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20 years ago, he helped two kids at Disney World. Today, his story helped even more.

When you work at Disney World for over 25 years, you collect a lot of stories.

Just ask Mikey Jacobs, who worked at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, from 1989 to 2015, and played the character Goofy since the late-'90s. He's seen all manner of magical and heartwarming Disney moments.

Recently, Jacobs hosted a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) where he regaled the internet with tales of backstage Disney World romance, lunchtime cliquey-ness, and of course, surviving the Florida heat while wearing a costume (apparently you just get used to it).

Jacobs working the parade. Photo courtesy of Mikey Jacobs.

When one user asked him to share his best "magical" moment, he shared what he considers the "defining moment" of his Disney World career.

Jacobs recalled an encounter he had with two little girls who came to the park back in 1996. "The two girls were with their mom and dad at Epcot," wrote Jacobs in his AMA. "And on the way home they got into a horrible car accident."

According to Jacobs, both of the girls' parents were killed in the crash, and nurses at the nearby hospital had brought them back to the park to see if they could get their tickets refunded to help pay for a trip back home. "My heart absolutely sunk," Jacobs wrote. "If you had seen these girls you'd know why. They were truly traumatized."

Jacobs — who worked at Disney World's Guest Relations Department at the time and was also an experienced tour guide — helped the girls get a refund and brought them on a private tour of the park that included VIP access to the parade, free ice cream, and a seat on every ride. Unfortunately, the girls were far too shaken by what they had been through to enjoy their time. "Nothing worked," said Jacobs.

Jacobs leading kids on a tour of the park in the '90s. Photo courtesy of Mikey Jacobs.

Finally, he offered to personally introduce the girls to Mickey Mouse. That's when, for the first time, the girl's faces lit up with smiles."It felt so good to be a part of that," he wrote. "It was a special day for me."

That day, Jacobs saw firsthand how powerful the work of a Disney World character can be, and he dedicated the rest of his Disney career to working as a character. "When I saw the transformation of those two little girls I immediately turned my heart over to the Character Department," explains Jacobs over email. "There was no greater thrill for me than being able to immediately and directly make a magical moment for a Guest."

Those two little girls had a profound effect on Jacobs in 1996, but in 2016, his story about them had a real-world effect on the people who saw it on Reddit.

In the comments on Jacobs' AMA, one Reddit user mentioned that he had donated to the Florida Hospital for Children — a hospital near Disney World that is home to thousands of kids battling often life-threatening illnesses. The hospital has an Amazon Wishlist full of items that aim to make a child's stay at the hospital more comfortable.

The idea caught on, and before long, the hospital was inundated with donations. Workers spent the days after Jacobs' story went viral unloading three pallets worth of toys and fielding a long string of online cash donations, according to Janna Aboodi at the Florida Hospital for Children.

Photo courtesy of Janna Aboodi/Florida Hospital for Children.

Photo courtesy of Janna Aboodi/Florida Hospital for Children.

Photo courtesy of Janna Aboodi/Florida Hospital for Children.

Jacobs says he never expected his own life-changing encounter to have this kind of effect on others. But he's glad it did.

"To think that children may be able to have less of a difficult time in the hospital because of it really overwhelms me," he says.

Donating a couple dollars or buying a toy may seem like a small gesture, but the little things can go a long way. The toys donated to Florida Hospital will help bring smiles to kids faces, and as Jacobs knows, a smile can change everything.

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Woman gives tour of her $650 New York micro apartment and people were unprepared

Could you live in this apartment?

incognito7nyc/Flickr & Canva Photos

A woman ruffled some feathers with a tour of her $650 NYC micro apartment.

They say New York City is the City of Dreams. Young people all over the world flock to the city when they're ready to start chasing after their biggest ambitions. If you have a passion for theater, television, or the arts, there's no better place to be. Want to become a successful and prestigious stock broker, lawyer, or investment banker? It's all New York, baby. It's a city of immense opportunity and tough competition, but that's what makes it full of life and culture for those who choose to live there.

