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Science

People are sharing what they believe happens after we die. The responses are enlightening.

Here are 16 of the best responses.

heaven, life after death, afterlife
via Pixabay

A man is walking into heaven (or is he?).

One of the funniest and most bizarre things about being a human being is that we really know very little about what’s going on. Sure, many religious people are confident they know why we exist, where we came from and what happens after we die, but there isn’t a whole lot of evidence to suggest they’re correct.

However, even though we are at the center of an incredible mystery, most people are happy to go about their days without worrying about the basic nature of our existence. This has always been very strange to me. Why isn’t the nature of existence the No. 1 question on everyone’s mind the moment they wake up?

There is one thing we do know for sure: that we are all going to die one day. Some people believe that once we flatline we may get invited to heaven where we get to spend all eternity playing the harp, reuniting with old friends and relatives, and enjoying a pain-free, joyous existence.

But as the TV show “The Good Place” suggests, living a perfect life, free of suffering or challenges, eventually becomes pretty forking boring and pointless.

Mark Twain said it best in “Letters from the Earth”:

His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists—utterly and entirely—of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting?

Many also believe that if there’s a heaven, there’s also hell where the folks who had a good time on Earth wind up. But wouldn’t that get boring, too? Just as one can get accustomed to living in constant beauty, one probably gets acclimated to the heat and suffering down below.

There are also some who believe in reincarnation, so every time we die we are born again as a different species. Cool if you’re a dolphin, bad news if you’re a dung beetle.

Then there are those who believe that nothing supernatural happens. Your consciousness shuts off and things are a lot like before you were born—absolute nothingness. That’s the least interesting option, but according to science, the most likely.

Reddit user throwawayacctlmaooo wanted to find out what posters on the forum thought about life after death, so they asked, “What do you legitimately believe happens after we die?” They received a ton of responses that were outside of the usual “go to heaven/go to hell” variety. What’s cool is that the posts show that a lot of people have widely divergent ideas about what happens after we die.

Here are some of the best responses to the biggest question in life.

1. You're a wave

"No idea, but there is this quote from the TV show 'The Good Place' that I really like and have found comfort in.

"'Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It's a wave.

"And then it crashes in the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know it's one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be.'" — AlexEventstar

2. Our energy moves on

"Our energy — just like that of every living thing before us — will go on and become new things. Soil. Plants. Lions. Toilet paper. Space ship wheel arches. Dragonfly toes. We're all just part of the same system. Neither manufactured nor destroyed. We're just transferring that bestowed upon us from all those before. Death is life." — four__beasts

3. You've been there before

"Just like before you were born. Not good, not bad, just non-existence." — SniffCheck

4. No need to fear

​"In the great words of Mark Twain: 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." — Eva__Unit__02

5. One more time

"When I think about it, I come to this very same conclusion. And that terrifies me. The only thing that is a little comforting for me is that, according to some research and according to some people who have experienced Near Death, just before full-on 'nothingness," you relive your life one last time, with an emphasis on the best moments in your life, all being overwhelmed with a feeling of love." — MrXANA91

6. Isn't this reincarnation?

"I think we just keep on hitting a randomize button and we manifest into something else, again and again endlessly." — FarOutSonOfLung

7. The great nothing

"In my opinion, nothing. Like being under anesthesia but never waking up and ceasing to exist." — throwayaacctlmaooo

8. Choose your own adventure

"I'd like to think we reset like a game and we could choose whether we get reborn or go to some sort of heaven or something." — No_But_Yes

9. We're energy

"I’d honestly like to believe that we all become energy. We move around the universe, maybe even become one with it until we are reincarnated again as something else on earth or a different planet." — cheese-emperor

10. Salamanders

"I think we are all reincarnated as salamanders." — Kyky716

11. New universe?

"I believe we go to another universe but that's just wishful thinking." — Zarek_Pumpkineater

12. Incomparable infinity

"I'm under the impression that death is a separate experience we can't comprehend. Like someone with vision will never truly know the concept of blindness or someone with hearing will never know the concept of deafness.

