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Sports? The Royal Family? Joe Rogan? 15 things people can’t believe adults take seriously.

"Sports. I get it. It's entertainment. But calm down. You aren't on the team."

royal family, joe rogan sports fans
via Daveynin/Flickr and Do512/Flickr

Should adults take sports or Joe Rogan so seriously?

When we take a look at humanity, there are countless things we take seriously, that may not matter in the grand scheme of things. Many of us also have a soft spot for ideas that aren’t exactly scientific.

No one is perfect, and it's okay for us to take pleasure in being invested in some forms of inconsequential entertainment simply because they are fun. The trouble comes when people waste their lives and resources on ridiculous things that do more harm than good.

The key idea is that no one is immune from taking something seriously that others may think is a waste of time. But, to each their own or vive la différence as the French put it.

A Redditor who goes by the username Hogw33d asked the AskReddit forum, “What is something you can't believe real grownup people take seriously?” Many people responded that they don’t understand how some people can invest so much time and energy into things they deem frivolous.

The list was a great way for some to vent but it also provides a solid skeptics guide to some of the pitfalls we may unwillingly fall into in life.

Here are 15 things people “can’t believe” that “real grownup people take seriously.”

​1. Community theater

"This is niche but community theatre. The DRAMA among grown adults is insane, worse than when I was in high school. Like yall, we are singing and dancing and wearing silly costumes. It’s not that serious." — MediocreVideo1893

2. MLMs (multi-level marketing)

"I just don't understand how people keep falling for it. They always think that there's a difference. It's all the same pyramid scheme y'all." — IsItTurkeyNeckorDick

"I think we should take them way more seriously. They can do massive damage to a person's financial and mental health. We need to stop treating them as a cute thing that naive people get sucked into, and ban them for the scam they are." — Hydro123456

3. Flat Earthers

"I think it actually started as a sort of debating society. Just for people to practice and become better at rhetoric. But, they actually convinced some people and now, this is what we have." — Addicus

"There’s one of those apocryphal quotes that goes along the lines of, 'Any group of people that get their laughs pretending to be idiots is bound to be taken over by actual idiots who think they’ve found good company." — RilohKeen

4. Social media outrage

"Social media in general. Too many people believe every clickbait headline or buy into whatever trend is taking over. Feels like people can't self soothe and need the validation or something, it's just weird." — Cynn13

"'Outrage over Z' 'People slam Y' And it's only like a few people on Twitter or Reddit and they present it as some huge backlash or major issue lol." — Sclubadubdub

"The political news channels do almost nothing other than this. They tell viewers the other party is outraged about something that you never find a real person outraged by and create culture wars that no one is actually fighting." — Herbdontana

5. Reality TV

"It's all fake, too. An acquaintance of mine works at a major studio. Those shows are all scripted and fake." — SpaceMoneky3301967

6. Sports fans

"People take being a fan of a sport (or team) way too seriously, imo. I promise you don't need to riot because 'your team' lost." — AdmirableProgress743

"My husband works himself into such a state over something he can't control and is, imo, of absolutely no consequence to his life. He's toned it down because I told him the screaming and cursing terrorize me and our daughter. But he stews and mutters obscenities." — Complex_Yam_5390

7. Scientology

"Might as well just say every religion. They're all coocoo bonkers." — JenniferC1714

8. Gossip

"Gossip in general. I live in a small town and it is maddening how people here are so serious about it. It's not light fun chatting, it's all SCANDAL and we need to take ACTION. I swear a lot of people's problems would be immediately solved if they just stopped giving a sh*t what everyone else does (to an extent)." — Buffalopantry

9. Facebook

"My mom will literally call me up if I didn't like a recent post of hers. There have been a few times where she asked why I didn't like every photo she just posted. It's maddening. I've also had periods of deactivating my fb only for my mom to guilt me into reactivating it." — Zealousideal_Mix6771

