We all know that in NBC’s long running “America’s Got Talent,” it’s all about earning that coveted Golden Buzzer. Performers of all kinds grace the stage in hopes of wowing the judges, seizing the prize and moving onto the next round.
What you might not know is that during commercial breaks, random audience members get a chance to show their stuff as well. Usually this bit is just for fun to pass the time. But one young singer gave such a spectacular performance that everyone was left in awe.
Eleven-year-old Madison Baez Taylor was placed in the audience by the show’s producers unbeknownst to the judges. A huge AGT fan, Madison had been to tapings since she was 4 years old and would always try to sing during the commercial breaks. Finally—the year she came to actually audition, no less—her dream came true.
Once Madison was handed the mic, there was no holding back. Her raw, soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace” instantly wowed, and the crowd burst into a standing ovation. Judges Sofía Vergara, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel spun in their chairs. Even the notoriously unimpressed Simon Cowell quickly came in from backstage to see who the mysterious powerhouse was.
“We do ask people in the breaks if they’d like to sing a song and I was literally just coming back in and I heard this voice, thinking, ‘Who the hell is that?’ And then I see this little thing in the audience and it’s you,” Cowell told Madison.
With a smile, Cowell then asked Madison to sing again. This time on the stage. For an official audition.
Through tears, Madison sang again a capella, somehow with even more flair and gusto. And holy moly, that vibrato.
Needless to say, cheers ensued.
After her thrilling encore, Cowell told Madison, “I’m not kidding. In all the years we’ve ever done this, this has never actually happened before. I mean, I normally leave during the break because people do sing, so this is actually the opposite. It actually brought me back into the room.”
Mandel then asked Madison what she might do with the $1 million grand prize if she were to win. Her heartfelt answer caught everyone by surprise.
“I would help my dad with cancer research. He’s had stage 4 colon cancer for the past nine years,” Madison said, getting emotional.
Her dad, who had come to support his daughter during her big moment, later joined Madison on the stage. He revealed that she learned to sing by serenading him during his surgeries and chemo treatment. “She’d sing to me and help me get better, and I’m doing very well,” he told the audience.
Madison received the Golden Buzzer from Mandel. No vote necessary. She and her dad shared a wonderful moment of victory as the golden confetti rained down. Whether she makes it to the final round or not, this girl is a winner.
In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin.
It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest.
The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?
Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.
MEDEA Screening Audience in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world.
Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.
Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.
A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission
Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education.
But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities.
The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere.
You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.
Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil
Julia with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country.
“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says.
But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.
Ayomidês with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model.
“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.”
Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria
Centre for Girls' Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms.
“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?”
When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits.
Completing secondary school delays marriage, and according to UNESCO, educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift their families out of poverty and contribute to more peaceful, resilient communities.
Centre for Girls’ Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
To encourage young girls to stay in school, the Centre for Girls’ Education, a nonprofit in Nigeria founded by Mama Habiba and supported by Malala Fund and Pura, has pioneered an initiative that’s similar to the Ayomidê workshops in Brazil: safe spaces. Here, girls meet regularly to learn literacy, numeracy, and other issues like reproductive health. These safe spaces also provide an opportunity for the girls to role-play and learn to advocate for themselves, develop their self-image, and practice conversations with others about their values, education being one of them. In safe spaces, Mama Habiba says, girls start to understand “who she is, and that she is a girl who has value. She has the right to negotiate with her parents on what she really feels or wants.”
“When girls are educated, they can unlock so many opportunities,” Mama Habiba says. “It will help the economy of the country. It will boost so many opportunities for the country. If they are given the opportunity, I think the sky is not the limit. It is the starting point for every girl.”
From parades, film screenings to safe spaces and educational programs, girls and local leaders are working hard to strengthen the quality, safety and accessibility of education and overcome systemic challenges. They are encouraging courageous behavior and reminding us all that education is freedom.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
Shakespeare is a staple of any high school English curriculum. Yet, getting young folks to actually understand, let alone appreciate, the Good Bard’s work has always been a bit of a challenge. Unless you’re teaching it to a room full of theatre kids, that is.
Recently, a high school teacher named Molly Dugan shared some of her current students’ reactions to one of Shakespeare’s most notable works, Romeo & Juliet. Spoiler alert: they weren’t fans. Nonetheless, their remarks were comedy gold.
High schoolers react to Romeo & Juliet
Some of the comments reflected the same counterpoints many younger generations have had about well-received works of yesteryear (looking at you, ’90s rom-coms).
