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Heroes

The Most Hilarious Sex Education Video Narrated By A Dwarf From The Hobbit I Have Ever Seen

Whether you know Richard Armitage best as Thorin Oakenshield from "The Hobbit," or as Sir Guy of Gisbourne from BBC's short-lived "Robin Hood" series, it's pretty safe to say that this incredibly amusing and informative documentary about a world of people-sized sperm would not be the same without his rich narration. This is so much better than anything your teacher ever showed you in health class.

Here are some moments you don't want to miss:


  • At 0:58, meet the sperm. They make weird noises and run up a mountain. This is totally normal sperm behavior.
  • At 2:07 meet Glenn. He has a "miracle of engineering tucked away in his pants." This is totally normal human biology.
  • At 3:00 sperm is very particular. But it's fun to watch in a petri dish. This is totally normal scientific behavior.
  • At 4:00 experts answer the question, "In our people-sized sperm world, what would a testicle be like?"
  • At 7:20 did you know some sperm like to knit in their down time? Get it together, Glenn!
  • At 8:40 this is for you, history buffs: sperm entering a vagina is like the sexual equivalent of D-Day.
  • At 9:39 Glenn heroically brushes his teeth. This is weirdly normal human behavior given the intensity of that D-Day metaphor.
  • At 10:56 there is a "wet and wild high-speed ticket to oblivion."
  • At 11:30 ejaculation is pleasurable for the man, but what do sperm experience? Warning: one of the sperm in this segment looks bizarrely like Harry Potter. Another warning: there is Enya music.
  • At 13:00 this scientist reveals some of his more, er, personal specimens? This is totally normal scientific behavior.
  • At 13:36 you won't believe what old-timey scientists thought about sperm. They used to call sperm "animicules" which I think is just adorable.
  • At 15:35 DON'T EJACULATE TOO MUCH.
  • At 16:10 Glenn's sperm quest begins. This is totally normal quest-like behavior.
  • At 17:15 everything is epic. THIS is the "Lord of the Rings" of sex-ed videos.
  • At 20:30 the cervix looks pretty ominous. Then it sends down metaphorical mucus ladders. This is totally normal cervix behavior.
  • At 26:20 you learn that the better the sex, the better the chance of conception?
  • At 28:10 you might want to look away for this very visual bit about female pig orgasms.
  • At 30:38 a healthy egg from a fertile donor costs about $30,000. Remind me again why I went to college?
  • At 32:15 strippers helped evolutionary psychologists understand ovulation and attractiveness to males or something. This is mostly typical pretend social science that concludes with the result that women are more attractive to men because of ovulation and control men's reactions to them because of a connection between big boobs and smaller waists? Picture me sighing exasperatedly.
  • At 35:45 watch out, sperm, IT'S A TRAP! (admiralakbar.gif)
  • At 40:44 get to sperm heaven.
  • At 44:20 find out what sperm smells like. Science!
  • At 46:12 the sperm strip down to their underwear.
  • At 50:46 the sperm blows its head up to win the race. This is totally normal sperm behavior.
  • And finally, at 52:30, let's have a moment of silence for all the dead sperm that didn't make it.
Family

'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either.

"I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."



@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

via Canva

A dad having a heart-t-heart with his sister-in-law.

Every new parent is bombarded with advice from friends, family and experts on handling everything from feeding to sleeping to screen time. But, in the end, their decisions will often hinge on whether the advice works for their children.

No matter how great the advice or how long people have followed it, every child from the dawn of time is different.

A 30-year-old stay-at-home dad has been taking a lot of heat from his 39-year-old sister-in-law because he’s the primary caregiver and doesn’t feed his kids three meals a day. Instead, he prefers to let his 4-year-old and 18-month-old children graze on snacks every three hours or so.

The sister-in-law said she was “stunned” that he is the primary caregiver because she has a more “traditional” view of marriage. The sister-in-law’s constant judgment of his marriage and how he feeds his kids have become a huge burden, so he shared the story on the Reddit AITA subforum looking for advice.


The dad starts the post by saying that the sister-in-law believes the mom is more important in the home than the dad should be the provider. “So I always felt like she was more critical of me as a parent. Maybe not in clear ways before now, but her attitude made me feel like she was watching closely to see if I was good enough,” he wrote.

reddit, dads, parentingA stay-at-home dad.via Canva

“The way my wife and I feed our kids is different to how my SIL and my brother feed their kids,” the dad continued. “SIL believes in 3 meals a day no matter what the age and nothing more or less. She believes that is the way it has been done for centuries and it works. My wife and I approach it differently.”

The sister-in-law blames the family’s feeding routine on the fact that he’s a stay-at-home father doing the primary caregiving. She says he needs to change his child’s habits because they will cause problems in preschool and kindergarten.