10. Billionaire 'geniuses'

"Elon Musk and other billionaire 'geniuses.' People are pretty freaking gullible." — GladysSchwartz23

"Most average people don’t realize that being incredibly smart doesn’t automatically mean you are good at doing things like running a large company. They tend to assume people at the top must be there based on merit. In reality, there are some massively stupid people running huge companies, and there some brilliant people who are shoveling shit for a living." — Captcha_Trampstamp

11. The royal family

"I have a news app on my phone and no matter how much I tweak my interest to avoid any gossip BS I still get "Breaking News! Some insignificant bullshit about the Royals". It's not news, it's not interesting, stop reporting this utter drivel." — Sclubadubdub

12. Religion

“The creator of the universe impregnated a virgin, only to deliberately kill the child 30 years later, to save people from…himself.” — Opteryx5

"I grew up figuring everyone was just roleplaying and was shocked to learn religion is taken seriously by many people. It was a real eye-opener for someone who grew up in a secular environment." — Kilterboard_addict

13. Vaccine skeptics

"I work in medicine and am starting to get really worried about the vaccine skepticism. It used to be a little more rare, so I would counsel, they spout incorrect information, I tell give a little retort/response, and then move on because time is tight. But now it’s happening so often that I’m working way harder to persuade because I feel a strong obligation to fight all the bullshit info that has obviously taken hold." — KellyNJames

14. Loud exhaust systems on cars

"As someone who lives next to traffic lights and can hear all y'all shi**y music and loud exhausts all day... I approve this message." — Rainbow-Singbird

15. Joe Rogan

"The whole 'I’m just an idiot don’t pay any attention to what I say' schtick doesn’t really work anymore." — FoucaultsPrudendum

"It was great when he had a guest that was in academia, like a physicist or something. I would skip over most of the comedy buddy circle jerks he would host. Then when COVID happened I had to stop entirely. He fully went off the deep end then. Still, he introduced me to Dan Carlin's work, for which I am very grateful." — Xczechir

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Ocean Wise
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Our favorite giveaway is back. Enter to win a free, fun date! 🌊 💗

It's super easy, no purchase or donation necessary, and you help our oceans! That's what we call a win-win-win. Enter here.

Our favorite giveaway is back. Enter to win a free, fun date! 🌊 💗
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Our love for the ocean runs deep. Does yours? Enter here!

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Mental Health

Happiness researcher explains how making a 'reverse bucket list' can change your life

Counterintuitive in our culture, but effective.

arthur c. brooks, harvard, psychology, happiness research, bucket list
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Harvard researcher Arthur C. Brooks studies what leads to human happiness.

We live in a society that prizes ambition, celebrating goal-setting, and hustle culture as praiseworthy vehicles on the road to success. We also live in a society that associates successfully getting whatever our hearts desire with happiness. The formula we internalize from an early age is that desire + ambition + goal-setting + doing what it takes = a successful, happy life.

But as Harvard University happiness researcher Arthur C. Brooks has found, in his studies as well as his own experience, that happiness doesn't follow that formula. "It took me too long to figure this one out," Brooks told podcast host Tim Ferris, explaining why he uses a "reverse bucket list" to live a happier life.

bucket list, wants, desires, goals, detachment Many people make bucket lists of things they want in life. Giphy

Brooks shared that on his birthday, he would always make a list of his desires, ambitions, and things he wanted to accomplish—a bucket list. But when he was 50, he found his bucket list from when he was 40 and had an epiphany: "I looked at that list from when I was 40, and I'd checked everything off that list. And I was less happy at 50 than I was at 40."

As a social scientist, he recognized that he was doing something wrong and analyzed it.

"This is a neurophysiological problem and a psychological problem all rolled into one handy package," he said. "I was making the mistake of thinking that my satisfaction would come from having more. And the truth of the matter is that lasting and stable satisfaction, which doesn't wear off in a minute, comes when you understand that your satisfaction is your haves divided by your wants…You can increase your satisfaction temporarily and inefficiently by having more, or permanently and securely by wanting less."