For instance, one student said, “Romeo is hella cringe, get him off my screen.”
Meanwhile, two other students accused him of being a “hella stalker” with “bad rizz” who just “wants the huzz,” a.k.a. a girl, a woman, or, to really make it feel dated, a “boo.”
Folks in the comments didn’t really disagree with these points.
“‘Bro’s a hella stalker’ oddly accurate take😂,” one viewer wrote.
Another echoed, “Bro actually was a hella stalker and arguably was hella cringe.”
Another teacher even shared, “Directed it last year. Best response: ‘where are their parents?!’”
Distinct brand of savage high school sarcasm on full display
“Oh, so you actually hate us,” one student said, apparently after Dugan asked the class to get their notebooks out.
Another delivered a rather low blow, saying, “We don’t need subtitles. We’re not old.”
But then some genuinely baffling questions left many wondering if this generation is, in fact, “cooked”:
“Was there time back then? Like, did it exist when Romeo and Juliet were alive?”
“Is Shakespeare a real person? Because I thought he was one of those Greek gods. So I’ve been confused.”
Woof. That’s…something.
Apparently, a few other teachers have had very similar experiences
“One year I got ‘What’s Shakespeare’s last name?’” one commented.
Another shared, “At the beginning of teaching the Anne Frank unit, I asked my 8th graders what they knew about her…’Isn’t she a rap star?’ 😳”
Who knows—perhaps the kiddos would have appreciated this Gen Z–ified version of Romeo & Juliet.
Shakespeare’s work has always been a bit of a hurdle for students
His plays were written more than 400 years ago, after all, and can sometimes feel as though they’re in an entirely different language. On top of that, Shakespeare wrote in verse, using rhythm and poetic devices that were meant to be heard onstage rather than quietly analyzed in a classroom. When those lines are lifted from the stage and dropped into a worksheet or textbook, it can take a lot more effort for students to connect with what’s actually happening in the story.
Cultural references can also add another layer of confusion. Jokes, social norms, and expectations around love, family, and marriage were very different in Elizabethan England than they are today. Without that context, characters’ actions can seem strange, exaggerated, or downright problematic to modern readers.
That’s part of what makes teaching Shakespeare such a unique challenge. Teachers often have to act as translators, guiding students through unfamiliar vocabulary and historical context while also trying to reveal the very human stories beneath it all.
Once you get past the old-fashioned phrasing, the themes are surprisingly relatable
Romeo & Juliet is about power dynamics, rivalry, and impulsive decisions that spiral out of control (and love, I guess). Those ideas are still easy to recognize, even if the characters express them in dramatically poetic language. It’s what gives Shakespeare such staying power and explains why he continues to show up in classrooms century after century, much to the bemoaning of high schoolers.
If we look back over the last 100 years of fashion, we can see how much has changed. The 1920s were famous for loose, square-cut flapper dresses and pinstripe suits with wide-legged trousers. The ’50s saw fitted shirts, poodle skirts, and the “greaser” in his jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket. The ’70s brought us bell-bottoms. The ’80s lit up with neon, and the ’90s grunge craze had us all in flannels.
Just hold those images in your mind real quick as we make our way back to the 1890s. Victorian-era fashion was marked by corsets, bell-shaped skirts, and three-piece suits. Against that backdrop, in 1893, The Strand Magazine published predictions of what people would wear in the coming century. And, well, you just have to see it.
The magazine feature by W. Cade Gall was called “Future Dictates of Fashion.” Gall framed his piece as a fictional story about an old man mysteriously finding a book published in 1993 called The Past Dictates of Fashion.
Fashion, according to the made-up 1993 author of the made-up book, was governed by “immutable laws.” But according to Gall, those laws were unknown in 1893, when people thought of fashion as “a whim.” By the 1940s, however, fashion would assume “the dignity of a science.” It would even be taught in universities from the 1950s onward.
Whatever those immutable laws of fashion were supposed to be, they must have been wild to explain the hilariously wrong predictions of what people would wear in the 20th century.
You still have those 1920s fashion images in your head, right? Compare them to these drawings:
The 1920s predictions were a far cry from the roaring ’20s. Photo credit: Public domain
To add to the hilarity, here’s the commentary on the skirt length in the first drawing:
“The skirt, it is true, is short enough to alarm prim contemporary dames, and it is scarcely less assuring to find in the whole of the remaining plates only three periods when it seems to have got longer.”