But all of that doesn't come cheap. The average rent in New York for even just a small, studio apartment is $3,264 per month. That buys you less than 500 square feet. And, even though it seems like you're really pinching pennies by living somewhere so cramped, that price tag is enormous! Even if you account for the higher-than-average salaries in New York.

Most young people just getting started in their careers can't afford that. Not to mention, the competition for good-quality apartments in New York is cutthroat. Still, people are desperate to live there by any means necessary, which has given rise to some really fascinating (and, in some cases, slightly horrifying) micro apartments.

In 2023, one woman went viral for showing off her New York micro apartment. It clocks in at just 80 square feet and cost her, at the time, a meager $650 per month.

new york, new york living, NYC, tiny apartment, micro apartment, apartment tour, budgeting, gen z, millennials, american dream If you like spending all your money on rent, New York is awesome! Giphy

YouTuber Caleb Simpson interviewed the woman, Alaina, for his channel that specializes in featuring interesting and unique living spaces. Alaina's apartment definitely qualifies, though technically the square footage is 80x150, because she's including the vertical space. Every square inch counts!

"So really it just feels like a walk-in closet," Simpson remarks upon entering through the front door.

Alaina shows Simpson around the apartment, which includes a tiny living room slash kitchen area with a mini-fridge, a small sink, and a small stove and microwave. In the main living area, she's placed a fold-out sofa of sorts. Alaina's makeup and pantry foods are all crammed into one small cabinet.

From there...well, there's not much left to see. But Alaina and Simpson check out the loft, which holds Alaina's bed and a little extra storage in the form of hooks where she hangs her bags and purses.

The apartment has no windows. There is a storage cupboard under the stairs, but it's hard to access.

"Every time I want to get something out, something else has to move," Alaina says.

As far as a bathroom, Alaina is lucky enough to have her very own private bathroom complete with shower! Many New York micro apartments feature communal or shared bathrooms, so the private bath is a plus for this tiny space. However, hers is located separate from her apartment, down the hall. And, you might be surprised to hear, it's extremely tiny.

Alaina admits she previously lived in a "luxury" apartment that cost over $3,000 per month, but she wanted to free up money to travel, which prompted her to downgrade.

Watch the whole tour here:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Alaina says her tiny apartment was a "hot commodity" when she signed the lease, beating out tons of other prospective renters.

Commenters on the video, which has a staggering 24 million views, were more or less horrified at the conditions that New Yorkers were competing over:

"Firetrap . No exits , no windows with fresh air . Cooking with no air flow . Crazy this is even happening"

"I can't even breathe looking at this tiny apartment"

"'In a van, down by the river' has never sounded better."

"NYC should be ashamed and embarrassed to relegate people to live in this kind of space. Not only does it look uncomfortable / unhealty but It looks extremely dangerous. NYC should do better in providing affordable housing with decent square footage."

It's cool and scrappy that Alaina makes the pint-sized apartment work for her as she pursues her dream of living in New York City. We might find it claustrophobic, but the fact that multiple renters were fighting over this space really says a lot about the way our culture is moving.

Younger millennials and Gen Z are sick of chasing after the American Dream of the single-family home with a white picket fence and a golden retriever.

new york, new york living, NYC, tiny apartment, micro apartment, apartment tour, budgeting, gen z, millennials, american dream The City That Never Sleeps Giphy

It's hopelessly out of reach for many of them anyway due to skyrocketing housing prices and stagnant wages. So, they can work their fingers to the bone with multiple jobs and maybe afford a slightly better apartment, but still not be able to save enough for the future—or they could actually enjoy their life with the money they do have.

NBC News writes, "Several years out of Covid lockdowns, younger Americans’ outlays on things like travel, recreation and dining out have been outpacing their older peers’ even as the economy slows. As of last summer, the average Gen Zer or millennial was dropping over $400 a month on nonessentials, compared to about $250 for Gen Xers and less than $200 for baby boomers."