Brooks concluded that he needed a "reverse bucket list" that would help him "consciously detach" from his worldly wants and desires by simply writing them down and crossing them off.

"I know that these things are going to occur to me as natural goals," Brooks said, citing human evolutionary psychology. "But I do not want to be owned by them. I want to manage them." He discussed moving those desires from the instinctual limbic system to the conscious pre-frontal cortex by examining each one and saying, "Maybe I get it, maybe I don't," but crossing them off as attachments. "And I'm free…it works," he said.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"When I write them down, I acknowledge that I have the desire," he explained on X. "When I cross them out, I acknowledge that I will not be attached to this goal."

The idea that attachment itself causes unhappiness is a concept found in many spiritual traditions, but it is most closely associated with Buddhism. Mike Brooks, PhD, explains that humans need healthy attachments, such as an attachment to staying alive and attachments to loved ones, to avoid suffering. But many things to which we are attached are not necessarily healthy, either by degree (over-attachment) or by nature (being attached to things that are impermanent).

"We should strive for flexibility in our attachments because the objects of our attachment are inherently in flux," Brooks writes in Psychology Today. "In this way, we suffer unnecessarily when we don't accept their impermanent nature."

What Arthur C. Brooks suggests that we strive to detach ourselves from our wants and desires because the simplest way to solve the 'haves/wants = happiness' formula is to reduce the denominator. The reverse bucket list, in which you cross off desires before you fulfill them, can help free you from attachment and lead to a happier overall existence.

This article originally appeared last year.

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History (Education)

40 years after the Challenger exploded, one teacher shares how the ride was almost her fate

"I had no idea that anything like this could ever be part of my life."

NASA; Challenger explosion; Challenger crew; teacher in space; Challenger 40th anniversary
NASA/Wikimedia Commons

The Challenger crew.

In January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger took off with seven crew members on board, ready to make history. It was a big deal because this space mission wasn't just full of astronauts. Christa McAuliffe, a high school history teacher, was on board the spacecraft after winning a contest for the Teacher in Space Project. This would've made her the first teacher in space, so schools across the country wheeled televisions into their classrooms to allow students to watch history.

Instead, tragedy struck. The shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after takeoff due to "the destruction of the seals that are intended to prevent hot gases from leaking through the joint during the propellant burn of the rocket motor," according to NASA. All seven passengers on the Challenger perished in the explosion, leaving the country in shock.

NASA; Challenger explosion; Challenger crew; teacher in space; Challenger 40th anniversary The Challenger on crawler transportNASA/Wikimedia Commons

January 2026 was the 40th anniversary of the accident, and NewsChannel 5 caught up with one of the teachers who was competing for the seat McAuliffe occupied. Carolyn Dobbins taught at McMurray Middle in Tennessee in 1984 when NASA announced the Teacher in Space Project. Having always wanted to go to space, Dobbins applied for a seat on the shuttle. Over 11,000 teachers applied to be the one who would make history, and to Dobbins' surprise, she was chosen as a semifinalist. "I had no idea that anything like this could ever be part of my life," she said.

The retired teacher explains to the news station that she spent days on her application for space, saying, "An amazing thing happened." She shares about the series of snow days in 1985. "Snow day. Then we had another snow day and another snow day. Those snow days were what I needed! It was basically a mini-book about your beliefs, your desire to go into space, getting to the soul of the person."

NASA; Challenger explosion; Challenger crew; teacher in space; Challenger 40th anniversary The Challenger explosion. Kennedy Space Center/Wikimedia Commons

She admits that some of her students were worried about her going into space if she were to be chosen, but she brushed off their concerns, saying, "'Oh, I'll be back.'" Dobbins was completely confident in the success of the mission and excited to be able to do something she once thought was impossible. After being interviewed by a panel in Washington, D.C., she was sure she would be chosen for the mission. All of the teachers invited to be interviewed were also confident they'd be chosen, according to Dobbins. But only one could go, and the person chosen was 37-year-old mom of two, Christa McAuliffe, a teacher at Concord High School in Concord, New Hampshire.