Imagine if they’d seen the knee-length flapper dresses of the actual 1920s, followed by the miniskirts of the ’60s. The sheer horror.
The style sketches for each decade provide laugh after laugh. What in the Shakespearean Strawberry Shortcake–Bo Peep is happening here in the 1930s?
There’s a lot going on here, and none of it looks like the actual 1930s. Photo credit: Public domain
The 1950s weren’t much better. Apparently, there was a trend toward a court-jester look in the mid-’50s?
The 1950s: Puritan clowns or Shakespearean court jesters? Photo credit: Public domain
The ’70s got a couple of things closer-ish to reality, kind of. Those collars could hint at butterfly collars, perhaps? And that 1978 outfit almost looks like bell-bottoms. Can we imagine people showing up to the disco in these digs?
At least the 1970s had bell-bottoms, sort of. Photo credit: Public domain
How about the ’80s? Do we see acid-washed jeans? Parachute pants? A preppy sweater tied around the shoulders, perhaps? Mmm, not exactly. More like The Wizard of Oz meets Alice in Wonderland.
Imagined outfits of the 1980s by a man in 1893. – Photo credit: Public Domain
If you look at what models wear on haute couture runways, you might see clothing that aligns somewhat with these sketches. But we certainly don’t see it in the daily wear of ordinary people.
Imagine showing the folks in 1893 today’s kids in hoodies and jeans. Or moms in yoga pants and cropped tees. It would blow their Victorian minds.
Of course, no one can predict the future, and Mr. Gall in 1893 didn’t have the benefit of seeing the drastic shifts in clothing that we’ve witnessed over the past several generations. It’s hard to look outside of our own experience and timeline and imagine something totally different. Could we predict the next century of fashion? Would we even dare to try?
Perhaps someone should, if only to provide some chuckles to our descendants 100 years from now.
When Mats Janzon found Leya, she was just a tiny baby curled up alone in the grass near his home in Sweden. Janzon was out on a quiet walk in the woods when he heard a soft peeping sound and saw it was a baby otter. He kept his distance for several hours, hoping her mother would return. When no one came, he searched the area and found that her mother had been killed on a major road nearby. Leya appeared to be starving and barely breathing, and he knew she wouldn’t make it without help.
Janzon had volunteered with animal rescues while working as a pilot in Cyprus, but after moving back to Sweden several years ago, he felt a pull to leave his job and spend more time in nature. “This shift led me to focus on helping wildlife,” Janzon tells Upworthy. “I’ve cared for various animals, mostly birds, that seemed to find me. Huginn, a crow I rescued, stayed with me for three years before he was ready to join his own flock in the wild.”
However, Janzon had never raised an otter before and didn’t know what to do. He was scared, as Leya needed care around the clock, but she began to thrive and quickly bonded with him. She would cry when he left the room and curl up in his lap to feel safe.
“The first time she let me pet her, I remember thinking this can’t be real,” Janzon told the TikTok account SoulPaws Tails. “It felt like a dream, this wild, free otter choosing to trust me.”
Still, Janzon kept second-guessing himself, wondering if he was doing the right thing. Otters are wild animals, and he knew Leya couldn’t stay indoors forever. So, starting with a plastic kiddie pool in the backyard, Janzon helped Leya learn to swim. She was awkward in the water at first, but little by little, day by day, she grew more confident.
Two years ago, our sweet otter pup Leya took her very first splash in a cozy baby pool, a moment that still melts our hearts! At just a few weeks old, tiny Leya was all curiosity and wobbly paws as she explored the shallow water filled with colorful floating toys. ?✨ Her first cautious pats at the surface turned into excited splashes as she chased the toys. Watching her dive and twirl, already showing off her natural otter grace, was pure magic. Now, at 2 years old, Leya’s likely out in the wild, thriving and possibly finding a safe territory for her own pups. ? We’re so proud of the strong, playful otter she’s become, and we’ll always cherish those early days of her splashing adventures in that little pool. ? Here’s to Leya, ruling the rivers and raising her own little swimmers! ?? #Throwback#FirstSwim#OtterMemories#WildAndFree#fyp#foryourpage
Leya followed Janzon everywhere. Soon she became part of the family, which included another rescued crow and a cat. The animals would play hide and seek, chasing one another around the bushes. Janzon says it was like something out of a children’s storybook.
