations—mostly relating to particle interactions at a microscale—we have learned that nothing is as it seems.

Einstein’s quote is relevant in many other ways. Not just cosmologically speaking (as most of those things have little effect on our everyday lives), but biologically as well. This indicates that everyone may have his own perception of reality. Sometimes, your reality overlaps those of other people. Other times, your reality is yours alone.

Here are 10 revelations that should make you question everything you think you know about the universe.

10 Fascinating Ways Our Brains Can Be Manipulated

10 Nothing Happens In Real Time

One of the biggest constraints experienced by humans is the constant speed at which light travels at any given moment. This prevents us from watching cosmological events unfold before our eyes. But in the same breath, it allows us to study the universe as it appeared long before we came into existence.

The farther away the stars we are observing are located, the farther back in time we are looking. If a star, or a nebula, is 100 light-years from Earth, we are seeing it as it appeared 100 years ago when the light first began its journey to our part of the galaxy.

This is even true for things that are located a little bit closer to home. Assuming it’s daytime wherever you are at this moment, the sunlight streaming through your window left the Sun more than eight minutes ago. If it’s nighttime, you are seeing the Moon as it appeared 1.29 seconds ago.^[1]

As you see the Sun dip below the horizon—signaling the arrival of night—just remember, the Sun has already set. We just haven’t observed it yet.

9 Time Is Subjective

Time, like our perception of our experiences, can vary from person to person. Not just from a philosophical standpoint, but from a scientific standpoint as well. One such talking point deals with time dilation, which says that time moves more slowly the faster you are traveling.^[2]

For a particle traveling through space at the speed of light, time completely stops. To a lesser extent, the cosmonauts and astronauts performing experiments on the International Space Station experience time differently than people on the ground do. We’ve also witnessed the effects of time dilation on our space-based technology.

On a more relatable scale, 10 seconds feels like 10 minutes when your hand is near an open stove. However, 10 minutes feels like 10 seconds when you are talking to an attractive person. That’s relativity.

8 Most Of Your Memories Are Likely Wrong

The brain is notoriously fickle. In fact, it can change some of our most significant memories, transforming them into things that hardly resemble the truth of the matter. At least, that’s what a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience revealed.

According to the paper, merely recalling our memories can change them. Each time you access a memory, it goes back into your mind a little different than it came out. The next time you recall it, you are actually remembering the last moment you actively thought about the event in question.^[3]

Of course, this effect would almost certainly be most noticeable with the events you think about most frequently. Like your wedding, the birth of your child, or the moment of your greatest accomplishment. This is partly responsible for eyewitness testimony being considered unreliable by experts.

7 Your Brain Puts Sensory Information Together To Paint A Sometimes Dishonest Picture

One interesting experiment dealt with how our brains put together sensory information. During the study, several scientists gathered a group of volunteers. Each participant was asked to push a button. Doing so would cause a light to flash after a short delay. After several rounds of this, the researchers noted that the volunteers were seeing the flash before it occurred!^[4]

In this context, the experiment indicates that after a few rounds of pushing the button—after seeing the flash—the brain tricked each volunteer into seeing the flash before it went off because the brain already knew the outcome.

As a result of this experiment and others like it, researchers now know that our brains are remarkably manipulative. Not only do they collect information using our various senses but they also rearrange the data to make better sense of our surroundings.

If this experiment is confusing, here is a more interactive way to look at it. Touch your nose while tapping your feet against the floor. Despite your nose being located much closer to your brain than your feet are, the sensations from both actions felt as if they occurred simultaneously, didn’t they?

This is because your brain was able to put the separate actions together at the same time by reassembling asynchronous signals from both events. In some cases, this can be deviously dishonest as it paints an incorrect picture of our immediate reality.

In fact, it may even mean that, biologically, you live some 80 milliseconds in the past (roughly the same amount of time it takes to blink your eyes). By the same token, your brain lives in the future. Or at least, it derives a lot of its information from things it believes will happen in the immediate future.

6 The Past, Present, And Future Are Happening Simultaneously

When we think about time, it seems linear—as though everything is the result of cause and effect. You were born because your parents met and had sexual intercourse, which resulted in one of your father’s sperm fertilizing one of your mother’s eggs. Roughly nine months later, she gave birth to you. After that, you grew up, maybe got married, and possibly had a few children of your own. Eventually, you die. That’s just the way it is.^[5]

However (and here is the trippy part), the universe itself—and the laws of physics—have no preference for the past, present, or future. Once you leave the comfort of Earth, time—like space—becomes indistinguishable in direction. You can’t tell the up from the down or the left from the right.

Our arrow of time is linear, though, as we are biological creatures comprised of biological material and trillions of tiny particles and molecules. We will never die before actually being born because we are a perfect reflection of entropy—a closed system’s penchant for going from order to disorder. Therefore, this rule does not apply to us on a macroscale.

10 Mind-Altering Facts About Memory

5 ‘You’ Now Is Not ‘You’ Then (At Least In A Physical Sense)

As a rather large collection of water, skin, teeth, bones, fat, blood, tissue, and atoms, most of the material that made up you—even 10 years ago—is not the material you are largely composed of now. For one, almost all the atoms and molecules you were born with no longer course through your body. An estimated 98 percent are renewed each year.

Biologically, you are constantly shedding your skin (it is replaced with new cells every 35 days), your fat cells, your hair, and even your bones. It is said that every 10 years, the adult skeleton is mostly replaced.

