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24 Ideas That Were So Scary, Some People Tried To Ban Them Forever
Hover over these book titles to see why people tried to ban these books at different points in history, and remember that you should always have the right to knowledge.
10.08.14
Talk about playing hard to get.
An artist's recreation of Jackie's napkin note.
A woman named Jackie pulled a move straight out of a romantic comedy recently, and it has the internet rallying around her potential love interest. Jackie met a guy at a bar and liked him so much that she gave him her phone number. Well, 80% of her number, that is.
The world heard about it on January 17 when Twitter user Henpecked Hal and shared a picture of the napkin with her partial phone number written on it. "My 22-year-old cousin met his dream girl at a bar and it's going pretty well,” Hal wrote in the tweet.
“Call me! 512-3*1-2*04,” the message read, along with "I'm worth it." The 512 is an area code in Austin, Texas.
After congratulating his cousin on meeting his “dream girl,” he asked: "Did you get her number." The cousin replied, “most of it.” The Tweet also attached a photo of a list of phone numbers the cousin called to try and get in touch with the elusive Jackie.
\u201cMy 22 year old cousin met his dream girl at a bar and it's going pretty well\u201d— Henpecked Hal (@Henpecked Hal) 1673980495
The tweet has gone insanely viral, racking up nearly 60,000 retweets, 85.6 million views and 776,000 likes.
The next day, Hal revealed that the woman reached out to him. In the screenshot of her message, she wrote: “Heeeyyy, so you likely won’t see this but I’m Jackie from the tweet!”
"Tell your cousin that next time I see him I'm going to...” she continued, but Hal blurred out the rest of the message to conceal her identity.
“I just talked to him! WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER????” Hal replied. “He said he’s halfway through the list, which means he’s actually like 10 per cent of the way through it.”
Update 1/3: WE FUCKING DID IT! pic.twitter.com/ccQ1puS8OJ
— Henpecked Hal (@HenpeckedHal) January 18, 2023
“He may not be as clever as he thinks,” Jackie responded, “give me HIS number, I’m taking over this operation.”
A lot of people in the comments said they thought Jackie was cold or arrogant for playing hard to get and making poor Hal’s cousin try 100 different numbers to find out which one was her. But Hal says that it’s all an extension of the conversation the two had at the bar.
"For the people saying she's arrogant, high maintenance or whatever: these kids talked for an hour about a shared interest in true crime, mysteries, etc,” Hal tweeted. “My cousin bragged that he always solves the case before the show ends (editor's note: not this time). I think she's awesome."
So, all Jackie did was give him another mystery to solve. If he’s such a great amateur detective then he should be able to reach her, right?
Some people in the comments have suggested that the story is fake. One person noted that the notebook page with the phone numbers on it had an indentation at the top which could be the “5” in Jackie’s phone number from the napkin. The implication is that Hal wrote on the napkin while it was on top of the notebook, leaving an indentation. But other people pointed out that the writing didn’t match.
Yikes! Forgot to take your napkin off your notepad first… pic.twitter.com/0gCKeSxz12
— Tommy Balloons (@franchise193747) January 18, 2023
Through everything, Hal has received a ton of support from people on Twitter trying to help his cousin’s love life.
The cousin could use ChatGPT to create a Python script that could automate much of this 😂
— Amir Salihefendić (@amix3k) January 18, 2023
There are only 100 permutations here (10^2), so it's not that bad. pic.twitter.com/Wl2drylf1F
“The programmers who sent scripts and code, the excel junkies who sent me docs to share with my cousin, y’all are wild,” Hal tweeted. “I couldn’t come close to getting back to everyone, but I appreciate it.”
Nearly 90 million people have followed the story of Hal’s cousin and Jackie. Let’s hope there’s a happy ending or at least they get to meet up and see each other again to talk about the mystery that brought them both together.
What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these stories as an invitation to do better?
Ryan Metzger and son Owen
There is no shortage of dire news about the state of modern recycling. Most recently, this NPR article shared the jaw-dropping statistic that about 5% of all plastics produced get recycled, meaning the rest of it ends up in landfills. While the underlying concerns here are sound, I worry that the public narrative around recycling has gotten so pessimistic that it will make people give up on it entirely instead of seeing the opportunities to improve it. What if instead of focusing on what isn’t working, we looked at these news stories as an invitation to do better?
This question isn’t rhetorical for me; it’s been the motivation behind how I’ve spent the past five years of my life. It started when my son Owen asked me how we could recycle our dead batteries where we live in Seattle. After making a few phone calls and realizing how complicated it was, we made it a weekend project to pick up our neighbor’s batteries along with other hard-to-recycle items.This novel approach of having your hard-to-recycle stuff “carpool” with your neighbors quickly caught on in Seattle. Our rapidly growing community was looking at their junk drawers with new eyes, felt inspired to be part of something bigger, and kept asking what else we could pick up.