Once Leya was totally comfortable in the water, he took her down to the lake. She looked up at Janzon as if to ask, “What now?” He nodded at her, and she jumped into the water. He realized that in some way he’d become a father to her.
“I named Leya while sitting with her on my lap, gazing out over the lake in a near-meditative state,” Janzon tells Upworthy. “I quietly asked her, ‘Who are you? What should I call you?’ The name Leya popped into my mind, and when I said it aloud, she instantly looked up at me. That’s when I knew it was the name meant for her.”
But as Leya grew, so did her wild instincts. She began to wander farther and stay out longer, and Janzon knew it was time to let her go. He describes it as “a strange kind of love—part pride, part heartbreak” but she started living the life she was meant to live.
“Leya is an old soul, brimming with energy and positivity, always finding opportunities in everything,” Janzon says. “Nothing seems impossible for her. She’s been a true inspiration and a dear friend during my transition from a conventional career to a life focused on something greater, not just working to pay bills, but making a difference by helping all living beings in our community.”
At some point, Leya started staying away for days at a time. But even then, when Janzon was out for a morning kayak ride on the lake, he’d see her nose pop out of the water and start moving towards him. Leya knew he was there and would swim up and climb into the kayak for cuddles and a ride.
Mats says Leya is officially living her wild life now.
“I last saw Leya at the end of May,” Janzon tells Upworthy. “Initially, we thought she’d find her own territory before winter, but after several long trips, she chose to stay under the house while the lake was frozen. When spring arrived, she resumed her search, staying away for up to 10 days before returning for brief visits, lasting a few hours to a day. Her last visit was unusually long, over a week. I suspect she may have been pregnant, eating heartily to prepare for a longer stay in a new territory farther away.”
Janzon wants people to know that as much as he loves Leya, she’s not a pet. “When an animal trusts you, it creates a bond deeper than words can explain,” he told SoulPaws Tails. “If you’re thinking of adopting or rescuing an animal, especially a wild one, please do it with your whole heart and full responsibility. Do your homework, talk to professionals, ask questions, learn everything you can about animals like Leya. They aren’t pets. They’re living, feeling souls that deserve to be loved and respected for who they are.”
You can follow Mats Janzon and see more videos of Leya on TikTok.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
When you see a list of the year’s most popular baby names, what you’re really looking at are the most common baby names in a specific country or culture. If you live in the U.S., you likely know a whole lot of kids named Olivia, Emma, Liam, and Noah, but if you live in Thailand or Kyrgyzstan or Botswana, you probably don’t.
Simply saying common names in different countries can sometimes result in hilarity. A name that sounds beautiful and has a lovely meaning in one language might sound odd and mean something very different in another. For instance, Odd is a common name in Norway, but it sounds…well, odd to and English ear. The former president of Vietnam had the last name Phuc, which surely led to some awkward moments for Americans who had to address “President Phuc.” (The “u” is pronounced more like the “oo” sound, but if you’d never heard it said, you wouldn’t know.)
Chinese language and culture instructor Dr. Candise Lin is sharing American names that sound funny to Mandarin speakers because of what they mean when pronounced with Chinese phonetics, and it’s a hoot.
1. Robin (pronounced Luo ben) = Running Naked
2. Robinson (pronounced Luo ben shen) = God of Running Naked
3. Nelson (pronounced Niao shen) = God of Pee
4. Benson (pronounced Ben shen) = God of Dumb
5. Mason (pronounced Mei shen) = God of Beauty
6. Nicholas (pronounced Ni kou si le) = You Are So Stingy
7. Isabella (pronounced Yi sheng bei la) = The Doctor Got Arrested
8. Dylan (pronounced Di neng) = Low IQ
9. Nancy (pronounced Nan si) = Difficult to Die
10. Robert (pronounced Luo bo) = Carrot
11. Ashley (pronounced Ao si ni) = Wear You Down to Death
12. Logan (pronounced Nao geng) = Brain Stroke
13. Tiffany (pronounced Ti fa ni) = Kick Your Ass
Tiffany Darwish GIF by New Kids On The Block Giphy
14. Martha (pronounced Ma hua) = Fried Dough Twist
15. Jeff (pronounced Jie fu) = Brother-in-law
16. Daniel (pronounced Da niu) = Big Shot
17. Gordon (pronounced Gou dan) = Dog Balls
18. Melanie (pronounce Mei ren li) = Nobody Cares
A few of these names actually seem pretty rockstar in Mandarin. Mason as “God of Beauty’? Nothing wrong with that. Nancy being “Difficult to Die?” Heck yeah. But some are particularly unfortunate. God of Pee? Yeesh. Low IQ? Ouch.