The dad contacted his brother to get the sister-in-law to stop commenting, but nothing changed. The situation came to a head when the family was grocery shopping together.

“She brought it up out of nowhere because she saw the bag I keep the lunch boxes in. She didn’t even see them eat anything but needed to say something,” the dad wrote. “She told me I should practice better eating habits and I told her she should practice keeping her opinions to herself because she doesn’t get a say in how my kids eat and she doesn’t get to open her big mouth about it every time she sees me now. She stormed off outraged and there have been multiple texts from her and my brother since. He’s mostly just telling me what she’s saying but she is big mad.”

So, the dad asked the forum whether he was in the wrong for telling off his sister-in-law.

reddit, dads, parentingA toddler having a snack. via Canva

The responses were overwhelmingly supportive of his actions. One commenter said he should have responded by giving his sister-in-law a taste of her medicine. “Now, if you really want to go there just tell her if she’s so into traditional norms, then perhaps she shouldn’t, as a woman speak to you that way since you are a man and would like to be shown respect as one, and in fact you are disappointed she is choosing to belittle you since it’s not her place,” SingYouLikeASong suggested.

“It just seems to me that SIL feels personally attacked by a man filling familial responsibilities traditionally done by women and from the looks of it, doing a good job of it, too. It's her problem, and she's trying to make it yours by nitpicking at your every action,” Kittenscute added.

“You need to do what works for you and she’s overstepping. You never asked her opinion and she should not have given it,” Nemesis0408 wrote.

Should young children graze or eat only at meal times?

The commenters overwhelmingly agreed that the sister-in-law acted inappropriately and deserved to be told off. However, was she right about how the kids should be fed? According to Natalia, a registered dietitian and child nutritionist, yes.

Natalia says that regular meal times are critical and that children should only snack at scheduled times. “Research shows that the timing of meals and snacks is as important as what we feed our kids,” Natalia writes at Feeding Bytes. “Structure in mealtimes is a foundation of balanced eating habits. But, as many parents will agree, the structure also happens to be the hardest thing to establish.”

Ultimately, the dad was right to tell his sister to stay out of his business, but she did have a point regarding how he fed his kids. This situation would have been a lot better for everyone involved if she had approached her brother-in-law in a kind and loving way instead of as a critic.

Science

Florida meteorologist applauded for getting emotional in live coverage of Hurricane Milton

People are finding John Morales' genuine empathy refreshing, and very much needed.

Photo credit: NASA (public domain), NBC 6 South Florida/YouTube

“I apologize — this is just horrific,” said John Morales during live coverage of Hurricane Milton.

Venerated meteorologist John Morales couldn’t help but get choked up during his report on the potentially devastating impact of Hurricane Milton closing in on Florida—a mere two weeks after being pummeled by Hurricane Helene.

“It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane,” Morales began, the weather forecast map almost completely in red.

Tears welled up in his eyes as Morales tried to notify viewers that “it has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours.”

To most of us, those wouldn’t mean anything. But the anguish in Morales’s voice says it all.


Trying to gain composure, Morales quickly said, “I apologize — this is just horrific,” and continued with his broadcast offscreen, showing just the water map. His voice was still noticeably shaken.

We live in a 24-hour new cycle, which has made us aware of so many global catastrophes and also desensitized to them. But when moments like this happen, when even our ever-stoic messengers are so moved that it also touches us on an emotional level, we are reminded that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

That's probably why so many people commented to commend Morales for showing a bit of humanity—which they found particularly refreshing for a news anchor.

"Please don't apologize. Showing some empathy shows you care and aren't fear mongering. <3 We appreciate it."

"No apology is ever needed for being human and showing what we see so little of these days: genuine empathy. Thank you, sir."

"Your kindness and humanity are not a weakness, but the strength that we all need right now. Thank you."

"No apologies needed sir...for someone to show real emotions for other people...is real concern, real caring."

"He showed a vanishingly rare moment of authenticity and actual empathy, in an incredibly cynical and ugly world - a beautiful thing to see in this scary time. As someone whose family lives in the area that is about to be pummeled by this storm, I am very grateful to him for his decency and humanity in the face of this possible horror that my family are facing. He deserves SO much credit for this beautiful display of transparency and empathy - though he obviously didn't do it for the credit but rather, out of empathy."

"I debated whether to share this. I did apologize on the air," Morales would later post on X.

He also urged folks to read his coverage of the relationships between climate change and extreme weather on The Bulletin, calling these recent hurricanes are “harbingers of the future.”

Global warming has changed me. Frankly, YOU should be shaken too," he wrote.

If a professional of 35 years is saying this…yikes.

Science

24-year-old garbage collector asks if he should be 'embarrassed' by his job

The responses show how much our attitudes are changing about blue collar work.

Unsplash

For better or worse, many of us derive a good amount of our self-worth from our jobs.