This enthusiasm turned my family’s passion project into Ridwell, a company whose mission it is to make it easy to deal with hard-to-recycle materials like plastics, light bulbs, batteries, & more. We pick up where curbside recyclers leave off, providing our members in six states with a way to recycle and reuse materials right from their doorsteps. In 2022 alone, our community kept more than one million pounds of hard-to-recycle plastic film out of landfills. To date, we’ve kept more than ten million pounds of hard-to-recycle materials from going to waste. All of this impact started with a simple, optimistic reframe. Instead of dwelling on what our curbside service couldn’t take, we instead asked ourselves how we could help.
Ryan Metzger, Founder and CEO of Ridwell
Via Ridwell
It’s been a lot of work to be sure, but what’s kept me motivated on this journey has been learning about all of the exceptional efforts happening elsewhere to make recycling work better for everyone. Our elected officials are creating new policies that powerfully shift market incentives, like Maine’s law that makes companies pay for their own recycling or California’s law that creates more demand for recycled plastic. Engineers are developing new ways to recycle tricky plastics, while citizens across the country are raising awareness about the need for government and corporations to do more.
The longer I’ve worked in the recycling space, the more I’ve found allies and collaborators who are finding surprising uses for materials that used to be dismissed as trash. Trex has pioneered a method of turning soft plastics like grocery bags into high-performance decking for homes. Companies like ByFusion and Arqlite are turning multilayer plastic packaging once considered unrecyclable into building materials and hydroponics gravel. The types of innovations we’ll need to solve our recycling crisis are all around us; we just need to keep connecting these pockets of innovation into a more holistic system of reuse and recycling.
So while the news cycle around recycling can often feel overwhelming, I always encourage people to use these grim statistics as motivation to lean into the challenge and look for solutions. For some people, that’s calling their legislators, and for others, it’s coming up with new packaging that has a smaller environmental footprint. For those of us at Ridwell, it’s about how we can help make it easy for households to keep hard-to-recycle materials out of the landfill. As the past decade has shown us, the overwhelming “Pacman-shaped” chunk of the pie chart often shows us where the most impactful innovations must come from and where the next wave of businesses must focus. Yes, we are at an inflection point when it comes to addressing the problems posed by excessive waste in this country. To be honest, I’ve never felt more optimistic that we have what it takes to address this problem, together.
Ryan Metzger is a guest contributor to Upworthy and founder and CEO of Ridwell
Dad and daughters take a walk through Disneyland.
This article originally appeared on 06.15.16
To a stranger I met at a coffee shop a few years ago who introduced me to what my life as a parent would be like:
I doubt you'll remember it, though — so let me refresh your memory.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Los Angeles in 2011, and I decided to walk my then 3-month-old daughter to the corner Starbucks. That's when I met you — a stylish older white woman who happened to be ahead of me in line.
You were very friendly and offered up many compliments about how cute my daughter was, and I agreed wholeheartedly with you. She's cute.
But after you picked up your drink, you delivered this parting shot:
"No offense, but it's not often that I see black guys out with their kids, but it's such a wonderful thing," she said. "No matter what happens, I hope you stay involved in her life."
And then you put on your designer sunglasses and left.
Meanwhile, I was like...
That was unexpected.
GIF from "Live with Kelly and Michael."
Do I think you're a mean-spirited racist? No, I don't. Actually, I bet you're a really nice lady.
But let's be real for a second: Your view on black dads was tough for me to stomach, and I want you to know a few things about what it's really like to be me.
I know what you're thinking: "Oh boy — let me brace myself while he 'blacksplains' how hard his life is while shaming me for ignoring my white privilege."
But that would be missing the point. We all have our challenges in life, and I'm not about to bring a big bottle of whine to a pity party.
Instead, as you probably know, today's dads are trying to shed the stigma of being clueless buffoons.
Kid, you're gonna love this! Wheeeee ... uh oh.
But black dads have an additional obstacle to hurdle in that we're often seen as completely disinterested in fatherhood. Trust me, it gets old when people automatically assume you're not good at something because of the color of your skin.
Our encounter was the first of many examples of this that I've witnessed, directly or indirectly, in my five and a half years of fatherhood, and I'm sure there will be more to come.
During the months that followed our brief meeting, I felt a need to prove that you — a complete stranger — were wrong. I needed to prove there were plenty of black men just like me who loved being dads.