Of course, the names in Chinese are based on transliterations that aren’t exact. English and Mandarin have different sounds, so many of them are just the closest approximations that there are in terms of pronunciation. (But then along comes Tiffany, kicking ass as clear as day.)
Chinese characters aren’t phonetic in the way that English letters are. Photo credit: Canva
Naturally, people who have some beef with people who bear some of these names are having a heyday, with comments like “Ashley actually makes a lot of sense,” or “Not Gordon Ramsay actually being called Dog Ballz Ramsay.” But mostly people are just delighted to see how names they see as totally “normal” mean hilarious things in Chinese.
As one person wrote, “This was awesome and about time! Chinese names get a lot of humor attention in English circles. It’s nice to know English names can also be a bit ridiculous in Chinese.” It’s likely that many of us have never thought about how American names might sound in other countries.
But names not translating well is truly a universal phenomenon, and as long as we’re all laughing about it together, finding the funny when things—even our names—get lost in translation can be a fun way to connect across cultures.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
The ‘90s are often depicted as a golden age. A time of less violence, more money, better music, equal rights, unprecedented technological progress, and Beanie Babies instead of Labubus. A time of peace throughout the land.
However, take a quick romp through actual history and we see that when we take the rose-colored glasses off, the ’90s weren’t without its less-that-stellar moments. Furthermore, there was a lot more nuance to it than teens wearing a bunch of flannel and listening to grunge music.
Across severalRedditthreads, people who actually lived through the ’90s have shared some prime examples of how we get the ’90s wrong and elements we have completely forgotten about, from recalling society’s very unhealthy obsession with thinness, to police brutality, to the questionable hunter green/maroon craze (remember that?).
Take a scroll down memory lane with our 15 favorites:
1.”The early 90s and late 90s were two very different times culturally. I can’t stand it when I see a picture of the spice girls with a ‘So 90s!’ caption.”
“There’s a HUGE difference between the early 90’s and late 90’s. After 1996 it was more millennial, Pokémon, Britney Spears vs the early 90’s which was more grunge and smooth RnB.”
2. “Not all Gen Xers were disinterested slackers in the 90s.”
“I graduated from university in 1991. I spent the 1990s trying to get a decent job, pay rent and generally just getting my shit together. Most other people my age seemed to be doing pretty much the same thing, unless they had rich parents.”
3. “Nobody seems to talk about all the maroon and hunter-green wallpaper strips that were added to the top of the walls in houses. Maroon and hunter-green everywhere. From cars to vacuums and beyond.”
“My comforter set for my freshman dorm (Fall 1994) was maroon on one side, hunter green on the other. I realized it was dark and depressing so I got a girlie daisy print bedspread for the rest of college.”
4. “Money was tight then, too. People were happy with fewer luxuries, because we could get by. And the very idea of giving a child a device worth hundreds of dollars was ludicrous! I still feel this way.”
5. “A lot of people talk about the 90s like it was a utopian decade. Sure, a lot of stuff was awesome. But there was also the AIDS epidemic, the crack epidemic, the heroin epidemic, lots of police brutality, the sharp uptick in domestic terrorism, etc. plus the casual sexism, racism, & homophobia. The hope for the future that started in late 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the heating up of our economy in the mid-90s only lasted until 2000. It was a very brief window, in retrospect.”
6. “Female celebrities were shrinking to child sizes and getting praised for it. ‘Thinspo’ was a thing. ALL my friends group from high school and college, including myself, had eating disorders — Marlboro Light and Diet Coke for every meal. Our idea of sports was extreme cardio only. We were SO unhealthy. Thank God we were young enough to bounce back to normal without major issues.”
7. “That Nirvana ruled the 90s, and killed off all other forms of hard rock. They hit hard for about two and a half years, and then we were stuck with Tonic and the goddamn Spin Doctors.”
“A lot of people mention grunge and gangsta rap, but country was very hot too. Country line dancing became a big thing, Branson, Missouri became a big tourist destination with its theaters, and artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain made tons of money.”
“I don’t think the Riot Grrrl movement gets enough recognition and acknowledgment as an extremely significant 90s cultural event.”
8. “I think one idea that’s misrepresented is that we were already online, all the time.”