Dobbins stood in front of her television watching the shuttle take off instead of experiencing it herself. Once the announcer said the magic words, "We have liftoff," the almost astronaut shares that she let out a sigh of relief before saying, "Way to go, Christa." She then turned off the television.

"Within seconds, the phone rang," Dobbins tells NewsChannel 5. "It was a friend. I said, 'Isn't it great? The shuttle has gone!' She said, 'Carolyn, you don't know.' It was the tone. You don't know. I just put the phone down, flipped on the TV. There it was. Already the footage was going of the explosion. That is still such an emotional moment."

NASA; Challenger explosion; Challenger crew; teacher in space; Challenger 40th anniversary Jay Greene in the control room after the Challenger explodesNASA/Wikimedia Commons

Dobbins taught for 53 years before retiring, and while she would've been willing to go on another mission that aimed to put a teacher in space, she's thankful for the life she has been able to live.

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27 English words people have a hard time enunciating properly, even native speakers

"The word I notice people struggle with is 'vulnerable'. Something about that N following an L is tricky."

enunciate, enunciation, english, words hard to say, hard to pronounce
Image via Canva/Povozniuk

English words that are difficult to enunciate.

The English language is hard to master, even for native speakers. With over an estimated one million words in the language, not only are English words hard to memorize—they can be hard to properly pronounce and enunciate. Getting tripped up with pronunciation can make your communication unclear, or worse—make you sound uneducated.

As American English teacher Vanessa explains, many mispronounced words are common and used in daily conversation due to tricky consonants and vowels in English words. But by knowing the proper pronunciation, it can help you become a more confident speaker, which is why she shared 33 words that are hard for English language learners to pronounce, such as "probably," "drawer," and "sixth."

On the subreddit r/words, a person posed the question: "What's a word you've noticed many native English speakers have difficulty enunciating even though the word is used fairly often?"

Turns out, there are a menagerie of words people notoriously stumble over. These are 27 English words that people say are the hardest to enunciate.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Tricky 'R' words

"The word I notice people struggle with is 'vulnerable'. Something about that N following an L is tricky." - common_grounder

"Rural." - Silent-Database5613

“'Nucular' for nuclear." - throwawayinthe818

"Remuneration v renumeration (first one is correct)." - RonanH69

"February. It sounds like you're pronouncing it like it's spelled Febuary. But it's spelled February." - SDF5-0, ShadedSpaces

"Mirror. Some people pronounce it 'meer'." - weinthenolababy, diversalarums

"Anthropomorphize is a word I have to use semi-frequently with limited success each attempt." - ohn_the_quain

"I can’t say the phrase 'rear wheel' without considerable effort." - ohn_the_quain

"Eraser (erasure, but they're talking about the pink rubber thing)." - evlmgs

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Multiple syllables

"Exacerbated vs exasperated." - SNAFU-lophagus

"'Asterisk'. A lot of people wind up inadvertently name-checking Asterix. I think it's best for those who struggle to use the alternative name for that punctuation mark, the 'Nathan Hale', after the American patriot who famously declared, 'I can only regret that I have but one asterisk for my country!'" - John_EightThirtyTwo

"I realized recently I have always mispronounced mischievous. It's mis-chiv-us, not mis-chee-vee-us. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone pronounce that correctly." - callmebigley"

'Supposebly' [supposedly]. Drives me up the wall." - BlushBrat

"Library. My coworker knows I hate it, so he’ll say Liberry every time." - Jillypenny"ET cetera, not 'ect' cetera. I think people are used to seeing the abbreviation etc and since there is no diphthong tc in English their mind bends it into ect." - AdFrequent4623