Very few things remain with you from cradle to grave. (Adult teeth and neurons are exceptions.) But as Steve Grand poetically said, “Our bodies are in constant flux. We are not the stuff of which we are made; we are a self-maintaining pattern in a constantly changing substrate.”^[6]

4 Everything You See Is Mostly Not There

Everything you can see, touch, taste, or feel is made of atoms, infinitesimally small building blocks that comprise the entirety of our physical universe. The chair you are sitting on and the laptop (or phone) you are using to access the worldwide web are a collection of billions, sometimes trillions, of these so-called atoms.

The catch? Each of those atoms is 99 percent empty space.

But we don’t mean “empty” in the conventional sense—as in devoid of anything. Instead, the “empty” space contains an interesting soup of subatomic particles. Some particles, protons and neutrons, are contained in the “meat” of the atom, called the nucleus. It is exceptionally tiny compared to the “emptiness” of the atom.^[7]

The nucleus of an atom can be likened to a fly buzzing about a football field, where the football field is the actual atom. If we were to remove the empty space from the atom, the entire mass of the human race (over seven billion of us) could be contained within a sphere approximately the size of a sugar cube.

3 You Aren’t Sitting, You Are Technically Hovering

Naturally, the next question many of you will ask after the atom revelation is: “If atoms are mostly empty, how is it that we don’t fall directly through them?” The answer to this question is a bit complex. But to put it simply, you (and everything around you) are levitating on an electrostatic field that permeates the universe!^[8]

As mentioned in the last entry, the nucleus of an atom is surrounded by an electron shell—called an electron cloud. When atoms comprised of the same constituent parts (with a shared charge) come close to one another, they repel each other. As such, this repulsion prevents us from ever really being able to touch anything.

2 Observing Something Can Change The Outcome

One of the hallmarks of quantum physics—a branch of physics dealing with the interactions of particles on a microscale—is known as the observer effect. At this level, particles are known to behave extremely bizarrely.

So, what is the observer effect?

It was initially discovered as scientists were observing a beam of electrons in a quantum system. They found that the mere act of watching the event unfold inherently changed the behavior of the particles in question. Instead of behaving as particles, the electrons broke down and began acting as a wave. Interestingly, they have properties of both.^[9]

This does have real-world applications. Noted physicist Lawrence Krauss has speculated that the act of observing dark energy, the mysterious force responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe, could prevent the substance from decaying, causing it to remain unstable. This “quantum Zeno effect” reduces the universe’s life span considerably.

1 Free Will Is Probably An Illusion

All of us have made a questionable choice—or 100 of them—over the course of our lives. Thankfully, most of us are equipped with the ability to learn from our mistakes and to avoid making the same blunders in the future.

One might think this is cause and effect: You get in trouble for making a bad choice, so you don’t make it again. However, as we’ve seen with Hollywood, it is difficult to break free from this cycle.

Most of this comes down to free will. Green or purple? You decide. Hate country music? Don’t listen to it. Want to believe in unfounded conspiracy theories? Get out your tinfoil hat.

Now, what if we told you that the choices you make—the good, bad, ugly, and stupid, no matter how miniscule—aren’t actually choices at all? Instead, they’re merely the result of a series of chemical impulses, environmental factors, or both. Sounds crazy, right?

As it turns out, not so much. A huge debate is brewing on the merits of so-called “free will.” To many noted biologists, the whole concept has been relegated to the realm of religion as the notion does not correspond to our physical world.

They believe that free will is an illusion.^[10] When you are faced with a choice between three doors, you think you have a choice when, in fact, your biochemistry chooses for you. Being aware that you have multiple doors to choose from does not mean that you consciously get to make the choice.

With that said, don’t go robbing a lemonade stand thinking that the courts will buy the “free will is an illusion” tactic. That is, unless you are prepared to have said lemons squeezed into your eyeballs.

So, in closing, reality itself is not much more realistic than reality television shows are. Our reality is just as subjective, maybe even more so, as personal tastes in music, food, and entertainment are. That won’t change soon because each individual is equipped with a unique set of variables (with vision and hearing, especially). If that doesn’t make you question everything, we don’t know what could.

10 Tiny Things That Affect The Way You See The World

About The Author: Jaime devotes every spare moment of her time toward writing for various science organizations online. However, the field of astrophysics is where her heart lies.

Have you ever had the unshakeable feeling that something terrible was about to happen? Something that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but you knew it would change your life or the lives of others forever. Have you ever dreamt of unimaginable tragedy or been blinded by a sudden vision of imminent terror?

Did your premonition come true?

Related: 10 Ancient Predictions That Came True

10 “You were right about that too.”

Suzan Saxman is a popular, if reluctant, psychic from Woodstock, New York. From a young age, she’s had terrifying visions of death and tragedy, and this only encouraged her to try and ignore her gift. However, she eventually embraced being a psychic and also wrote a book about her experiences.

She’s had several visions and premonitions upon meeting clients who want a reading. She mentions some of these in her book The Reluctant Psychic, including the unsettling meeting with a man in the middle of a divorce who didn’t believe that his wife would truly go through with it.

Suzan told him that what she saw was no court case, no split, no fighting, and that he would have sole custody of his daughter in seven years.

The following week, the man’s wife came to Suzan’s office, visibly upset. She told Suzan that her husband had relayed the psychic’s vision to her and that she had mocked her husband, saying that nothing would stop her from finalizing the divorce. A few days later, her husband and friend departed for a business trip on a small airplane. Unfortunately, the plane crashed, and they were both killed.

Seven years later, the woman again went to see Suzan. This time to tell her that her daughter had died of leukemia. She tearfully told Suzan, “You were right about that too. He has sole custody of her now.” ^[1]

9 A Sense of Foreboding

Seven-year-old Kathleen Middleton was watching as her mother, Annie, made breakfast one morning. Suddenly one of the eggs Annie was frying lifted itself out of the pan and levitated toward the ceiling. Kathleen thought it was hilarious, but her mother frowned and worried that it might be a bad omen. Annie consulted a fortune-teller who told her that the incident symbolized imminent death. Within a few weeks, one of Annie’s best friends was dead.