In another YouTube interview, Alaina admits to spending big money on her monthly gym membership: over $300 per month, to be exact. Commenters chastised her for having her priorities mixed up, but honestly, there's nothing backwards at all about wanting to relax at your gym's spa after a long day of work, or travel to the far ends of the world, versus spending all of your money on an OK-but-still-crappy apartment.

In an update in the YouTube video's caption, Simpson writes that Alaina chose not to renew her lease in the micro apartment after filming. But that doesn't mean she regrets her stay.

"It's an adventure," Alaina says. "People need a lot less than they think they need."

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Two newer 'love languages' reignite an ongoing debate about the cultural phenomenon

Our love language is science.

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Different ways to express the language of love.

Move over, "physical touch." There are a couple of newer love languages in town. The question is, how are any of these so-called languages quantified? In the never-ending effort to understand one another, people have come up with various ways to learn how to connect and empathize. For Carl Jung, it was his book Psychological Types. For John Gray, it was Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. And for Baptist pastor Gary Chapman, it was an early ’90s book called The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate.

In this extremely popular self-help book—it sold over 20 million copies—Chapman wrote about how couples (and this could also apply to friendships, family, etc.) give and receive affection. The "love languages," as he famously named them, are: "Words of affirmation, gifts, quality time, acts of service, and physical touch." Of course, most people have a combination of preferences, but the idea is that if one could rank them, the people in their lives could know how to best express love.

In the last couple of years, as mentioned, two new love languages were revealed by the online dating site eharmony's "Dating Trends Report." They are: "Shared Experience," and "Emotional Security." The report explains that after surveying clients, "Nearly half of respondents aren’t sure the five love languages encompass the way they express and prefer to receive love. Shared experiences (adventuring and expanding yourself with someone) resonate most as a new love language (38%), followed closely by emotional security (feeling emotionally seen and taken care of) (35%)."


But there's a catch. There are plenty of researchers who claim there isn't enough scientific support to back the idea that love languages even really exist in the first place. While Chapman's notion might have been created as a relationship tool, some say none of it is rooted in empirical evidence. Despite the book's popularity, in an article by Gery Karantzas, associate professor in social psychology/relationship science at Deakin University, for The Conversation.com Karantzas writes, "Let’s turn to research testing a core premise of the love language theory: that couples with matching love languages experience greater satisfaction than those who do not. Evidence for this premise is very mixed."

In fact, Karantzas cites three research studies, "including one that used Chapman’s Love Language Quiz, [that] have found that couples with matching love languages were no more satisfied than couples who were mismatched."

Not shockingly, people have some opinions on Reddit. Just two months ago, an OP posted, "Love languages aren't real and we really need to stop pretending they are." They cite a post on Medium that discusses how dangerous the notion can be, as it encourages people to settle for less than what they want. "Oh he never compliments me? That's just his love language." (A 2024 article for BBC's The Science Focus, agrees with this take, noting that leaning too heavily into love languages could actually harm your relationship.)

love, love language, romantic, dating, relationships A man and a woman hold hands at sunset. Photo by Ryan Holloway on Unsplash

The OP's post got over a thousand upvotes and hundreds of comments. Many agree, but there is quite a lot of pushback. One person writes, "Do I think they're scientifically bogus? Yes. Does it provide a decent conceptual framework for people to communicate what resonates most with them in terms of receiving and reciprocating love and acts of care? Also yes. Like pretty much everything the public and social media spheres get their hands on, these concepts become weaponized."

This person puts it succinctly: "All models are wrong, some are useful. Love languages is a flawed model of human psychology but a useful way to communicate needs between two people."

Another added onto the initial agreement, writing: "Right, it's not gospel or fact, but it's a good approach to starting conversation about the division of labor in a relationship."

Lastly, this person backed up the OP with this one quip: "If love is a language, I'm mute."

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Married couple says the '3-Hour Night' hack has totally improved their marriage

“It's been so fun and such...a game changer for how our evenings go.”

@racheleehiggins/TikTok

Want out of a relationship rut? The Three hour night might be the perfect solution.

