+
Family

Why everyone hates Nickelback, plus 5 ways to be genuine.

It's science, people. They can't help it!

Some things might always be terrible for most of us.

Like cockroaches.

Cockroaches can already fly. Dancing skills aren't allowed.


Or being within five miles of the DMV.

Even animals hate the DMV. GIF from "Zootopia."

Or getting a root canal, which would make anyone's skin crawl.

Even this GIF is giving me internal pain.

And traffic jams? Yeah, not into those.

Traffic is terrible everywhere. Literally everywhere.

Also, a little band named Nickelback.

Nickelback, pretending to not know that everyone hates them. Image by Bas Czerwinski/AFP/Getty Images.

Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that these incredible lyrics...

"Your mom don't know that you were missing / She'd be pissed if she could see the parts of you that I've been kissing"

...aren’t society's favorite?

Yeah. Those lyrics are kind of terrible.

But, in defense of Nickelback (kind of), it’s not totally their fault that a lot of people hate them.

In fact, there’s actually a scientific reason behind the hate.

From 2000 to 2014, University of Eastern Finland student Salli Anttonen peeled through layers of research, trying to discover just why those frosted hair tips and horrific guitar riffs weren't doing it for us.

No, just no. Photo by Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images.

What she found was pretty darn interesting.

Through her study, titled "Hypocritical bulls--t performed through gritted teeth: Authenticity discourses in Nickelback’s album reviews in Finnish media," Anttonen concluded that music critics and everyday listeners didn’t like Nickelback for a very specific reason.

Mostly, people hate Nickelback because they don't think the band seems "genuine enough."

"Nickelback is too much of everything to be enough of something," Anttonen wrote in her study, according to the BBC.

"They follow genre expectations too well, which is seen as empty imitation, but also not well enough, which is read as commercial tactics and as a lack of a stable and sincere identity."

“Look at this photograph / Every time I do it makes me laugh / How did our eyes get so red? / And what the hell is on Joey's head?”

She's got a point.

How genuine a person (or beloved Canadian band) seems can totally affect how likable they are.

In fact, Nickelback faces the same scrutiny that many of our public figures do.

Seriously, you guys aren't even trying. Photo by Getty Images.

During the 2008 and 2012 elections, transparency was one of the key areas that voters were looking at when choosing a candidate.

One of the biggest factors in Barack Obama's double victories was that many audiences were taken with his ability to relate to all kinds of people in a genuine way.

Being genuine is also something that candidates from both sides of the aisle have struggled with during this election.

So just what does it look like to be genuine (or ... not like Nickelback)?

According to science, genuine people say and do these five things:

1. Genuine people say what's on their minds.

According to Psychology Today, genuine humans take their time understanding their own opinions on life and they also have no issue sharing those opinions with others.

But here's the key: Genuine people don't expect or feel the need to convince others they're right. They share their opinions with others without railroading them into agreeing.

This is actually a GIF to make aviators come back in style. GIF from "Couch Commander" on YouTube.

2. You can spot a genuine person from a mile away.

As we've learned from Nickelback's struggles, we can usually recognize genuine people almost immediately.

How do we figure it out? According to psychologist Erin Heerey's study on being genuine, there are external signals. In fact, not all smiles are created equal: Some are clearly genuine, and others are just polite.

Don't be like this guy at brunch. GIF from "Saturday Night Live."

3. Genuine people create their own paths.

Genuine people are also able to take life realizations and turn them into goals, according to Psychology Today. By using their passions and having a sense of purpose, they're able to forge their own paths to get their goals, even with unknown outcomes.

Find your own path, lovely people! GIF from "The Hobbit."

4. Failure doesn't threaten the genuine.

Genuine people also view failure as a part of the journey, and thus they aren't afraid of it.

Instead of treating failure as the end-all, they see it as a source of learning, making the "safer" routes a bit less appealing. Instead of looking for exterior approval, they often find strength within, making them more likely to get up and try again.

If something like this hasn't happened to you yet, you haven't lived.

5. Genuine people admit their faults.

Is it too late now to say sorry? Not according to Justin Bieber, The Decemberists ... or multiple psychology studies. In fact, being able to admit and accept your faults, mistakes, and shortcomings makes you a more genuine person.

But genuine people also appear to have stable self-esteem, so they're better able to tolerate the curve balls of life, such as criticisms and failures.


All apologies should come with backup dancers. GIF from "Sorry" by Justin Bieber.

If you want to absolutely not be like Nickelback in real life, these tips are important.

And rest assured: Your hatred of Nickelback isn't just you, either...

Even these glasses don't make them cooler.

... it's actually science.

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
@Steve_Perrault/Twitter

Some moments never get old.

On November 19, 1999, a man named John Carpenter made game show history and quite possibly gave us all the greatest game show moment of all time.

Carpenter was a contestant on the very first season of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” shot in America. Hosted by the late Regis Philbin, the quiz show featured three "lifeline" options to help them with difficult questions, the most popular being able to “Phone-a-Friend.”

Carpenter had impressively not used a single lifeline for any of his questions. That is, until question 15. The million-dollar question, to be exact.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less