That was Kathleen’s first experience with something that couldn’t be explained off-hand. Soon, she realized that she always got a headache before an earthquake struck, and she started having visions of names and numbers.

On October 21, 1966, when Kathleen was 52, she woke up in the early hours of the morning choking and gasping for air. A horrible feeling of foreboding overpowered her, and it felt like her bedroom walls were closing in on her. She couldn’t fall asleep again and eventually got up, greeted the lodger that lived in her home at the time, and told him about the feeling she’d experienced earlier. At 8 am, they were drinking tea, and Kathleen was trying to block out the ever-increasing sense of doom.

Just one hour later, a massive heap of coal waste that had shifted after heavy rain rushed down a steep hillside, covering the Aberfan valley below and demolishing Pantglass Junior School.^[2]

A total of 144 people, including 116 children, died, leaving South Wales in mourning.

8 Losing Their Heads

During a salon dinner party in Paris in 1788, French author and occultist Jacques Cazotte predicted that King Louis XVI would meet his end during the revolution. He also exclaimed that many other aristocrats, some of whom attended the party that evening, would be beheaded, die of poisoning, or by suicide.

The French Revolution started in May 1789, and Cazotte’s predictions came true. One after the other, nobles were beheaded. Four years later, King Louis XVI also lost his head in front of a large crowd in Paris. Cazotte wasn’t in that crowd, however, as he’d been executed via guillotine the year before after being denounced as a royalist.^[3]

7 A Devastating Plague

Nicolaas Pieter Johannes Janse van Rensburg was born in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in 1864. It is said that he never read anything other than the Bible growing up and that throughout his life, he had over 700 visions. During the Boer War, he became a trusted companion of General Koos de la Rey, who believed van Rensburg to be a prophet of God.

Van Rensburg was commandeered during the war but was never armed and never fired a shot. He provided visions and prophecies, some of which were helpful in fleeing or outsmarting the enemy. He became known as Siener (Seer) Van Rensburg, and his visions continued throughout the war and afterward. His daughter kept a record of his visions, of which some are still being deciphered today.

At the beginning of 1918, Van Rensburg had a vision about a devastating “plague” that would leave no country, including South Africa, unscathed. In September that same year, the Spanish Flu hit South African shores, and 140,000 people died within seven weeks. Worldwide, an estimated 40 million people succumbed to the pandemic.^[4]

6 “I did it anyway.”

Mike Fridley had a very strong sense of foreboding whenever he thought about the upcoming trip he was to take with his friend Graham Wood in November 1999. It was the first time that he’d felt so strongly about not going through with something, but he didn’t adhere to the voice screaming at him in his head. Instead, he blocked it out and went on the trip anyway.

It was a bad decision that ended with the former military officer and his friend plunging into the Everglades in Wood’s small plane after the engine seized.

Fridley pulled Wood out of the plane and onto the wing to shield him from the gasoline pooling around them. Unfortunately, Wood had a broken back, and Fridley had a broken ankle and sternum. Despite the intense pain, Fridley waded through chest-high water for about 1,000 feet before reaching a fishing camp where he found some drinking water. He couldn’t make his way back to Wood, however, because of exacerbated pain.

The following day he heard helicopters flying overhead and managed to draw the attention of a pilot. Fridley was rescued, but when they arrived at the wreckage site, Wood was dead.

Fridley said afterward that he didn’t want to die out there and insisted he was no hero for trying to find help even though he had broken bones.^[5]

5 Right on the Number

In 1981, a clairvoyant contacted British Rail to warn depot employees that she’d been having a recurring vision of a fatal train crash. In her vision, one of their blue engines hauling oil tankers crashed with devastating consequences. She also saw that the train number was 47216.

Managers took the warning seriously, as they were aware that the clairvoyant had assisted police on several occasions. They applied to have the number of the particular train changed to 47299.

In December 1983, the 47299 train was hauling an oil train when it collided with a DMU at Wrawby Junction. One person died, and it was concluded that a combination of equipment failure and human error was to blame.^[6]

Afterward, the accident was referred to as an “amazing coincidence.”

4 A Feeling of Dread

On the afternoon of March 17, 1999, Carol Deemer felt a strange sensation settle over her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful had happened and said so to her husband when he arrived home later. She added that their 17-year-old daughter, Jennifer, wasn’t home yet and that she hadn’t received the usual phone call from her either.

As Carol’s husband, James, looked at his wife while she spoke, he had a fleeting thought about a car accident.

Soon after, Carol and James learned that Jennifer had been driving home from school when one of the passengers in her car threw a pizza box out of the window. The box stuck to the windshield, causing Jennifer to swerve into the path of oncoming traffic. Her vehicle collided head-on with another car. Jennifer died on impact, and her four passengers were injured. Two people in the other car also suffered injuries.^[7]

3 Saved from a Tragic Fate

In late August 2013, 11-year-old Marie Elias couldn’t stop thinking that something bad was going to happen if she fell asleep. It was a Saturday night, and Marie was determined to stay awake so that she could face whatever was coming.

At 1:30 in the morning, a fire broke out inside Marie’s house, which she shared with her parents and 17 other family members. As she was lying on her bed, fighting sleep, Marie noticed a burning smell coming from the wall closest to her. She immediately alerted her parents, and everyone inside the house escaped unharmed.

