What grinds my gears!

[Mouth for war]

Maybe I'm sensitive now but what really grinds my gears is when someone has written a really long post in a forum (that can also grind my gears if the point they want to make could've been done in the last 2 sentences or so) and people must quote the entire post only to say "I totally agree" not even adding something to the post...ooooh how it grinds my gears.

[Stupot]

Maybe I'm sensitive now but what really grinds my gears is when someone has written a really long post in a forum (that can also grind my gears if the point they want to make could've been done in the last 2 sentences or so) and people must quote the entire post only to say "I totally agree" not even adding something to the post...ooooh how it grinds my gears.

I totally agree

[Mandle]

Maybe I'm sensitive now but what really grinds my gears is when someone has written a really long post in a forum (that can also grind my gears if the point they want to make could've been done in the last 2 sentences or so) and people must quote the entire post only to say "I totally agree" not even adding something to the post...ooooh how it grinds my gears.

I totally agree

I disagree

[Mouth for war]

Haha I knew that was gonna happen when I wrote that. "Someone WILL quote this" it was a short post though so nothing to worry about

[selmiak]

Haha I knew that was gonna happen when I wrote that. "Someone WILL quote this" it was a short post though so nothing to worry about

I see what you did there and kind of agree!

[Blondbraid]

It grinds my gears when I have to endure "creative" DVD menus in order to watch a movie.
You'd think not making the default text white and the text on the option you've chosen highlighted in pale yellow would be an easy thing to do, but I've seen it in far too many menus, alongside nearly unreadable fonts and blaring music looping in an annoying 15 second loop repeating endlessly until you've found the right language option. And far too many DVD also have irritating animations swishing by whenever you pick an option.

[Mandle]

It grinds my gears when I have to endure "creative" DVD menus in order to watch a movie.
You'd think not making the default text white and the text on the option you've chosen highlighted in pale yellow would be an easy thing to do, but I've seen it in far too many menus, alongside nearly unreadable fonts and blaring music looping in an annoying 15 second loop repeating endlessly until you've found the right language option. And far too many DVD also have irritating animations swishing by whenever you pick an option.

OHHHH!!! THIS SOOOOO GRINDS MY GEARS AS WELL!!!

Isn't it just amazing when you have a menu with two text options and two colors for the text except you don't know which color means "activate" and which means "ignore" until you try some trial and error?

It's also as wonderful as a big pile of #%$* when the menu cutscenes actually SPOIL major scenes in the movie you are just about to FRIGGIN' WATCH!!!

Also: Don't you just love it when a DVD that you paid money for has an unskipable trailer section at the start?!

I can understand this on rental DVDs but I would think that part of the price I just paid to buy the damn thing would include the right to just skip the advertising, right?!

I even own a few DVDs that were thoughtful enough to include an unskipable trailer for... THIS DVD'S MOVIE!!! The only way to skip is to fast forward, so I gotta close my eyes for the time that I'm guessing it takes to get past the spoilers in the trailer.

[Stupot]

I don't know if ‘Grinds my gears' is the right place for this. Maybe we need a ‘what makes me sick' thread.

I don't get why people post and share abuse videos on Facebook. Usually they're accompanied by captions like ‘this is sick, please share'. But my question is what good does sharing it do other than to upset people who follow you on Facebook? People who share these things do so because they rightly find it disturbing and must feel like it's helping somehow. But how?

I consider myself quite difficult to offend. I can stomach some pretty graphic stuff. But some things are just beyond sick and I find it so weird that otherwise normal intelligent people might think that it's somehow necessary to share something so horrific to their friends, some of whom may be extremely sensitive to certain types of abuse or violence.

I'm posting this because a friend of mine posted a video which just appeared on my timeline unsolicited and started autoplaying. I'll describe it in spoiler tags below but it almost brought me to tears moments before I was about to teach a kids class.

Spoiler

Basically it's a video of a mother brutally whacking her small baby with a pillow.

[close]

The only good thing to come out of the fact that I nearly cried and felt sick to my stomach is that I guess it means I'm not a psychopath.

[Mandle]

@Stupot Jesus, I would ask that person why they thought I would want to see such a thing.

And ahhhhhhhh, Facebook... That's a whole Grinds My Gears thread in itself right there.

I have been on social media of one kind or another basically since I got the internet in 1998 or so...

And I have ended up quitting all of them. Which is why, when Facebook came along, I didn't even consider joining until I needed it as a means to stay in touch with friends in other countries easily. For this purpose it is awesome!

But then, of course, I got curious and started reading and then commenting on other people's posts. I should have known this was a mistake after having seen what always ends up happening with social media over and over again.