"You only experience it while you're doing it and I am currently experiencing being alive as a human. You don't know what it was like before you were born because you're obviously alive. Just like you don't know deafness because your ears work.
Beyond that, I believe the universe is in endless million-trillion year long cycles of growth and collapse and the fact that I exist at all means, throughout infinity, I am a guaranteed mathematic outcome and must repeat again." — bermudalily

13. Nothing

"Nothing. It's the only answer that makes sense. We ARE our thoughts. Our thoughts are in our brain. When we die, our brain shuts down. So our thoughts no longer exist. Anybody who believes in any form of an afterlife really needs to explain how we can have thoughts without our brain. And if they believe that's somehow magically possible, why do we have brains while still alive?" — joeri1505

14. You become fertilizer

"The same as when trees, plants, or other animals die, we decompose & feed the earth for something else to grow." — skev303

15. May the source be with you

"What I like to believe is that all life comes from a specific energy source and is returned there once we die. Sort of like a big pool of life, where all souls merge after death and cycle back into the world to be reborn. As for what we experience in that form I have no idea. But the entire world lives and functions on cycles, from the food chain to the weather cycle, eveywhere you look there is a cycle to maintain it. So it only makes sense life would work the same way." — doopster77

16. Star stuff

"Your surviving family gets all teary, then buries or burns your lifeless body. As the years pass, what atoms once made you, you, become all mixed up in other things, until much later on when the sun dies and engulfs the earth and all its atoms in a final dance of atomic death. Because we are all made of stars, and to them we will all return." — dbryar

This article originally appeared on 3.4.22

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Education

Why didn't people smile in old-timey photographs? A smile meant something different back then.

Our perceptions of smiling have changed dramatically since the 1800s.

via Public Domain

Photos from the 1800s were so serious.

If you've ever perused photographs from the 19th and early 20th century, you've likely noticed how serious everyone looked. If there's a hint of a smile at all, it's oh-so-slight, but more often than not, our ancestors looked like they were sitting for a sepia-toned mug shot or being held for ransom or something. Why didn't people smile in photographs? Was life just so hard back then that nobody smiled? Were dour, sour expressions just the norm?

Most often, people's serious faces in old photographs are blamed on the long exposure time of early cameras, and that's true. Taking a photo was not an instant event like it is now; people had to sit still for many minutes in the 1800s to have their photo taken.

Ever try holding a smile for only one full minute? It's surprisingly difficult and very quickly becomes unnatural. A smile is a quick reaction, not a constant state of expression. Even people we think of as "smiley" aren't toting around full-toothed smiles for minutes on end. When you had to be still for several minutes to get your photo taken, there was just no way you were going to hold a smile for that long.

But there are other reasons besides long exposure times that people didn't smile in early photographs.


mona lisa, leonardo da vinci, classic paintings, famous smiles, art"Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci, painted in 1503Public domain

The non-smiling precedent had already been set by centuries of painted portraits

The long exposure times for early photos may have contributed to serious facial expressions, but so did the painted portraits that came before them. Look at all of the portraits of famous people throughout history prior to cameras. Sitting to be painted took hours, so smiling was out of the question. Other than the smallest of lip curls like the Mona Lisa, people didn't smile for painted portraits, so why would people suddenly think it normal to flash their pearly whites (which were not at all pearly white back then) for a photographed one? It simply wasn't how it was done.

A smirk? Sometimes. A full-on smile? Practically never.

old photos, black and white photos, algerian immigrant, turban, Algerian immigrant to the United States. Photographed on Ellis Island by Augustus F. Sherman.via William Williams/Wikimedia Commons

Smiling usually indicated that you were a fool or a drunkard

Our perceptions of smiling have changed dramatically since the 1800s. In explaining why smiling was considered taboo in portraits and early photos, art historian Nicholas Jeeves wrote in Public Domain Review:

"Smiling also has a large number of discrete cultural and historical significances, few of them in line with our modern perceptions of it being a physical signal of warmth, enjoyment, or indeed of happiness. By the 17th century in Europe it was a well-established fact that the only people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment […] Showing the teeth was for the upper classes a more-or-less formal breach of etiquette."

drunks, classic painting, owls, malle babbe, paintings"Malle Babbe" by Frans Hals, sometime between 1640 and 1646Public domain


In other words, to the Western sensibility, smiling was seen as undignified. If a painter did put a smile on the subject of a portrait, it was a notable departure from the norm, a deliberate stylistic choice that conveyed something about the artist or the subject.

Even the artists who attempted it had less-than-ideal results. It turns out that smiling is such a lively, fleeting expression that the artistically static nature of painted portraits didn't lend itself well to showcasing it. Paintings that did have subjects smiling made them look weird or disturbing or drunk. Simply put, painting a genuine, natural smile didn't work well in portraits of old.

As a result, the perception that smiling was an indication of lewdness or impropriety stuck for quite a while, even after Kodak created snapshot cameras that didn't have the long exposure time problem. Even happy occasions had people nary a hint of joy in the photographs that documented them.