There were no smoke detectors in the home, and if Marie hadn’t had the premonition she did, things would likely have turned tragic very quickly.^[8]

2 “It’s an experience you can’t explain.”

In 1984, Viv Donovan had an unsettling dream while staying in a small apartment in her parent’s backyard. In her dream, she was sitting up in bed with her arms stretched out in front of her. There was no one on her left-hand side, but in front of her was her entire family. She told her parents about the dream and was astonished when her father said he had dreamed about looking at Viv sitting up in bed with the family surrounding her.

This freaked Viv and her parents out, but they soon forgot about it. However, a month later, Viv suffered a burst cyst on her ovary, which led to appendicitis. The doctors saved her life in the nick of time, as she would have been dead had she arrived at the hospital even 20 minutes later.
Exactly a month after the dream she’d had, Viv sat up in her hospital bed and welcomed her visitors. She stretched her arms out in front of her, and her whole family gathered around the bed, but not on the left-hand side. Before this, Viv had never even been in a hospital for treatment.

This wasn’t the first time that Viv had experienced precognition, however. When she was nine years old, she woke up at night and just knew that her father was in trouble. She looked out of the back door and saw her father having a severe asthma attack. She immediately got up and phoned for an ambulance, effectively saving her father’s life.^[9]

1 Thirteen Tears

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Scott was devoted to her religious faith and never shied away from living her Christian life at school. Unfortunately, this opened her up to ridicule and severe bullying. But she never let go of her belief and kept a diary in which she detailed some of her struggles and how she looked to God to help her overcome them.

Rachel was a student at Columbine High and was the first victim shot to death by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in 1999. In the aftermath of the shooting, rumors abounded that Scott had been killed because of her faith and that Klebold turned around after seeing she was still alive and asked, “Do you still believe in your God.” When she whispered, “You know I do,” he shot her in the head and walked away. This sequence of events has been both affirmed and disputed by several people.

Something that did take place, however, was that Rachel had drawn a picture in her diary shortly before the shooting. The sketch depicts a pair of eyes from which 13 tears trickle down to a rose, where they turn into drops of blood. Tragically, 13 people died that day at the hands of Harris and Klebold.

It is also claimed that a stranger named Frank Amedia contacted Rachel’s father a month after she died and told him that he had dreamed about Rachel’s eyes and tears streaming from them. The water flowed down to water something that he couldn’t make out in the dream. Rachel’s father had no idea what this could mean until he was given Rachel’s backpack after the authorities were done with it. Inside was two journals, with the last entry in the most recent diary being the drawing of the eyes and 13 tears.^[10]

We all know that the Slender Man is nothing more than a pure urban legend created online in 2009 on an Internet forum. However, since then, it has taken on a life of its own, even being connected with several attempted murders as well as a spate of suicides and a possible mass suicide attempt.

While nobody is arguing that the Slender Man is real (at least in the physical sense), the belief in him by some has made the consequences of the legend very real for some. Here are ten very unsettling points about the legend and reality of the Slender Man.

Related: 10 Famous Urban Legends Come To Life

10 Very Definite Origins

Unlike many other legends and myths, the origins of the Slender Man can be traced to the exact date of its creation. At some point on June 10, 2009, the Internet forum Something Awful unleashed two photographs. They were created by user Victor Surge (whose real name was eventually revealed to be Eric Knudsen). He had created them in response to a challenge by the forum’s admin—to create “paranormal images” that might make people believe they were genuine.

The first picture, dating from 1983, showed a group of children looking upset and frightened. In the background is a discreet, extraordinarily tall, faceless man. The caption read: “We didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified us and comforted us at the same time!” That quote was attributed to the unknown photographer, who was “presumed dead.”

The second picture was dated three years later, in 1986. It showed children looking altogether happier while playing in a park. Discreetly, though, the same tall figure can be seen lurking in the background. The caption informed those who viewed the picture that it was “one of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze.” It also stated that the photo was taken “the day which fourteen children vanished” and even referenced “Slender Man.” This time the photographer was “named” as Mary Thomas, who had been missing since June 1986.

These two pictures not only gave birth to the Slender Man legends, but they also captivated thousands upon thousands of people almost immediately.^[1]

9 A Legend Made by “The People”

Although Knudsen was responsible for the Slender Man’s creation, it would be the many followers of Creepypasta who would truly bring him to life. As more and more people became aware of Slender Man and added their own details and little pieces of the backstory, the legend grew.

He was often depicted with a white, featureless face and was slim, abnormally tall, and often with tentacles coming from his back. He also became associated with abandoned buildings, often in the wilderness or the woods. Some details added later even claimed that the Slender Man could teleport from one place to another. Those who were interested in the Slender Man even “agreed” signs that he was near and watching you. Such signs as sudden paranoia, nosebleeds, and intense nightmares.

In fact, this creation of a legend by the audience themselves is the subject of our next point. How this growth can be monitored and studied by those who study myths and folklore of the past.^[2]

8 See a Legend Grow and Develop

Many who study legends, folklore, and mythology have looked at the Slender Man legends as a way of being able to document its growth and reach. And in doing so, they look to understand how legends of the past might have developed and grown in a similar way. For example, there is a collective element to the growth of the Slender Man legend, as we examined above. What’s more, slight details change depending on who is telling the tale or who the audience might be. Indeed, the more accounts that were retold of the Slender Man (online as opposed to orally, in this case), the more the legend and the backstory grew.

The Slender Man legend had very quickly taken on a life of its own, much like myths and folklore of the past. However, several years after his creation, the Slender Man became “real” in a much grittier way.^[3]

7 The Slender Man Stabbing

On May 31, 2014, the Slender Man, or at least the consequences of the legend, spilled over into the real world in a very dramatic way. On the morning in question, two 12-year-old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, attempted to murder their friend, Payton Leutner, by stabbing her multiple times in the woods. After being left for dead, she eventually stumbled out and was discovered by a passing cyclist.