Almost every long term relationship suffers from a rut eventually. That goes especially for married partners who become parents and have the added responsibility of raising kids. Maintaining a connection is hard enough in this busy, fast-paced world. Top it off with making sure kids are awake, dressed, entertained, well fed, oh yeah, and alive…and you best believe all you have energy for at the end of the day is sitting on the couch barely making it through one episode of your favorite show on Netflix.

And yet, we know how important it is to maintain a connection with our spouses. Many of us just don’t know how to make that happen while juggling a million other things. According to one mom, a “three-hour night” could be just the thing to tick off multiple boxes on the to-do list while rekindling romance at the same time. Talk about the ultimate marriage hack.

bored, couple, marriage hack, man ywaning, concerned woman A couple that has lost their spark.via Canva/Photos

What is the 3-Hour Night marriage hack?

The three-hour night was something that Rachel Higgins and her husband began incorporating into their lives at the beginning of 2024. And so far, “it's been so fun and such...a game changer for how our evenings go,” she says in a clip posted to TikTok.

Before using the three-hour night, the evening would look a bit like this: their daughter would go to bed, they would lounge on the couch, scroll through social media, then fall asleep. Sound familiar?

But with a three-hour night, Higgins and her husband divvy up the time before bed into three sections, each for a different focus.In the first hour, starting around 7 p.m., is what Higgins calls “productive time,” during which the couple sees to any household chores that might need to be done.

“So, start with like a quick cleanup of the kitchen or just like things that accumulated throughout the day, and then we try to do something that either ... has been being put off or cleaning the bathroom or like organizing the pantry or hall closet or something like, super random like sharpening the knives. Anything that's productive for the household,” she explains.


@rachelleehiggins

if you’re stuck in a rut with your evenings try this! i saw someone do something similar to this a while ago but can’t remember who! #marriage #1sttimeparents #newyearsgoals

Next, the second hour is geared towards re-establishing a physical or emotional connection in their marriage. The phones go away, and they focus only on enjoying one another.

“So, that could be things like showering together or ‘having fun’ together, playing a game together, or just like anything that's gonna get you guys talking and connecting or like debriefing from the day or just like talking about what you're doing and like the plans for tomorrow or like how work's going or whatever. So, anything that's gonna connect and strengthen and build your marriage,” Higgins says.

Lastly, the final hour of the night is dedicated to anything Higgins and her husband individually want to do, any sort of personal recharge activity. Since this is a judgment-free time, Higgins states that “If you just want to lie on the couch and scroll your phone and watch TikToks or whatever, like watch YouTube videos,” it’s totally acceptable.

happy coupe, couple in bed, young married couple, man with beard, smiling woman A happy couple in bed.via Canva/Photos

Higgins’ novel approach definitely interested viewers, who chimed in with their own questions. One major concern was how the heck this could be done every night. But even Higgins admits that she and her husband don’t succeed at having a three-hour night every night—they usually try for about 3-4 times a week. And honestly, even once a week could still probably be beneficial in building intimacy.

"Such a good idea. Good for us empty nesters too! The phone scrolling is outta control!"one commenter wrote. "This is really cool. The housework is equal. The emotional connection is equal and the self care is equal. No room for resentment," another added. "We don’t have kids yet but I love this and want to do it because the nights slip away so fast!!" a commenter added.

Others wondered how to have a three-hour night when things randomly popped up in their schedule, like when kids won’t magically go to sleep promptly at 7pm. Higgins shares that in these cases, they tend to just shorten each phase. The point being: these can and probably should be customizable, even fun, rather than yet another rigid chore.

Plus, a three-hour night (or whatever your version of a three-hour night may be) is a great way to remind yourself just how high a priority your relationship has in your life, no matter what else is going on at the time. Odds are you'll probably find you do have more time for it than you previously thought.

This article originally appeared last year.

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One of the world’s rarest sounds is part of American English, and we use it every day

It's an odd sound, globally speaking.

Photo credit: Canva

Learning to make sounds we didn't grow up with can be tricky.