"The amount of people who say Pacific when they're trying to stay specific is pretty alarming. I'm not even sure if they know it's a different word sometimes." - Global-Discussion-41

"Then there was my old boss who would confidently and consistently use the word tenant when he meant tenet." - jaelith"

"Probably." - Rachel_Silver

"Contemplate. It's one of those word I hear people stumble over more than anything, often it comes out as Comtemplate, Contempate or a combination of both." - megthebat49

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Foods

"Turmeric. People drop the first R. It drives me nuts!" - Jillypenny

"Oh, and it’s espresso, no X [ex-presso]." - Jillypenny

"Also cardamom with an N." - nemmalur

"Pumpkin (punkin)." - evlmgs

espresso, espresso gif, sipping espresso, espresso drink, drinking espresso sipping modern family GIF Giphy

Awkward vowels

"Crayon 👑. My ex pronounced it 'cran'. Drove me up a wall." - rickulele, premeditatedlasagna

'Mute' for moot. A good friend of mine, who's extremely intelligent and articulate otherwise, says that. Unfortunately, it's a word she likes to use. I haven't had the heart to tell her she's pronouncing it incorrectly, and it's been three decades." NewsSad5006, common_grounder

"Jewelry." - weinthenolababy

"I hear grown adults calling wolves woofs and they're not doing it to be funny." - asexualrhino


This article originally appeared last year.

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How to keep your mouth shut in conversations when you know you should really stay quiet

Most people never regret just staying silent.

quiet, finger over lips, don't talk, keep it to yourself, silence
via Canva/Photos

A woman with her finger over her mouth.

It can be hard to stay quiet when you feel like you just have to speak your mind. But sometimes it's not a great idea to share your opinions on current events with your dad or tell your boss where they're wrong in a meeting. And having a bit of self-control during a fight with your spouse is a good way to avoid apologizing the next morning.

Further, when we fight the urge to talk when it's not necessary, we become better listeners and give others a moment in the spotlight to share their views. Building that small mental muscle to respond to events rather than react can make all the difference in social situations.

argument, coworkers, angry coworkers, hostile work enviornment, disagreement A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via Canva/Photos

What is the WAIT method?

One way people have honed the skill of holding back when they feel the burning urge to speak up is the WAIT method, an acronym for the question you should ask yourself in that moment: "Why Am I Talking?" Pausing to consider the question before you open your mouth can shift your focus from "being heard" to "adding value" to any conversation.

The Center for The Empowerment Dynamic has some questions we should consider after taking a WAIT moment:

  • What is my intention behind what I am about to say?
  • What question can I ask to better understand what the other person is saying?
  • Is my need to talk an attempt to divert the attention to me?
  • How might I become comfortable with silence rather than succumb to my urge to talk?

tape over muth, sielnce, be quiet, mouth shut, saying nothing A man with tape over his mouth.via Canva/Photos

The WAIT method is a good way to avoid talking too much. In work meetings, people who overtalk risk losing everyone's attention and diluting their point to the extent that others aren't quite sure what they were trying to say. Even worse, they can come across as attention hogs or know-it-alls. Often, the people who get to the heart of the matter succinctly are the ones who are noticed and respected.

Just because you're commanding the attention of the room doesn't mean you're doing yourself any favors or helping other people in the conversation.

The WAIT method is also a great way to give yourself a breather and let things sit for a moment during a heated, emotional discussion. It gives you a chance to cool down and rethink your goals for the conversation. It can also help you avoid saying something you regret.

fight, spuse disagreement, communications skills, upset husband, argument A husband is angry with his wife. via Canva/Photos

How much should I talk in a meeting?

So if it's a work situation, like a team meeting, you don't want to be completely silent. How often should you speak up?