“I mean, I was STOKED when I got into the dorm with LAN connections in 1993, but I was an outlier. Lots of kids at my college barely understood using computers, much less anything internet-related beyond maybe an AOL/AIM. Obviously this was an evolution of ten very fast moving years.”
9. “That mom Jeans were cool. No one under 35 wore them.”
10. “Not everyone wore Doc Martens back in the 1990s. Many people wore military boots as a fashion statement that were often mistaken for Doc Martens, while others wore sneakers every day, even in venues where they should have been wearing more formal shoes.”
11. “Cellphones were considered tacky and unnecessary unless you were a doctor.”
12 .”Not everyone got around on rollerblades.”
13. “Property was cheaper, not cheap as in affordable to all.”
14. “If your family lived in a rural area and wasn’t rich enough to immediately buy a computer, you could be lonely in a way that people can’t even comprehend now. I spent the last two years of high school doing nothing, watching TV and playing 16-bit RPGs repeatedly because I couldn’t get anywhere or do anything.”
15. “Drunk driving didn’t have the stigma it does today. It took a long campaign waged by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to shift public perception on how dangerous drunk driving is.”
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
For whatever reason, we love a good survival story. Whether it’s a Hollywood film about Tom Hanks stranded on a desert island or a reality TV show about a former special forces soldier foraging for food and shelter in the jungle, we can’t get enough.
Unfortunately, for many of us, our knowledge of survival and emergency situations doesn’t go much further than what we’ve seen on television. Worse, much of what we’ve learned and come to accept as good advice is actually wrong. Many of the techniques in question are either ineffective, dangerous, or exaggerated for entertainment value.
If you ever find yourself stranded, lost, or in a life-threatening situation, here are a few popular survival myths to be aware of:
1. Sucking venom out of a snakebite
If you get bitten by a venomous snake, the smart move is to get the venom out of the wound as soon as possible. The only problem? This doesn’t actually work. And neither do devices that claim to extract the venom.
“Snake venom rapidly diffuses into deep tissue—it’s not just pooled up under the skin ready to be suctioned out,” prepper Sean Gold tells Upworthy. “Being able to suck the venom back through the snake’s bite is also impossible, since the bite tracks immediately collapse when the fangs are removed.”
What to do instead: You need medical attention and antivenom. If you can’t get help, immobilize the wound and keep it below heart level.
2. Drinking cactus water
We all know that cacti thrive in the desert due to their incredible ability to store water. That makes the idea of cutting one open to quench your thirst pretty appealing. Unfortunately, the water stored in a cactus isn’t suitable for drinking.
“Most cactus species further protect their spongy flesh with acids and potent alkaloids. These chemicals are usually too acrid for most humans to tolerate and are taxing on the kidneys if ingested. The flesh of some cactus species can also cause vomiting, diarrhea, or temporary paralysis—none of which is conducive to your survival in an emergency situation.”
What to do instead: Your best bet is digging in a dry riverbed to find water, or following birds, bees, and trees to a better source. More importantly, don’t overexert yourself in the heat of the day in order to conserve hydration.
3. Counting on moss to navigate
Ever heard the old rule that moss only grows on the north side of a tree? The idea comes from the fact that moss prefers shady areas, which are more likely to face north. Some people believe you can use this concept to navigate your way out of being lost.
Sadly, moss will grow just about anywhere. It’s often found on north-facing surfaces, but not reliably enough to use as a compass.
What to do instead: Serious survivalists learn how to navigate using the stars and the sun. The easiest thing to remember is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, though not precisely.
“By drinking urine with higher concentrations of waste products (and/or if your kidneys are impaired), urea and other metabolic waste products can accumulate in your body. This can become toxic to cells, particularly those in the nervous system. This can lead to symptoms such as vomiting, muscle cramps, itching and changes in consciousness. Without treatment, this toxic state (known as uraemia) can be life-threatening.”
What to do instead: Finding fresh drinking water is one of the most difficult aspects of survival. Studying the topography of the area and heading downhill are usually your best bets for finding a stream.
5. Hiding in a tunnel from a tornado
A lot of people believe that if they encounter a tornado while driving, a highway overpass or tunnel is a good place to take shelter from flying debris.
On the contrary, a bridge or overpass can act as a wind tunnel, accelerating the force of the wind and flying debris. That’s even more dangerous. Depending on your head start and which direction the tornado is moving, you may be able to drive away from it, but it’s not usually recommended, as tornadoes can reach forward speeds of 75 miles per hour.