Another reason why people didn't smile in old photos is that dental hygiene wasn't the same as it is today, and people may have been self-conscious about their teeth. “People had lousy teeth, if they had teeth at all, which militated against opening your mouth in social settings,” Angus Trumble, the director of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia, and author of A Brief History of the Smile, said, according to Time.


wedding party photo, wedding, old weddings, black and white, serious photos, no smilesEven wedding party photos didn't appear to be joyful occasions.Wikimedia Commons


Then along came movies, which may have changed the whole picture

So how did we end up coming around to grinning ear to ear for photos? Interestingly enough, it may have been the advent of motion pictures that pushed us towards smiling being the norm.

Photos could have captured people's natural smiles earlier—we had the technology for taking instant photos—but culturally, smiling wasn't widely favored for photos until the 1920s. One theory about that timing is that the explosion of movies enabled us to see emotions of all kinds playing out on screen, documenting the fleeting expressions that portraits had failed to capture. Culturally, it became normalized to capture, display and see all kind of emotions on people's faces. As we got more used to that, photo portraits began portraying people in a range of expression rather than trying to create a neutral image of a person's face.

Changing our own perceptions of old photo portraits to view them as neutral rather than grumpy or serious can help us remember that people back then were not a bunch of sourpusses, but people who experienced as wide a range of emotion as we do, including joy and mirth. Unfortunately, we just rarely get to see them in that state before the 1920s.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Joy

Woman reveals her fiancé's 'horribly disgusting' pillow, and oh boy, brace yourself

"I was expecting bad, but that I fear, is far far far worse."

@rutttyy01/TikTok

Can't believe she tried to clean it.

Listen, if we're in a relationship, odds are we’ve encountered some of our partner’s weird quirks. Some of those might be cute and loveable, and others might fall into cringe territory.

For Abigheal McClary, there was no question as to which category her fiancé’s truly ghastly pillow, which appeared to have been around "since the dawn of time,” fell into.

"My fiancé has a pillow that is so horribly disgusting that I fear even being in the same bed as it. I fear laying beside it, because I think I could probably catch something from it,” McClary began in a TikTok video. One might assume she’s being a bit hyperbolic (there’s always that one thing of our significant others that gives us the irrational ick, right?) but once you see this horror show of a pillow, you’ll think McClary is being merciful.

Watch:

@rutttyy01 It’s bad #fyp #fypシ #foryoupage ♬ original sound - Abigheal💅🏻

Dear god, did you even know such a horrid shade of sickly brown existed?!!

"The pillow looks like it coughs constantly,” one person wrote.

Another added, “I’ve never seen a rotten pillow."

All jokes aside—and it probably goes without saying—that this is objectively unsanitary. According to WebMd, pillows should generally be washed once or twice a year, and replaced about every two years. Pillowcases, on the other hand, should be washed weekly, unless they aren’t used nightly, so sayeth Martha Stewart. Not that this heathen uses a pillowcase at all!

Having our faces exposed to unclean pillow night after night not only puts us right in the pathway of respiratory pathogens, but also plenty of acne-causing bacteria. Although, by the grace of god, McClary said in her video that "This man has no pimples on his face laying on this thing ...I have no clue how." Honestly, neither do we. He needs to be studied.

As one person joked, “he doesn’t get pimples because he’s created a micro bioverse that’s evolved so far into the future they must feed on his dead skin cells to continue their micro society…that’s the only explanation.”

Though McClary mentioned that her fiancé wouldn’t let her wash this unsightly pillow, nor put a pillowcase on it (he apparently likes it because “it’s cool on both sides”) she must have talked some sense into him because subsequent videos show her dunking the thing into a bath, using a concoction of bleach, Shout, baking powder, and some other cleaning agents.

@rutttyy01 Pillow update : the pillows journey #fyp #foryoupage #foryou #fypシ ♬ original sound - Abigheal💅🏻

Each time, the pillow acted as a giant, heavy teabag, staining the water a murky brown.

However, as fate would have it, McClary put the pillow in a dryer after its soaking, and when she opened the door, there were nothing but shreds.

Folks rightfully guessed that the bleach used in the bath deteriorated the fabric…but in truth, we all suspect the dryer just wanted to put the pillow out of its misery.

“The dryer knew what needed to be done,” one viewer quipped.

@rutttyy01 Pillow update : Tragic # What do yall want to see next? #fyp #foryoupage #foryou #fypシ ♬ original sound - Abigheal💅🏻

Hopefully, this acts as a highly entertaining little PSA to please, please, please keep your pillows clean. Otherwise, those who share a bed with you can’t be held responsible for their actions.