Cary Pfeffer, a speaking coach and media trainer, shared an example of the appropriate amount of time to talk in a meeting with six people:

"I would suggest a good measure would be three contributions over an hour-long meeting from each non-leader participant. If anyone is talking five/six/seven times you are over-participating! Allow someone else to weigh in, even if that means an occasional awkward silence. Anything less seems like your voice is just not being represented, and anything over three contributions is too much."

Ultimately, the WAIT method is about taking a second to make sure you're not just talking to hear yourself speak. It helps ensure that you have a clear goal for participating in the conversation and that you're adding value for others. Knowing when and why to say something is the best way to make a positive contribution and avoid shooting yourself in the foot.

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Video games used to build the cognitive skills Gen Alpha is missing out on. It's an easy fix.

"Children in the '90s played games that forced the brain to fail and try again."

video games; cognitive decline; cognitive skills; Gen Alpha; Millennials; Gen Z; old school gaming
Photo credit: Canva

Kids playing video games.

There was nothing more frustrating as a kid in the '90s than almost completing a level in a game only to hear that dreaded sound. It was your last life blinking before your eyes. Your only choice was to start over or turn off the video game and try again tomorrow. There was no getting around the fact that you were going to have to do it all over again, but next time you'd be faster, smarter, and better prepared than the last.

This is a skill that was built through repetition for Millennials and Gen X. That small annoyance in older video games exercised a muscle that would be helpful throughout life—one that increased the cognitive skills of these two older generations. And while older Gen Zers experienced this important brain development tool built into older video games, younger Gen Zers and Gen Alpha are critically missing out.

video games; cognitive decline; cognitive skills; Gen Alpha; Millennials; Gen Z; old school gaming Two kids enjoying a video game together on the couch. 🎮✨Photo credit: Canva

The brain development skills consistently present in video games from the late '70s through the '90s were frustration tolerance, critical thinking skills, delayed gratification, and pattern recognition. Licensed mental health counselor and former teacher, Veronica Lichtenstein, discussed '90s video games with Newsweek, saying, "You fought through levels, memorized patterns and finally saw the ending. It felt like you accomplished something. Your brain gave you this solid, lasting dose of satisfaction, like finishing a tough project.”

In a video by The Pizza Breakroom on Instagram, two men discuss an article allegedly written by a psychologist exploring this very phenomenon. "He said children in the '90s played games that forced the brain to fail and try again," one man reads. "Mario, Sonic, Prince of Persia, you had three lives, no saves, no hints. When you lost you learned patience, planning, and frustration tolerance. Today, many games guide kids step-by-step. Autosave every ten seconds and removes real challenge."

Games like Roblox and Minecraft, which a lot of kids enjoy playing, are never-ending. The game seems to be designed to encourage the player to spend money to keep up with trends, such as offering new "skins." This isn't game money; it's actual money that requires an adult's debit or credit card. There are no significant rewards offered through the satisfaction of beating a level or the game in its entirety. If a child is struggling in the room they chose to play in, the game allows them to leave and enter a different room filled with different players.

“Nineties games are a challenge for building your skills. Today’s games are often a test for your psychological resistance. A great deal are built to track, exploit and addict,” Lichtenstein shares with Newsweek.

video games; cognitive decline; cognitive skills; Gen Alpha; Millennials; Gen Z; old school gaming Family gaming fun: everyone is focused and competitive!Photo credit: Canva

But all hope is not lost on building these important skills in the youngest generations. Nineties games are still around, along with their original, refurbished consoles. There are also all-in-one Nintendo and Sega consoles that have all the '90s games preloaded. Parents can encourage video game play on actual consoles, not tablets or computers. A big perk is also that parents can actually get to play with their child while jogging their own memory of cheat codes and game layout.

For some, it may be difficult to watch their child struggle to figure out how to move through the old school games, but the point is for them to learn frustration tolerance and other cognitive skills. These skills are essential to navigate the world as an adult, and introducing kids to the games their parents played at their age is a fun way to do it.

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