And, as usual, it devolved into a stress-creating pattern for me where I would see friends sharing the stupidest and most obviously made-up videos and such. When I try to show them that this information, which they seem to be basing their real-life worldview on, is fake, and even provide proof that it has been debunked and even that believing it can cause real harm, I am often met with either an angry response from someone defending the rubbish, or a comment like "So, it's fake? So what? Why do you want to spoil the fun for everyone else?"

I mean, are we really in a world where real and fake don't matter anymore as long as it's something to believe in?!

I'm talking about really stupid stuff like "sun-eating": The belief that if you stare at the sun for a certain amount of time each day you will eventually not need to eat food anymore because your eyes will absorb all the nutrients from sunlight that your body needs.

I saw a friend share a video about this and say they were going to give it a try.

I posted telling them that all they are going to end up doing is damaging their eyesight, potentially forever. And, OMG, so many angry responses telling me that just because I didn't understand it doesn't mean it's not true and that I should "open my mind" instead of just rejecting new possibilities.

The friend in question eventually deleted the post and I talked them out of trying this dangerous idea. Who are the trolls making these videos with the obvious end-goal being to hurt stupid people's eyesight?!

Another one was a video encouraging people to go out and wander in the forest and encounter wild animals like bears as a life-changing and uplifting experience.

I posted for people to please remember that wild animals might have their own agendas other than becoming an uplifting experience for human beings.

I still sometimes get likes for that post, which actually gives me a little bit of hope but... seriously... GRIIIIIIND...

[Stupot]

I haven't come across Sun-eating yet but that is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I wonder if that was invented by Trump supporters to explain why he looked directly at the eclipse that time.

One thing that gets me is that there are genuine flat-Earth believers out there. If it wasn't so scary it would be fascinating. It's not the fact that they think the Earth might be flat that gets me. It's the fact that they seem to genuinely believe it without any sense of irony or tongue-in-cheekness. I really struggle to believe that there's not some part of them who's just going along with it for a bit of fun.

[josiah1221]

And what about all these ridiculous "challenges" that keep popping up?! Our youth is just brainwashed. They will try anything for attention even if it can be fatal! Hoping their video will go "viral" SMH!

[Mandle]

And what about all these ridiculous "challenges" that keep popping up?! Our youth is just brainwashed. They will try anything for attention even if it can be fatal! Hoping their video will go "viral" SMH!

I think though that these "challenges" have always existed for teenagers and have pretty much always been dangerous. Of course in the old days they spread slower and weren't as visible as now, but existed nonetheless.

A popular one where I lived was sneaking onto the local army base land while they were doing drills, sometimes live-fire drills. I must admit I went along on one of these adventures with friends. Not during live-fire practice though. It was a red-team/blue-team capture-the-flag kind of drill. We ended up "captured" by the red-team and "held hostage" for about 30 minutes so we couldn't give away their position. It was pretty cool though. The army dudes were nice and even let us try out their rations packs, which were awful! Even the chocolate was pretty bad. Then they let us go, making sure we left the area. Didn't turn us in for trespassing or anything. So we got lucky. But imagine if they had been a bunch of assholes or gung-ho nuts. Older kids used to sneak in behind the mounds they were firing live ammo at and hide there for kicks, which could obviously end really bad.

So yeah, I think most kids always did these kind of things as stupid challenges, it's just that now they spread fast on social media so everyone is doing the same ones instead of it being different per locality.

Kids will be kids...

[Cassiebsg]

This pretty much settles it! I'm from another planet and nobody told me!

[Mandle]

This pretty much settles it! I'm from another planet and nobody told me!

Oh, usually the people doing these stupid challenges are male... I guess we think it will impress you females... But you don't even notice... Human reproduction is a genuine miracle!

[Cassiebsg]

LOL
Notice? I never heard of such idiocy before internet!

PS - And most of my good friends from childhood were males! As I was never much interested in "girl games/play time"...

[Blondbraid]

LOL
Notice? I never heard of such idiocy before internet!

PS - And most of my good friends from childhood were males! As I was never much interested in "girl games/play time"...

I always figured guys did that sort of things to impress other guys, trying to prove who's the toughest etcetera.

[Mandle]

I always figured guys did that sort of things to impress other guys, trying to prove who's the toughest etcetera.

Yeah that too. But I guess the most alpha-male of the group does attract some girls' attentions so a bit of both probably.

[Frodo]

What grinds my gears is dogs on those extendable leads, getting in everyone's way and tripping everyone up. 
Normal leads give owners much more control over their dogs.

Also, I saw a woman on the bus today with her 2 dogs, and each dog was lying on a seat, so that other people had to stand. 

[Slasher]

Well,

some owners treat their pets as humans... I don't like dogs in the house...they should be cared for outside.

And on the bus seats would be a no no...

[ManicMatt]

some owners treat their pets as humans... I don't like dogs in the house...they should be cared for outside.

There's a big difference between treating a pet like a human, and letting it be inside a house! Especially how hot it is where I am, a dog would just die in this heat.