Vaccines, M&Ms, And 18 More Controversies From The Last Decade That Were Totally Unnecessary
Sometimes, it seems like people will get upset about anything — even when there's really nothing to get upset about at all.
U/HappyGilOHMYGOD recently asked the people of Reddit, "What is the dumbest controversy of the last 10 years?" Remembering some of these made me groan real hard, and you might feel the same:
1."Flat Earth crap. I thought people were just arguing for it for the memes 'til I met an actual Flat Earther."
—u/Morbidhanson
2."Changing the shoes of an animated M&M. Who cares what it's wearing? It's an advertisement for candy. The people who got bent out of shape about it are weird."
—u/Fawqueue
3."The Sandy Hook massacre being staged. That one was just cruel."
4."The QAnon one (yes, there are many to choose from) where JFK Jr. was really alive (or was coming back from the dead?) to somehow crown Trump president. I'm pretty sure QAnon was at least in part just some really epic trolling."
—u/revtim
5."Jade Helm — the idea that Barack Obama was going to invade, conquer, and occupy Texas like it was France and turn it into part of his own personal empire, and do it with just 1,200 troops."
—u/USSMarauder
6."I'm pretty sure Obama's tan suit was in the last 10 years."
—u/sonicsean899
7."Vaccines. It used to be normal to lose at least some of your kids to childhood illnesses, and vaccines changed all that. It's one of the best things science has ever done for humanity. Now, we have people that won't get shots for themselves or their kids, and measles outbreaks are getting more common."
—u/Fun_In_Space
8."Literally every book I read about that has been banned is one I was required to read in school in the '90s."
9."Culture war politics."
10."The fact no one can make up their mind about eggs. One year, it’s the egg white that’s bad. Another year, it’s the yolk that’s bad, but the egg white is good. Then, the next year, it’s now everything about the egg is bad, so cook it a specific way to make it healthier. I just want everyone to make up their minds and let me eat my eggs in peace!"
11."That masks don't work. Why on earth have doctors and nurses been wearing them all this time for operations and on wards where patients have communicable diseases? Yes, they're not 100% effective, but it helps to significantly reduce the number of particulates reaching you if both parties are masked. I get that masks were potentially at risk of being panic-bought in the same way as toilet paper and hand sanitizer was at the beginning of the pandemic. I still maintain that one of the biggest mistakes was to say that masks weren't needed by the general public right at the start. This may have been partially done to ensure healthcare workers had a chance at maintaining mask stocks. The problem is that this likely planted the idea in some heads — giving 'evidence' to the conspiracy theories when there was time for the science to be done on COVID transmission, and the advice changed correspondingly."
12."'Storm Area 51, they can't stop all of us.' I think the dumbest part was when people actually showed up."
13."Y'all remember 'Gamergate'?"
14."Pronouns. Call people whatever the fuck they want to be called!"
15."The Sony hack. A red skeleton showed up on computer screens across the United States operations of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Hackers calling themselves 'Guardians of Peace' had infiltrated the company's networks and claimed to have stolen 100 terabytes of data."
—u/lostbulldogs
16."The Dylan Mulvaney/Bud Light controversy. They didn't use her in a campaign. They didn't make a billboard of her. They didn't put her face on a can of beer...except that one can they sent her to celebrate herself. And half of America lost their fucking minds. They can call democrats sheep all they want; they went all in on an outrage campaign over a personal can of beer that had fuck-all to do with them. But sure, we're the sheep."
—u/Wise_Ad_4816
17."Honestly, the Will Smith slap fiasco. I still don’t understand why everyone was so twisted up over that."
18."Brexit. People were told it was a stupid fucking idea way before the vote. People were fooled by a big red bus telling them the NHS would get loads of money. The message on the bus was quickly debunked as an obvious lie before the vote, but people chose to believe the lie anyway. We left the European Union, and GDP dropped about 4-5%. We've seen absolutely nothing for it, except some really shitty trade deals which have been better for the other party involved."
—u/al0ttttt
19."The red Starbucks coffee cup outrage is on the top 10 for me."
—u/jimvv36
20."People who do mental gymnastics trying to pretend January 6th was nothing."
—u/Mondak
Agree? Disagree? Have your own additions? See you in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