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Brit shares the one-word 'dead giveaway' that American actors can't do an English accent

“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American."

via Warner Bros Discovery

Peter Dinklage on "Game of Thrones"?

When it comes to actors doing accents across the pond, some Americans are known for their great British accents, such as Natalie Portman ("The Other Boleyn Girl"), Robert Downey, Jr. ("Sherlock Holmes"), and Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady"). Some have taken a lot of heat for their cartoonish or just plain weird-sounding British accents, Dick Van Dyke ("Mary Poppins"), Kevin Costner ("Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves") and Keanu Reeves ("Bram Stoker's Dracula").

Some actors, such as Tom Hardy (“The Drop”) and Hugh Laurie (“House”), have American accents so good that people have no idea they are British. Benedict Townsend, a London-based comedian and host of the “Scroll Deep” podcast, says there is one word that American actors playing characters with a British accent never get right. And no, it’s not the word “Schedule,” which British people pronounce the entire first 3 letters, and Americans boil down to 2. And it’s not “aluminum,” which British and American people seem to pronounce every stinking letter differently.


@benedicttown The one word American actors aways get wrong when doing an English accent
♬ original sound - Benedict Townsend

What word do American actors always get wrong when they do British accents?

“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American. One word that always trips them up. And once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it,” Townsend says. “You would see this lot in ‘Game of Thrones’ and the word that would always trip them up was ‘daughter.’”

Townsend adds that when British people say “daughter,” they pronounce it like the word “door” or “door-tah.” Meanwhile, Americans, even when they are putting on a British accent, say it like “dah-ter.”

“So top tip if you are an actor trying to do an English accent, daughter like a door. Like you're opening a door,” Townsend says.


What word do British actors always get wrong when doing American accents?

Some American commenters returned the favor by sharing the word that British actors never get right when using American accents: “Anything.”

"I can always tell a Brit playing an American by the word anything. An American would say en-ee-thing. Brits say it ena-thing,” Dreaming_of_Gaea wrote. "The dead giveaway for English people playing Americans: ‘Anything.’ Brits always say ‘EH-nuh-thin,’” marliemagill added. "I can always tell an actor is English playing an American when they say ‘anything.’ English people always say it like ‘enny-thin,’” mkmason wrote.


What is the cot-caught merger?

One commenter noted that the problem goes back to the cot-caught merger, when Americans in the western US and Canadians began to merge different sounds into one. People on the East Coast and in Britain pronounce them as different sounds.

“Depending on where you live, you might be thinking one of two things right now: Of course, ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound exactly the same! or "There’s no way that ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound the same!” Laura McGrath writes at DoYouReadMe. “As a result, although the different spellings remain, the vowel sounds in the words cot/caught, nod/gnawed, stock/stalk are identical for some English speakers and not for others.” For example, a person from New Jersey would pronounce cot and catch it as "caht" and "cawt," while someone from Los Angeles may pronounce them as "caht" and "caht."

To get a better idea of the big difference in how "caught" and "cot" are pronounced in the U.S., you can take a look at the educational video below, produced for a college course on linguistics.


- YouTubeyoutu.be

American actors owe Townsend a debt of gratitude for pointing out the one thing that even the best can’t seem to get right. For some actors, it could mean the difference between a great performance and one that has people scratching their heads. He should also give the commenters a tip of the cap for sharing the big word that British people have trouble with when doing an American accent. Now, if we could just get through to Ewan McGregor and tell him that even though he is fantastic in so many films, his American accent still needs a lot of work.

This article originally appeared last year.

actors
Joy

Dad remakes AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ using only a year's worth of his baby's recorded sounds

Prepare to be thunderstruck.

Photo credit: Canva

Ever seen a baby "sing" a rock song before they can talk?

Few things bring as much joy to a parent’s heart as the adorable sounds their babies make. But back in 2024, when a dad with a vision, a camera and a year's worth of footage uses those sounds to recreate one of the most iconic rock songs ever…let's just say joy alone doesn't quite cover it.

In one of the most epically adorable and adorably epic song renditions ever, dad and video editor Matt MacMillan spliced together tiny snippets of his baby's sounds to make AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." And it's one of those things you just have to see to believe.

Below, enjoy little Ryan singing a is jaw-droppingly awesome baby-fied version of"Thunderstruck." Nothing but awe and respect for a guy who takes a whole year to get just the right sounds at the right pitches and figures out to put them together to create this masterpiece:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Making a sneeze into a cymbal? Are you kidding me?