The girls were arrested a short time later. When questioned, Weier claimed they had launched the attack in order to please the Slender Man. What’s more, they also believed they knew where the Slender Man lived (an old house in the Nicolet National Forest), a location they were on their way to when they were arrested.

For all intents and purposes, it could be argued that for the attackers and their victim alike, the Slender Man, or the consequences of him, were very real. Incidentally, Weier was released from a mental health facility in the summer of 2021. Geyser, on the other hand, remains incarcerated. Payton Leutner recovered from the nineteen stab wounds she received from her “friends.”^[4]

6 The Copy Cat Cases

Following the attempted murder of Payton Leutner, several copycat cases occurred, all with various connections to the Slender Man legends. For example, only weeks later, in June 2014, in Hamilton County, Ohio, a 13-year-old girl attacked her mother with a knife. In the investigation that followed, it was discovered that she had an “obsession” with the Slender Man.

Several months after that, in September 2014, in Port Richey, Florida, a 14-year-old girl set fire to her family home. According to reports, she was ‘inspired’ by the Slender Man to do so. Incidentally, all of those inside escaped the burning building, and the young girl was arrested the following morning.

Even the murders of two police officers and a member of the public in Las Vegas in the summer of 2014, followed by the suicide of the alleged killer and his wife, was connected to the Slender Man after neighbors told the media that he would often dress up as the Internet legend and parade around his house and yard.^[5]

5 Suicides Connected to the Slender Man

In the summer of 2015, The New York Times published an article detailing the suicides of multiple young people between the ages of 12 and 24 who had committed suicide on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in the previous six months alone. What is particularly interesting about this wave of suicides is that the article also claimed that “several officials with knowledge of the cases said that at least one of the youths who committed suicide was influenced by Slender Man.”

What is further interesting about the alleged connections to the Slender Man legends and these tragic deaths are legends of the reservation itself. They speak of a spirit named the Tall Man or Walking Sam. What this spirit did was to encourage those he chose to visit to take their own lives. It is perhaps a coincidence that there are similarities between the legends of the Slender Man and these Native American legends. However, the coming together of them within this reservation’s community very well might have resulted in tragic consequences.^[6]

4 Aborted Mass Suicide and Connections to Native American Legends

A particularly grim account tells of a narrowly aborted mass suicide at the same reservation mentioned above. According to the story, multiple teenagers suddenly set out to a specific spot in the woods and started preparing ropes by tying them to the branches of the trees. They were clearly planning on committing suicide, hanging themselves together as a group.

The local pastor on the reservation, John Two Bulls, heard of the morose plans and immediately set out to the location. He, fortunately, managed to halt the proceedings and seemingly bring the group out of whatever mass-trance they appeared to have been in.

Rumblings from the reservation claimed that the cause of the attempted mass suicide was a result of the visitation of Walking Sam. Given the publicity that the Slender Man was receiving at this stage, it is perhaps easy to understand how some in the media connected the legend of the suicide spirit and this new urban legend. ^[7]

3 “Lacy” – A Truly Bizarre Account

Paranormal author and researcher Nick Redfern relayed a particularly intriguing account that was told to him. The witness—who he gave the name “Lacy”—would claim to have had several real-life encounters with the Slender Man, although not physical encounters.

She would claim that she had been researching the Slender Man for several months. Then, one evening, her laptop (which was on sleep mode) suddenly switched on of its own accord. To her shock, an image of a faceless creature was on the screen. Within a few seconds, it was gone. She told herself she must have imagined it. However, two nights later, the laptop once more switched on of its own accord. When it did, the face appeared again, only this time it was much clearer.

Things went quiet for several weeks, and Lacy had almost forgotten the incidents. That was until her laptop came on again. This time, a strange voice came from the device stating, “we are friends.” It was at this point that Lacy shut the laptop down and ceased her research into the Slender Man legends.

It is easy (and perhaps right) to suggest that what Lacy experienced, at best, were hallucinations brought on by her intense interest in and subconscious fear of the Slender Man legends. It is interesting to note once more, though, that the fine line in a person believing in a legend suddenly “making it real” is indeed delicate in the extreme.^[8]

2 Intense Internet Debate

As we might imagine, a fierce debate ensued following the attempting stabbing and the copycat cases that followed. And while it concentrated on the Slender Man at first, it soon moved on to the Internet and the influence it has on children in general. For example, in the Waukesha School District, where the attempted murder of Payton Leutner took place, Creepypasta Wiki was blocked. For their part, the administrators of the website claimed that the stabbing was an “isolated incident.” They also claimed their website was a literary one and not one that condoned murder.

Ultimately, it was reasoned that all manner of films, TV programs, and video games that children had access to did not result in such atrocious attacks. In short, the problem was with the attackers themselves as opposed to the apparent catalyst. Although the debate originally had momentum, the more it went on, the less sway it had.^[9]

1 A Contemporary Equivalent of the Boogeyman

There is little doubt that the Slender Man is the Boogeyman of the modern age. If you talk to anyone in the western world under the age of 20, it is almost certain they will know who the Slender Man is. They might not know the history or even how they heard of him, but the fact is, they know. And although they understand—at least for the most part—that he is nothing more than an urban legend, he is without a doubt in their collective subconscious.

There are certainly very definite similarities between the Slender Man and the Boogeyman. Both are on the prowl for children, for example, and both have grim abodes in out-of-the-way locations, often in the woods.