What to do instead: Missouri’s Storm Awarewebsite notes, “If you are in your vehicle and a tornado is approaching, you should pull your vehicle to the side of the road immediately, get out, and lay flat in a nearby ditch covering your neck and head.”
6. Drinking alcohol to warm up
It’s not out of the realm of possibility to imagine yourself in a broken-down car on the side of the road during a blizzard with nothing but an old bottle of whiskey that’s been rolling around in the back for months.
As tempting as it might be to drink it, experts say don’t do it. Drinking hard liquor can temporarily make your body feel warm, but it actually makes the situation worse.
Outdoor Life explains: “Although you may feel warmer, alcohol actually dilates skin-surface blood vessels and capillaries, which will chill your core even faster.”
What to do instead: Save the celebratory drink for after you’re rescued.
There are many survival techniques and myths that would require years of learning and practice to master. But a good general rule is that real survival is boring, not flashy. In most situations, the best thing to do is stay calm, seek shelter, and try to signal for help.
Kids of all ages can be cruel, but middle schoolers have a particularly savage sense of humor. Unfortunately, teachers often end up on the receiving end of it.
Thankfully, teachers are quite resilient and have their own sense of humor.
Insults turned inspo
Take middle-school teacher Amy McKinzie, who decided to take some of the ahem, questionable things her students have said to her and make faux inspirational posters out of them.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you humble,” quipped McKinzie in her Instagram caption. In the video, dreamy landscape photos serve as the backdrop for these gems:
“You look like you cry watching Hallmark movies.”
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“It gives me the ick when you tell us to read our books.”
“You’re older than my grandma.”
“Will there be any math problems on our English test?”
“Did you mean to wear your hair like that?”
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Ouch!
The format alone is comedy gold. Pairing brutally honest middle-school commentary with soft-focus sunsets and mountain vistas feels almost poetic. If you’ve ever spent time around 12- and 13-year-olds, you know that their observations come out fast, unfiltered, and usually with impeccable timing (not to mention zero mercy). Sometimes they mean it as a joke, but often they truly do not realize how devastating the comment might sound. Either way, the result is often unintentionally hilarious.
And sure enough, tons of viewers could instantly clock the insults as distinctly middle-school shade-throwing:
“Lol… my daughter is that age & i can totally hear her saying some of these to me! 😮😂”
“You teach middle school don’t you? Those kids are vicious hahaha.”
It prompted many other teachers to share their favorite jokes hurled at them by their students:
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“My favorite- were you alive during the attack at Pearl Harbor? I’m in my 30s.”
“My favorite is, ‘frankly, don’t you think you’re a little old to be dating?’😮”
“Brings back great memories teaching high school English. ‘It’s time to touch up your roots.’”
“I wore a really cute blue and white horizontal shirt or so I thought .. the girls said ‘why do you have your pajamas on.’”
“I had a student tell me ‘You look nice today. You just need to get that hair under control.’ Yeah, still trying to figure it (my hair) out. 🤷♀️”
“After showing a photo of a telegraph: ‘Is this what you used?’”
“‘Why do you look so tired today?’ on a day I didn’t wear makeup or mascara.”
“What was it like watching black and white tv?”
This proves once again that teachers are made of stronger stuff.
Teachers, of course, develop a thick skin pretty quickly. When you spend your days with students who are still figuring out how the world works and where the line between observation and roast actually lies, you learn to laugh. And sometimes, the best way to survive the burn is to frame it—literally—and turn it into content. Because let’s face it, the burns are just gonna keep comin’.
As one of the first iconic villains to hit the big screen, the Wicked Witch of the West lives in our collective memory. Those who’ve seen the original 1939 film The Wizard of Oz can hear the witch’s high-pitched cackle. We can recite her menacing line: “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little dog, too!”
Margaret Hamilton played the role in the film when she was 35 years old. Even though she was only on screen for 12 minutes, her performance was unforgettable. While speaking to a live audience in her later years (exact time and place unknown), Hamilton shared the story of how she was cast, showcasing her delightful personality in the process.
Hamilton said she had done about six pictures for MGM before the opportunity to appear in The Wizard of Oz came along. Then she shared the details of that conversation with the audience:
“One day, my agent called and said, ‘Maggie, they’re really kind of interested in you for a part in The Wizard of Oz.’ And I said, ‘Oh gosh. Think of that,’ I said, ‘I loved that story from the time I was four years old. What is it?’ And he said, ‘Well, the Witch.’ And I said, ‘The Witch?!’ Then he said the final thing, he said, ‘Yes, what else?’”