After all, depressingly, we spend most of our waking lives working! It makes sense that we'd want to find some meaning in it.

Just ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and you'll hear about prestigious or heroic professions like doctor, firefighter, actor, or, just maybe, famous TikToker.

But how about garbage collector?

Probably not one of the top choices.

A 24-year-old garbage man recently took to Reddit with a conundrum: He likes the work and the pay, but he can't help but feel embarrassed telling people what he does for a living.

black trash bin with green leaves Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

"I’m a 24yr old guy ... I’ve been a garbage man for the past 2 years and I feel a sense of embarrassment doing it," OP wrote.

"It’s a solid job, great benefits and I currently make $24 an hour. I could see myself doing this job for a long time. However whenever someone asks me what I do for work I feel embarrassed. Should I feel this way?"

There's definitely a stigma around a lot of blue collar work, especially "dirty" work like, well, anything to do with sanitation.

The comments were overwhelmingly positive, but not all in the way you might expect.

The extremely clear sentiment at the very top of the thread was this:

Garbage collectors are essential works, and OP should be extremely proud of both his employment and of his service to his community.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of having an honest job," said u/nottoomanysalad

"Garbage men are far more valuable than most jobs out there and I'll die on this hill. If I were running a country the people I'd hire immediately after a proper cabinet were sanitation workers," wrote u/Reddit-Lurker-

"Dude, I work for a health insurance company that makes it's profit by denying people life saving care. I'm ashamed of my job. You have nothing to be embarrassed about, you do honest work that benefits your community. I would love to tell people I worked in sanitation," said u/beefymennonite.

A few commenters playfully teased the original poster, too:

"not sure why you'd be embarrassed about being an Excess Material Logistics Manager," wrote u/Correct-Sometimes

a garbage man standing next to a pile of trash Photo by Nathan Cima on Unsplash

Others brought up a really good point: If any job could be future proof, garbage collector might be the one.

"The good thing is your job won't be off shored. The over 60,000 people in tech who got laid off in tech this year wish their former jobs could not be off shored," wrote u/DougWong1980.

TechCrunch has the number of tech layoffs in 2024 at more like 130,000 — yikes.

Engineers and programmers quickly chimed in to say that, yes, finding and holding a "cool" job in tech is a nightmare these days.

Finding steady, stable, non-office work that you enjoy and that pays enough, even if it's "embarrassing"? That's the smart move these days.

Big-picture-wise, the tide is turning on so-called blue collar jobs. More and more young people are choosing trade schools or going right into the work force over spending six figures on a college education.

Being a plumber or electrician, for example, can be incredibly lucrative, and those trades won't be outsourced or given over to ChatGPT any time soon.

Working in sanitation isn't so different. It's stable, essential work — and it's harder to land a job there than you might think, especially in big cities where openings can get seriously competitive.

Indeed pegs the average garbage collector salary at about $52,000 per year.

That's not big money, but again, it's reliable, comes with government benefits, and won't have you answering emails at midnight on a Saturday.

Younger generations are looking for something different out of their careers. Hopefully one day soon we won't even have to ask whether being a garbage collector should be embarrassing — we'll all know that the answer is a resounding No.

Joy

'90s kid shares the 10 lies that everyone's parent told them

"Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

via 90sKid4lyfe/TikTok (used with permission)

90sKidforLife shares 10 lies everyone's parents told in the era.


Children believe everything their parents tell them. So when parents lie to prevent their kids to stop them from doing something dumb, the mistruth can take on a life of its own. The lie can get passed on from generation to generation until it becomes a zombie lie that has a life of its own.

Justin, known as 90sKid4Lyfe on TikTok and Instagram, put together a list of 10 lies that parents told their kids in the ‘90s, and the Gen X kids in the comments thought it was spot on.


“Why was I told EVERY ONE of these?” Brittany, the most popular commenter, wrote. “I heard all of these plus the classic ‘If you keep making that face, it will get stuck like that,’” Amanda added. After just four days of being posted, it has already been seen 250,000 times.

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

@90skid4lyfe

Parents were always lying #90s #90skids #parenting

Here are Justin’s 10 lies '90s parents told their kids:

1. "You can't drink coffee. It'll stunt your growth."

2. "If you pee in the pool, it's gonna turn blue."

3. "Chocolate milk comes from brown cows."

4. "If you eat those watermelon seeds, you'll grow a watermelon in your stomach."

5. "Don't swallow that gum. If you do, it'll take 7 years to come out."

6. "I told you we can't drive with the interior light on. ... It's illegal."

7. "Sitting that close to the TV is going to ruin your vision."

8. "If you keep cracking your knuckles, you're gonna get arthritis."

8. "You just ate, you gotta wait 30 minutes before you can swim."

10. "If you get a tattoo, you won't find a job."


This article originally appeared on 4.26.24