Of course, where the legend of the Slender Man goes from here remains to be seen. Perhaps he will still be spoken in hundreds of years by spooked youngsters around the world as much as he is today.^[10]

When it comes to television genres, reality television is probably the least respected of them all. Whether it be because it makes unlikeable people into celebrities or has little to no redeeming value, many would consider it a genre not worth existing. Reality shows are simple in format as all they mainly must do is point a camera.

However, in order to keep people’s interests, they must find either someone or something that will draw in viewers. Unfortunately, this process has caused networks to create some of the most head-scratching and random reality shows to ever grace the small screen.

Related: 10 Surprising Things Once Banned From TV Broadcast

10 The Briefcase

The Briefcase was a show that aimed to be seen as inspirational television. Instead, it wound up being torn apart for what many perceived to be its exploitation of the poor. The premise was that two families experiencing financial hardship would be given 101,000 dollars and then had to choose how much they would split with another family, unaware that the other family was also making the same choice. That is pretty much it. In all honesty, it sounds more boring than offensive.

The main problem with this scenario is that the family does not need to give away the full amount, just a portion of it. There is no real hard decision to be made, seeing as they could easily gift a decent amount of money and still have more than enough left over for themselves (which is exactly what every family did). With any semblance of hard decisions missing, you are essentially just watching people decide how much money they will give someone else. That doesn’t really offer a lot of excitement (if any).^[1]

9 Boy Meets Boy

When it comes to dating shows, The Bachelor is probably the one to beat. It’s a fairly common setup. Boy meets girl, picks her over the others, rinse and repeat. But what if the bachelor was gay? This is the angle the makers of Boy Meets Boy decided to go with. But there was a catch: not all the contestants were actually gay. So the bachelor had to choose wisely, which was likely difficult as the bachelor was not told this little tidbit of information about those competing. This part of the show did not sit well with many people.

In attempting to separate itself from The Bachelor, it inadvertently offended. On the other hand, viewers probably spent more time trying to guess who was gay than they did focusing on the romance. Possibly more notorious than its perceived offensive nature was the reception to our bachelor’s best gal pal. If anything is remembered more from this show than its premise, it is her whining attitude and ridiculously overblown dramatic reaction to finding out that not all the contestants were gay, which she felt was a personal insult to her for some reason. This reaction was outright mocked on Mad TV due to its sheer ridiculousness.^[2]

8 Bust A Ritmo

If you didn’t grow up in a Latin household, then the odds are that you’ve never heard of this. If you did grow up in such a household, you probably still haven’t heard of it. Hosted by famed Latin singer Pee Wee and airing on MTV Tr3s (essentially Latin MTV), the premise was uninspired to begin with. A person would learn a dance routine and then tell whomever the dance was for something they’ve wanted to say to them—essentially, a dance confession. Interspliced between the dances were comedy skits starring Pee Wee himself. If that sounds stupid and lame, I assure you it is.

Things take a more ridiculous turn when you see the kind of news that these people are breaking. You have simple ones such as a marriage proposal or even telling your mother you want to move out. But then you have one where an aspiring actress was conned out of 5,000 dollars by a phony agent who promised to put her in a movie. Cue the dance sequence because that’ll make breaking the news to your mother less embarrassing. It makes one wonder exactly who thought this format would work.^[3]

7 Gigolos

Have you ever wondered what the life of a male escort was like? Well, then Gigolos may be the show for you. This Showtime series followed several male gigolos as they juggled everyday life and their job. Keep in mind that everyday life for them includes foursomes and swing sex. And in case you are wondering, yes, you do see them performing their jobs. However, this aspect is probably its most controversial.

It’s not provocative for depicting them sleeping with their clients. The actual controversy comes to whether it’s real or not. While we know that reality TV is prone to lying, you at least expect some level of realism when it comes to people’s jobs. Yet Gigolos has faced accusations of being fake. Reviewers pointed out that many “clients” had supposed jobs such as nurses and teachers, so why would they consent to be filmed with male escorts? One woman even claimed that she was paid to be filmed (essentially making it more porn than reality). While the gigolos may be real, their client list is up for debate.^[4]

6 Tool Academy

In many ways, Tool Academy represents the worst of reality game shows. While these types of competition shows tend to always have one or more despicable and unlikeable contestants, Tool Academy’s entire premise is built off this. Ten unlikeable and obnoxious men are tricked by their girlfriends into competing against other men to see who can reform themselves the best and become a good boyfriend. So, your premise is essentially built on relationships that are clearly not going to last. Might as well get some money out of it.

The men are made to compete in team-building exercises and attend therapy. The man who changed the most would then win the money and a shot at making their relationship work. Eventually, the producers decided to shake things up to make it more interesting. They introduced a gay woman into the mix. Instead of 10 men, you now also had one woman. This ploy didn’t help, and it wound up being their last season.^[5]

5 Mesmerised

Hypnotism has been seen as both controversial and therapeutic. It has been argued that it can lead to false memories, while others counter that it can help people do things such as quitting smoking or changing habits. Australian TV show Mesmerised aimed to offer nothing to this discussion by instead aiming for comedy. While you could have used the platform to show how it might help people, it was used for hijinks because that makes for more entertaining television.

Following hypnotist Peter Powers, the program sees him using his talent to set up various funny scenarios. The first episode has him hypnotizing a man into marrying an alpaca (yes, really). Other scenarios include trying to hypnotize an audience to unleash them as zombies and making a man think he was doing yoga with Kim Kardashian. Audiences weren’t buying it, and it was canceled after one episode (although it produced 6).^[6]

4 Who’s Your Daddy

No, this is not the newest Maury Povich or Jerry Springer reboot.