When (or if) kids learn phonics at school, they're taught the symbols that go with sounds of their country's native language or languages. People all around the world grow up learning to make specific sounds with their mouths by imitating the language(s) they are immersed in, which can leave us completely unaware of how many other sounds there are until we hear a language that's far different from our own.

Babbel, language, learning a language, sales, deals A person uses the Babbel appvia Babbel

Babbel’s Biggest Sale of the Year: Get 67% off. Lifetime Subscriptions For $199

Even the common foreign languages that American school kids learn have sounds that can be tricky to get down. The rolled "r" in Spanish. The nuances of French vowel pronunciations. The glottal stops in German. The sound that's a mix between "r" and "l" in Japanese. And for people learning English, one of the trickiest sounds to get down is "er," as in the American pronunciation of "bird," "world," "summer," or "percent."

Oddly enough, for as common as the "er" sound is in English, it's linguistically rare. According to the Linguistics Channel @human1011, the "er" sound is found in less than 1% of the world's languages, rarer than the click consonants found in some languages in East and Southern Africa.


- YouTube www.youtube.com

Although the sound is rare, many people worldwide use it, primarily because it's also used in Mandarin Chinese, or at least many of its variations. So, while there aren't many languages that use it, by sheer numbers of people, it's not that uncommon.

"So, a sound that's so rare that it's in less than 1% of the world's languages just happens to exist in the two most spoken languages on Earth? Can that really be a coincidence?" the @human1011 video asks. Well, yes. English and Chinese don't share a common linguistic root, so those sounds just happened to evolve in very different parts of the planet. According to some people in the comments of the video, there are regional dialects in Brazil where the "er" sound is used and in certain parts of the Netherlands as well.

Pronouncing the "er" sound is hard if you don't grow up with it, largely because it's all about the placement and shape of the tongue inside the mouth combined with the way the lips are positioned. That combination is physically tricky to show someone. This video, from a non-native-English-speaker does a good job of explaining the mouth movements that create the sound.

In the video below, Lisa, who was orignally born in Russia, teaches non-native speakers how to make the R sound so prevalent in the English language. "I'm a native American English speaker, and this is a great explanation of the mouth shape and tongue position! It's really hard as a native speaker to try to explain, but you made it very clear," the most popular commenter on the video wrote.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

What's particularly interesting about the "er" sound in American English is that it functions as a vowel sound. Most of us learned that the vowels in English are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y, and that's true as far as written vowels go, but vowel sounds are different. In the word "bird," the letter "i" is a vowel, but doesn't make any of the "i" sounds that we learned in school. Instead, the "ir" combine to make the "er" vowel sound. It's called an r-controlled vowel, and we see it in tons of words like "work," "were," "burn," "skirt," etc.

Learn something new every day, right?

Here's another video that explains the physical aspects of articulating the r-controlled vowel sound.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Most of us don't consider that the sounds we pronounce without thinking are actually skills that need to be learned and practiced by people who didn't grow up with them. It's not until we start trying to learn a language that's different from our own that we see how many sounds we have to work hard to make, sometimes even having to train our mouth muscles in ways they've never been used before.

It's also a good reminder to be patient and kind with people who are learning a language. It's not easy, and anyone making an effort to communicate in someone else's language deserves our grace and kudos.

You can follow @human1011 on YouTube for more interesting linguistics trivia.

This post originally appeared earlier this year.

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How do you know someone is incredibly intelligent? Here are 15 'subtle signs' people notice.

"They can change their mind when presented with new information."

via Associated Press/Wikimedia Commons

Albert Einstein using a blackboard.

Highly intelligent people come in all types. Some have no problem bragging about their smarts or accolades, while others are more humble because they don’t need to call attention to their brilliance. However, without tooting their own horn, certain hallmarks of intelligence are noticeable in how they approach people and situations. It seems that having a big brain is a hard thing to hide.

One of the undeniable characteristics of someone very intelligent is that they exhibit mental flexibility. They change their opinions when they don’t have enough information on a topic and can apply what they’ve learned from one subject to another. They also tend to have a great sense of humor, proving that their brain can easily connect different ideas.