People have been understandably impressed, with the video getting over 6 million views.

"Ryan becomes the vocalist of AB/CD."

"I need a cover in 17 years whenever he is an adult singing over the instrumentals lol"

"'I recorded my son for a full year. I edited for the next 5'"

"The fact that he genuinely found clips that fit every note he need instead of just pitch shifting like most videos like this do really makes this stand out. Good job he’s adorable."

"This dude had a kid just so he could make this song. What a Legend."

"Other parents: 'I want my child to create masterpieces.' This guy: 'my child IS the masterpiece.'"

"I'm a residential plumber and I've had an absolutely horrible day on a work shift that's lasted 13 hours and even after crawling through human poop all day this made me smile laugh and giggle like a small baby."

Believe it or not, it's not autotuned or pitch-shifted. Those notes are all baby.

The real question is: How did he do it? This isn't just some autotune trick. MacMillan really did it all manually, going through each video clip of Baby Ryan, organizing them by pitch and figuring out what notes they were.

Perhaps most impressively, he didn't even know the notes of "Thunderstruck" to begin with and doesn't really read music. He had to pluck the song out on the piano and then match those notes with his baby's sounds.

As he wrote, "It took forever." But he shared an inside look at how he did it here:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Seriously, doesn't seeing how he did it make it even more impressive? Pure human creativity and perseverance on display. What a delightful gift Ryan will have for the rest of his life. Much better than a standard baby book.

Baby Ryan's "Thunderstruck" was not MacMillan's first foray into baby covers, either. He previously created a rendition of "Carol of the Bells" using Baby Ella's sounds, and it is just as impressive (and adorable) as Baby Ryan's. Here's one to add to your holiday playlist:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Here's to the humans who wow us with their ambitious, innovative projects that exist purely to bring a smile to people's faces.

You can follow Matt MacMillan on YouTube.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Joy

Mom breaks down in tears after another parent called her about her daughter's lunch

Small gestures can mean so much.

Photo by Katerina Holmes|Canva

Mom in tears after another parent calls about daughter's lunch

People say having children is like having your heart walk around outside of your body. You send them off to school, practices, or playdates and hope that the world treats them kindly because when they hurt, you hurt. Inevitably, there will be times when your child's feelings are hurt, so you do your best to prepare for that day.

But what prepares you for when the child you love so much winds up accidentally healing your inner child. A mom on TikTok, who goes by Soogia posted a video explaining a phone call she received from a parent in her daughter's classroom. The mom called to inform Soogia that their kids had been sharing lunch with each other.

Soogia wasn't prepared for what came next. The classmate's mother informed her that her son loves the food Soogia's daughter brings to school and wanted to learn how to cook it, too. "I was like, 'thank you for my food'? Like, what is she talking about? Did she find my TikTok? 'F**k, I"m mortified.' But that wasn't the case," Soogia recalled, hardly being able to get the story out through her tears.

That may seem like a small thing to some, but the small gesture healed a little bit of Soogia's inner child. Growing up as a Korean kid in California, Soogia's experience was a bit different than what her children are now experiencing.

kids lunch, school lunch, children sharing lunch, lunch table, apples, carrotsChildren eating lunch together.Photo via Canva/Photos

"I guess I just never thought that my kids would be the generation of kids that could go to school and not only just proudly eat, but share their food with other kids that were just so open and accepting to it," Soogia says through tears. "Knowing that they don't sit there eating their food, feeling ashamed and wishing that their fried rice was a bagel instead, or something like that. And I know, it sounds so small and it sounds so stupid, but knowing their experience at school is so different from mine in such a positive way is just so hopeful."



At the end of the video, she vowed to send extra food in her daughter's lunch every day so she could share her culture with the other kids.


@soogia1

These kids, man. They’re really something else. #culturalappreciation #breakingbread #sharing #

Soogia's tearful video pulled on the heartstrings of her viewers who shared their thoughts in the comments.

"Soogia! It will never be small. Your culture is beautiful & the littles are seeing that every day. You've even taught me so much. I'm grateful for you," one person says.

"Beautiful! I can see your inner child healing in so many ways," another writes.

"Welp. Now I'm sobbing at the airport. This is beautiful," someone reveals.

"These Gen Alpha babies really are a different, kinder generation. I love them so much," one commenter gushes.

Ultimately, the story is a wonderful reminder that everyone has a backstory and that a simple gesture like appreciating someone's culture or history can mean far more to them than you'll ever know.

This article originally appeared last year.

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