In fact, this may be one of TV’s most notorious flops. Facing backlash from the adoptive communities, this show is probably best remembered as late-night TV fodder more than anything. For those not in the know, the show followed a person who had been placed for adoption at birth. The setup was that they finally got to meet their biological father (not the mother, for some reason). However, they had to guess who their birth father was out of a lineup of men.

Fox executives clearly banked on this program to be more uplifting than its reception actually reflected. Many considered the show to be in bad taste. Adoption agencies accused it of being insensitive and exploitive. Whether it truly was offensive in nature or not, nobody was really fighting to keep this show on TV. It was canceled and is now mainly remembered as a punchline of ridiculous reality/game show ideas.^[7]

3 The Swan

Widely seen as one of the most controversial shows to ever exist, it only ranks at number three on this list. For those curious about the controversy, the program was about several women competing for a makeover that also involved some serious plastic surgery. I don’t really think I need to explain why it was controversial. Despite this debate, it still managed to get two seasons.

One must wonder just who decided to take the concept of plastic surgery and make it into a reality show. It’s not even much of a concept worth talking about. Its controversy is more interesting than the actual show itself. The premise is no different from most other makeover shows; it just includes plastic surgery this time. And even then, this isn’t the last show on this list that will feature that as a selling point.^[8]

2 The Will

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When it comes to a person’s passing, the will is possibly the most important aspect for some people. You’ve probably heard tales of family and friends turning on each other in the name of greed. So why not turn it into a reality show? This must have been the thought process behind the makers of the show The Will. If you guessed that the show revolved around people competing to win someone’s inheritance, then you guessed right.

Ten friends and family members competed against each other to earn the title of the sole beneficiary. In each episode, you watched as family members were cut out from the will one by one until only one remained. It’s not exactly the most feel-good television event. It didn’t draw in high ratings (because who really wants to watch this) and was canceled after one episode.^[9]

1 Bridalplasty

While The Swan is more controversial than this one, I’d argue that Bridalplasty is the worse show. In it, we follow 12 brides and brides-to-be as they compete for their dream wedding and their dream plastic surgery. So essentially, we follow women who don’t feel good enough for their future husbands. What’s even harder to swallow is that instead of the men saying this was unnecessary, their husbands-to-be decide to let them compete for plastic surgery to please them.

Like Tool Academy, the premise seems to hinge on already unhealthy relationships. Married or not, it was clear these were people unhappy with how they looked, and the men apparently agreed with them. While the dream wedding played an aspect in the game, plastic surgery was the main selling point. Just like The Swan, it was also met with criticism for its concept. Unlike The Swan, however, Bridalplasty only managed to get one season.^[10]

Film industries around the world, especially Hollywood, make it seem as if movies are of the utmost importance to society and possess the ability to change the world. Just take a look at the Oscars, where celebrities rave about how integral their films are to societal progress. Of course, this is delusional as films essentially serve two purposes: They enhance the studios’ bank accounts, and they provide self-satisfaction to individual audience members. Unfortunately, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) will not prevent wars, Schindler’s List (1993) will not stop genocides, and 12 Years a Slave (2013) will not curb racism.

However, there are a select few films in history that have managed to make a tangible impact on reality. This list features films that have impacted various sectors of life, such as legislation, government, corporations, and people’s personal lives. The list does not include a film’s pop culture influence as a criterion, such as movies that caused a new fashion trend or films that influenced other films. The movies in this list are not ranked in terms of individual greatness but in terms of the achievement of their effect on reality.

Related: Top 10 Movies That Changed Film-Making Forever

10 The Truman Show

Peter Weir’s 1998 Oscar-nominated film The Truman Show was a critical smash and one of several box office hits for Jim Carrey in the 1990s. The film tells the story of a man, played by Carrey, who slowly realizes his life is actually a reality TV show that is being filmed for the entire world to see. The Truman Show accurately predicted society’s soon-to-be newfound obsession with reality television and offered profound critiques of media corruption, corporate power, and the role of advertising in our lives.

Shortly following the film’s release, Joel Gold, a psychiatrist at New York University’s School of Medicine, and his brother Ian Gold, a professor at McGill University, began exploring patients who were convinced the media was controlling their lives and that they were at the center of their own reality TV show. Joel Gold first began seeing patients with these symptoms in 2002, and after giving an academic lecture in 2006, around sixty people came forward claiming they were experiencing these same psychotic delusions.

Many of the patients specifically mentioned they felt like the protagonist in The Truman Show, leading the Gold brothers to label this phenomenon “The Truman Show delusion.” While The Truman Show delusion or Truman Show syndrome has yet to be officially recognized as a medical condition, the growing number of cases has raised many questions surrounding culture’s impact on psychosis.^[1]

9 Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese’s seminal and highly controversial film Taxi Driver (1976) is one of the defining films of the New Hollywood movement and pushed the boundaries of violence on film. The film features Robert De Niro as the infamous Travis Bickle, a loner who becomes psychotically obsessed with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve-year-old prostitute. After being rejected by Betsy, Travis decides to get revenge by killing the man she works for, a politician, although he ultimately does not succeed.

Taxi Driver was already immensely controversial due to its graphic content, but in 1981, its controversy reached new heights following John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Hinckley Jr. would go on to claim he became fascinated with Taxi Driver and shot Reagan because he wanted to impress Jodie Foster, just as Travis wanted to do to get Betsy’s attention.