I knew a lot of these great men personally: My dad, my two brothers, and many others embraced fatherhood. But could any data back up how much black dads embraced fatherhood? Because the examples in mainstream media were few and far between.
Thankfully, the answer is yes.
A few years after I met you, a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 70% of black dads are likely to engage in common child-rearing activities such as diaper changing, bathing, toilet training, etc., on a daily basis. That's a higher percentage than white or Hispanic fathers.
Full stop.
This isn't about black dads being "the best" because parenthood isn't a competition. It's about showing that we're not even remotely as bad as society makes us out to be.
And outside of the CDC study, I saw firsthand how hands-on black dads are when I was thrust into the public eye, too, because a lot of them reached out to me to tell their stories.
We nurture our kids.
Getting close to the twins.
Photo taken from the Daddy Doin' Work Instagram feed and used with permission.
We're affectionate with our kids.
Love is universal.
Photo taken from the Daddy Doin' Work Instagram feed and used with permission.
And we do whatever our kids need us to do.
Dad takes a deserved nap.
Photo taken from the Daddy Doin' Work Instagram feed and used with permission.
And none of that should come as a surprise to anyone.
Princess dresses at Disneyland? You bet.
Photo taken from the Daddy Doin' Work Instagram feed and used with permission.
I will always be there for her and her baby sister.
Even though I just described how black dads are different from many dads, I hope the takeaway you have from this is that we have a lot of similarities, too.
Please don't fall into the trap of saying that you want to live in a colorblind world because it makes it harder to identify with inequality when it happens. Instead, I hope you can recognize that we have the same hopes, dreams, and fears as other parents, but the roads we travel may not be the same.
But I hope when you pick up your next latte and see a dad who looks like me that you'll smile knowing he's the rule rather than the exception.
"And when the night falls, my Squishmallow calls…"
Indie pop band Sub-Radio created a perfect introvert parody of Whitney Houston's hit song.
There are two kinds of people in this world—those who Google "nightlife" when they're exploring travel destinations and those with no desire to venture anywhere after 10:00 p.m.
Nothing against those folks who enjoy spending after-bedtime hours in crowded nightclubs, but "nightlife" just sounds like torture to me. Even during my somewhat wild college days, whenever I'd go out dancing late at night with my friends, the little voice in my head would say, "You know you'd rather be curled up on your couch in your jammies right now." And it was right. I would have.
While some introverts may genuinely look forward to a night on the town, I'd venture to guess most of us don't. By the end of the day, our social batteries are usually pretty tapped out, so a quiet evening with a movie or a book is almost always preferable to one that involves trying to make conversation over blaring music and strobe lights.
That's why a parody of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" is being claimed as a personal theme song by introverts everywhere.
The video from indie pop band Sub-Radio has raked in over a million views on their TikTok channel and gone similarly viral on Facebook—and for good reason. With band members clad in comfy-looking PJs, the video opens with the caption, "When someone asks me if I'm going out tonight." Then comes an introvert anthem that is all too relatable.
Watch:
@subradioband send this to your favorite introvert #fypp #indieband #alternativeband
First of all, has anyone ever told the lead singer he looks like Rob McElhenney? Second, "I've done alright up til now, but I'd kill someone not to go downtown," is the most accurate reflection of an introvert's internal evening monologue I've ever seen. Third, "My Squishmallow calls"? So accurate. 10/10. No notes.
If you're someone who loves the nightlife, this song may not be relatable at all, but this is exactly how a good portion of the population feels. You know that person you see at the club who seems bored and aloof and maybe somewhat annoyed? There's a very good chance they'd rather be sitting at home, listening to this song with a cup of tea and their cat. Genuinely.
"I have never felt so seen in my life," wrote one commenter.
"I need to send this to people trying to make plans with me," wrote another.
"This be my soundtrack on Friday nights 🥰," shared another person.
One commenter dubbed those who relate to the video as "The 'stay home club' 😻🙌😻🙌😻."
With so many pop hits about clubbing and partying, it's refreshing to see those of us who aren't about that life celebrated in song. We and our Squishmallows salute you, Sub-Radio.
“I really want you to experience the magic right now. So let’s try something.”
“There’s always a way to experience magic.”
Pro magician Kevin Li has dazzled audiences, celebrities and even heavy hitters in the industry like Penn and Teller with his impressive sleight of hand displays.
However, Li would tell you that one of his “most memorable” performances wasn’t for a sold out crowd, but for a single person who might normally miss out on his gifts.
A video posted to Li's TikTok shows Li offering up a magic trick to a man who is vision impaired. At first, the man politely declined, saying, “I’m blind, so the magic won’t work for me."