The audience burst out laughing.
“I thought, ‘Well, that’s kind of an exciting part.’ But jeez, I had my, you know, my eyes on something else. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I didn’t think about the Witch. However, I ought to because I’d had that nose quite a long while.”
The audience busted up again.
Margaret Hamilton wore a prosthetic nose tip and a prosthetic chin in the film. Photo credit: Public domain
The fact that she totally owned her prominent nose, a signature feature few in Hollywood would embrace today, is so refreshing. It’s especially notable considering the Wicked Witch was originally conceived as a bit more glamorous and beautiful in the film. Producer Mervyn LeRoy said he didn’t want the character to be hideous, as he didn’t want to “scare children away from the theatre.”
Hamilton is by no means hideous. But when LeRoy changed his mind about the character’s look, she fit it perfectly. When she tested for the role, she wore “the oldest, crummiest-looking clothes I could find, some dirty things that sort of hung on me like a Mother Hubbard, and then a little shawl.”
“There was no witch’s hat,” she said, “and I really looked more like an old hag. And I cackled and screamed and said a few lines from the script.”
The Wicked Witch of the West was born.
Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) didn’t just play a villain, she created the template. Every witch after her is either copying or reacting to what she did first. An entire archetype born from one performance. pic.twitter.com/nYXj6sbFeqhttps://t.co/NLAjPZ6vUw
And scare children she did. People in the comments shared how terrified they were of her when they were kids:
“This woman scared the absolute s__t out of me when I was a child.”
“Gave me nightmares. Her and those flying monkeys. Yow!”
“Her witch scared the hell out of me as a child, and even as a man I still found her frightening.”
“That scene in the tornado where she turns from Almira Gulch on the bicycle, into the witch on the broomstick was absolutely terrifying when I was 6 years old.”
“She made the witch utterly terrifying! Job well done no doubt.”
“She scared me so much as a little kid. I was amazed to discover later that she had been, of all things, a *kindergarten teacher*!”
That’s right, this terrifying witch was a kindergarten teacher when she wasn’t acting.
She frightened audiences for generations. In fact, Hamilton’s appearance as the Wicked Witch on Sesame Street in 1976 was prohibited from airing after parents complained that their children were frightened. (Though Hamilton’s appearance wasn’t nearly as scary as her character in the film, the Sesame Street audience was very young.)
However, she also appeared on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as herself. Talking to Fred Rogers, she explained how she viewed the character of the Wicked Witch of the West:
“Sometimes the children feel she’s a very mean witch, and she does seem that way. But I always think two things about her: She does enjoy everything she does, whether it’s good or bad, she does enjoy it. She also is what we sometimes refer to as ‘frustrated.’ She’s very unhappy because she never gets what she wants, Mr. Rogers. Most of us get something we want along the line, but as far as we know that witch has never got what she wanted…”
She also dressed up as the Witch, but without the green makeup, showing kids that it was really just a nice lady in a costume all along.
Despite the fear she evoked with her most famous role, people loved Hamilton’s real-life character. Patty Duke, who worked with her on The Patty Duke Show in the 1960s, called Hamilton “the gentlest soul you could ever meet” in her memoir.
Folks in the comments on her casting story shared the same sentiment:
“A friend of mine had the opportunity to meet and have lunch with Mrs. Hamilton in Manhattan in the mid – 70’s after she had retired. He told me she was one most humble, kind, and sweetest lady you could ever meet….and insisted on picking up the check for their meal.”
“My mother met her in the late 60’s. She said she was nicest, sweetest person she had ever met.”
“She was my mother’s kindergarten teacher.”
Margaret Hamilton in 1929 (left) and in 1973 (right). Photo credit: Public domain
“I met Margaret Hamilton while I was working at a drug store in Beverly Hills as a teenager in the early 1970s. The other young staff and I crouched down and marched around her chanting the Wicked Witch theme from the movie. Ms. Hamilton laughed and was so kind to us.”
“She’s so naturally charismatic. Not even acting, just being herself and telling a story and I was captivated. No wonder her performance was so mesmerizing. She’s just an awesome lady.”
“I remember her when I was a child and not just from the film. She was on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood as herself to show everyone she was a nice person and that the witch was just a character she played. She seemed like such a kind person.”
Hamilton died in 1985 at age 82. She is remembered today both for the characters she portrayed on screen and for the character she exemplified in real life.