Debates began emerging surrounding the links between the rise in violence found in pop culture and its effect on society, an issue that has only gained momentum in the years since. Taxi Driver also is not the only film to cause copycat crimes; movies such as Natural Born Killers (1994) have also “influenced” countless real-life crimes.^[2]

8 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is one of American cinema’s most ambiguous and audacious films. Its opaque themes have sparked countless debates that have yet to be settled over fifty years after its release. And its technical prowess has stood the test of time, for it still remains one of the greatest-looking films of all time. Directly related to the world-renowned special effects in the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey astounded audiences to the point that many would go on to use the film in one of the twentieth century’s greatest conspiracy theories.

A little over a year after the film’s release, the United States beat the Soviet Union in the space race and became the first nation to land astronauts on the moon. Not long after, conspiracy theorists began running with a story that involved NASA approaching Stanley Kubrick to direct a fake moon landing because of how realistic he made 2001: A Space Odyssey look. Moon landing deniers point to Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), which has several allusions to Apollo 11, as proof of Kubrick confessing to his involvement in faking the moon landing.^[3]

7 JFK

Another highly controversial film, Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), tells the story of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) and his attempts to uncover the truth behind John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In the years since its release, many have called into question the historical accuracy of the film, with Stone taking many liberties with the truth in order to aid in his Kennedy conspiracy theories. However, regardless of how accurate the film may or may not be, the film caused enough of a stir that the United States government needed to step in.

JFK was such an enormous success, resulting in an overwhelming number of people beginning to believe the FBI, CIA, and United States military were all involved in the assassination. The controversy forced President George H.W. Bush to sign the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which promised the early release of all documents relevant to the assassination. Documents have slowly been released over time, starting in 1993, with the final documents being released in 2017. However, most of the information released has done little to dissuade conspiracy theorists.^[4]

6 The Snake Pit

The Snake Pit (1948) was based on Mary Jane Ward’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name about a woman’s experiences dealing with schizophrenia in a mental hospital. The film won numerous awards around the world and featured an Oscar-nominated performance from Olivia de Havilland. The film was one of the first Hollywood films to seriously address mental illness.

The Snake Pit takes a deep dive into the staff abuses, inhumane conditions, and controversial treatment of the mentally ill. The success and popularity of both the novel and film helped spark massive reform in mental hospitals across the country. The conditions of the facilities, the procedures performed on patients, and patient treatment options all received radical reforms in many states across the country.^[5]

5 Scenes from a Marriage

Ingmar Bergman’s iconic 1973 miniseries Scenes from a Marriage, which was also released as a condensed theatrical film, was recently remade by HBO—but to much less success than the original series. Starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, Scenes from a Marriage examines the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne and Johan. The series/film commences on the tenth anniversary of the marriage and shows how insecurities, jealousy, and existential neuroses cause the relationship to collapse.

Scenes from a Marriage was a massive triumph that was viewed by nearly half of Sweden’s population. Within a year of its release, the divorce rates in Sweden jumped to record highs, and the number of couples seeking relationship therapy skyrocketed. Waiting lists for couples’ therapy went from a few weeks to a few months, with many people viewing the series as an almost documentary-style examination of marriage.^[6]

4 Blackfish

Blackfish (2013), a documentary focusing on orcas at SeaWorld, is one of the most successful films of all time at achieving societal change. The documentary covers the violent history of the killer whale Tilikum and how human negligence and abusive conditions at SeaWorld eventually led to the deaths of several people, including trainer Dawn Brancheau.

The film was so powerful that it led to a myriad of protests against SeaWorld, essentially crippling the corporation and its reputation forever. SeaWorld’s attendance rates took a massive hit, and its second-quarter net income in the year following the film’s release dropped 84%. Many entertainers who had planned performances at SeaWorld backed out. In addition, SeaWorld lost numerous advertising sponsors, and most significantly, the park announced in 2016 that it would no longer breed orcas.^[7]

3 The Thin Blue Line

Errol Morris’s 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line covers the trial and conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the murder of police officer Robert Wood. The movie caused a stir in the film community for its use of reenactments, which at the time many believed had no place in the documentary medium. Through these reenactments and interviews, The Thin Blue Line covers the inconsistencies of the case and demonstrates that Adams was wrongly convicted of the crime.

Adams had been in prison for eleven years when The Thin Blue Line was released in 1988. A year after the film’s premiere, Adams’ case was reopened, and his trial was deemed unfair, resulting in his release from prison after more than twelve years. The real killer, David Ray Harris, was never charged for killing Robert Wood. However, he would eventually be executed for a separate murder.^[8]

2 The Grand Illusion

Jean Renoir’s anti-war film The Grand Illusion hit the silver screen in 1937, only a few years before Nazi Germany would occupy France. Renoir’s film critiques the rise of fascism and radical nationalism and instead celebrates man’s universal humanity, which transcends all borders. The film was praised in both Italy and the United States; however, this praise caught the attention of Joseph Goebbels.

Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, labeled the film “Cinematographic Enemy Number One” and ordered every single copy of the film destroyed, including the original negative. He almost succeeded, too, as most of the film’s prints were destroyed. Unfortunately, the few that remained were either incomplete or in poor condition. It was not until the 1990s that the original print was discovered, having traveled throughout several countries in a remarkable sixty-year journey.^[9]

1 The Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo’s landmark 1966 film The Battle of Algiers offers an intense look at the effects of colonialism through the lens of the Algerian War between Algeria and France. The film is notable for its documentary style, use of non-professional actors, and its nuanced depiction of both sides of the conflict. However, The Battle of Algiers is perhaps best known for its scenes of torture and urban terrorism.

As a result of its hyper-realistic documentary style, The Battle of Algiers was screened by the United States government in 2003 at the dawn of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to help open conversations on how to combat urban warfare tactics and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using torture to gain information. The primary goal was to learn from the film why the French failed strategically even though they were successful tactically.^[10]