Without missing a beat, Li replied, “I really want you to experience the magic right now. So let’s try something.”
Placing a quarter in the man’s hand, Li performed a trick that relied on touch and imagination, rather than eyesight.
“Imagine this coin is made out of rubber, and it’s getting warmer,” Li instructed. From the man’s clasped hands smoke suddenly appeared, followed by gasps from onlookers.
“Do you feel it warming up?”
“It’s warming up!” the man replied.
The man was then encouraged to feel the quarter get “softer and softer.” Grinning ear to ear, the man opened his hands to reveal that, indeed, the quarter has magically transformed into bendy rubber.
“That’s yours to keep forever,” Li told the man.
@magickevinli One of my most memorable performances. There’s always a way to experience magic ❤️ Thanks for having me @Google #magician#kevinlimagic#google♬ original sound - Kevin Li
“There’s always a way to experience magic,” Li wrote in the video's caption.
The heartwarming exchange quickly went viral as people applauded how Li effortlessly made a traditionally visual medium more inclusive.
“This real magic is how quickly you pivoted and figured out how to do this for him. Amazing,” one person wrote.
A fellow magician added, “I’ve been doing magic for a long time, this is hands down my favorite thing I’ve ever seen in the magic community. Beautiful.”
“I’ve never considered that the blind are missing out on magic. Are there blind magicians?” asked one commenter. Li was quick to mention the legendary Richard Turner, one of the world’s most highly regarded card mechanics, who had also been legally blind since he was 9 years old. Yes, there are blind magicians. And in Turner’s case, there are extraordinary ones. No missing out necessary.
Being swept away by feelings of true wonder is arguably one of the biggest highlights of the human experience. It’s lovely that artists like Li work to provide that joy to everyone—because everyone needs it once in a while. Seeing quarters turn to rubber is undoubtedly cool, but sometimes kindness is the best kind of magic there is.
Manager Michael Clements has "never seen" an employee like Pookie White.
The Waffle House in Hope Hull, Alabama.
Even though companies with workplaces that make accommodations for disabled workers are happier and more profitable, there is still a huge discrepancy in workforce participation between deaf people and those who can hear. According to Deaf People and Employment in the United States, 53% of deaf people are in the workforce as compared to 75.8% of those who can hear.
One of the biggest hurdles to deaf people entering the workforce is discriminatory hiring practices, intentional or not.
“There are often layers of discriminatory hiring practices that make [workplace participation] statistics still hold true today,” the study says. “Such practices can range from the discriminatory language on the job ad itself, to the application & hiring process, and can even impact the promotion of deaf employees.”
A story out of Hope Hull, Alabama, originally reported by WSFA, shows that when companies give deaf people the opportunity to excel at their jobs, beautiful things can happen.
Pookie White, who is deaf, was a dishwasher at the Hope Hull Waffle House and wanted to get promoted to cook. But management was worried that it would be difficult for him and the staff because he wouldn’t be able to hear the orders.
However, management gave him a shot and he’s been doing a fantastic job on the grill. “I wondered how it was going to work,” Waffle House area manager Michael Clements told WSFA. To bridge the communication gap, White taught his co-workers some sign language and they enthusiastically picked it up.
“He’s half deaf and I’m wearing a mask, so I have to use sign language,” server Jessie Simmons said.
But Simmons learned sign language on the fly and now they’re a great team. “She’s slow sometimes,” White jokes, knowing the effort his fellow employees have made to make their arrangement work. “It gets on my nerves.”
Clements credits White’s co-workers for helping him succeed. “They could have just not wanted to do that and consequently, he probably would have failed at cooking,” he said.
The deaf chef has become a hit with people in the Hope Hull community. “He has regular customers who come just to see him,” Clements said. “They love the show. That’s part of the thing about Waffle House, we are right in front of everybody on center stage. He eats the center stage up.”
White likes to give customers a hard time when they’re placing orders and he breaks into the chicken dance when someone orders chicken.
"Pookie is the sweetest soul. He loves to joke with the waitresses, they give each other a hard time and it’s so funny. He knows when we walk through the door exactly what we are getting too," Chelsea Milstead wrote on WSFA’s Facebook page. "I love him! He’s amazing and always makes sure the food is cooked to perfection!!" Jessica Beasley added.
"He is the best he knows our order when we walk through the door." Mary Push Norman wrote.
Pookie White’s story is a great lesson for business owners and managers everywhere. People with disabilities shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to being given opportunities in the workplace. When things may seem like a challenge at first, never underestimate a group of co-workers’ ability to step up and create an environment where everyone can thrive.