A Redditor asked people on the ProductivityCafe subforum to share the “subtle signs that someone is intelligent.” It created great conversations about the characteristics of intelligent people and how their smarts seem to influence every part of them, from their personality to their ability to avoid unnecessary conflict.

smart, intelligent, smart people, gif, tony stark iron man maestro GIF Giphy

Here are 15 subtle signs that someone is very intelligent.

1. Curious about multiple subjects

"They like to learn about any and everything."

"And remember details and concepts later. A desire to understand and curiosity about the subject at hand."

2. They change their minds

"They can change their mind when presented with new information."

"This is definitely the best / most noticeable answer. Intelligent people agnostically process new information. They don’t just “automatically” deny anything that they don’t know or is inconsistent with what they already know. Intelligent people - it’s not what they know, it’s how they interpret / process new information."

"As John Nash, the mathematician allegedly once said; when the facts change, I change my mind!"

3. They process humor quickly

"They get the joke sooner than most people. Happens once in a while in movies or group settings: one person starts to laugh way ahead of everyone else. That’s one with a super fast processing mind (I know one). It is totally unconscious, so cannot be faked."

4. They like being corrected

"When you correct them, they're actually happy about it because they get to learn something new."

"100%. This is often referred to as growth mindset."

smart, thoughtful, questions, corrections, gif Well, actually gif

Giphy

5. Great sense of humor

"Humor is a marker for intelligence. Truly dumb people aren’t funny."

"Agreed but I would add that witty or dark humor is more intelligent than mean, cruel, gross humor. If someone’s 'wit' is just the same structure of putting other people down or being gratuitously shocking or gross, then no."

"A really good sense of humor. To be really funny, you have to be very observant and able to see things in ways that others don’t."

6. They make you feel smart

"They explain some things to you in a way that makes you feel intelligent."

"Einstein said, 'If you can't explain what you are talking about to a six-year-old, you don't fully understand it yourself.'"

7. They think before they respond

"They don't react. There is always a delay... and then, they respond."

"They observe, they pause, and then comes the long encyclopedic reply."

thinking, intelligence, being smart, smart people, thoughtful people, consideration, Think Sesame Street GIF Giphy

8. They know when to be quiet

"Yes, I have come across people with no filter, and have to argue about everything, and that can be exhausting."

"Never miss a good opportunity to shut the f**k up."

9. They're great at banter

"Yes, and quick word play/good puns."

10. They ask about your thought process

"If someone is inquisitive. They want to know how and why you think the way you do. Most people don’t do this."

11. They know what they don't know

"Even very intelligent people don't know about every topic. They understand this and don't pretend to be an expert or speak to things they don't specialize in. Or they use analogies to connect it to things they do understand. They understand that there is a lot they do not know, especially about their given specialties."

"Some people have so much ego, that they have an inability to say that they don’t know the answer to a question. They’ll either give a bullsh*t answer, or try to shrug off the patient’s concerns entirely. Nobody knows everything. If you don’t know, there’s no fault in admitting that, and then using resources to find the answer."

question, unsure, idk, gif, don't know, inteligence Who Knows Idk GIF by MOODMAN Giphy

12. Physical intelligence is important, too

"I wish people could understand intelligence in many forms—being good with your hands is intelligence. Being able to learn elaborate choreography is intelligence. Being emotionally responsive and understanding microexpressions is intelligence. It’s not just regurgitating facts. I’m a fact regurgitator myself, but I have a lot of respect for things I can’t do."

13. They don't get into drawn-out arguments

"Not raising their voice during a disagreement. Shouting over each other is to try and win an argument with intimidation rather than logic."

"Argue with an idiot and there's two idiots."

14. They think for themselves

"They don’t have herd mentality. Specifically in politics, religion, and pseudoscience."

"I remember the first time that I understood that not picking a side was a valid option for many situations. It was like a record skip moment in my head."

15. They use a bidet

"They own a bidet and don’t use toilet paper.

bidet, intelligent people, smart, gif, simpsons homer simpson episode 23 GIF Giphy

This article originally appeared this year.

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