Category:
Violence
Violence
Care Bear Abuse
Feb 1987: Wanting to do something special for her son, Jeania Denny wore a Care Bear costume to his school on Valentine's Day. However, she soon found herself being violently attacked by a crowd of sixth-graders. Said Denny, "I kept yelling at them to stop, that they were hurting me, but the more I yelled the more they attacked."I've heard reports of children (and adults) at Disney theme parks hitting the costumed characters, which seems similar to what happened to Jeania Denny. In the minds of the children, the costume must dehumanize the wearer, which then makes it seem okay to hit them.
Tampa Bay Times - Feb 17, 1987
I'm guessing this was the type of costume that Denny was wearing:
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 30, 2022 -
Comments (6)
Category: Violence, Psychology, 1980s
“Funeral Parade of Roses” by Matsumoto Toshio
Trying to explain the pleasures of such a scrambled impressionistic piece as Funeral Parade of Roses in plot terms is a pretty fruitless exercise, although the disjointed narrative does reach fever pitch in the latter moments, with developments inspired by the ancient legend of Oedipus Rex. The story really remains only a ruse for a work that is best seen as a fascinating reflection of a long-vanished place and time, caught in a cross-current of international pop-cultural styles and influences and not dissimilar to what was going on in similar circles in other far-flung parts of the world.
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 01, 2021 -
Comments (0)
Category: Movies, Sexuality, Violence, Avant Garde, 1960s, Asia
Church challenge
1941: Patrick Gunn, 46, left a note in the church collection plate challenging the priest, Monsignor Edmund J. Reilly, to a fight in the street.I found a photo of the Monsignor. He doesn't look like the fighting type.
Wilmington News Journal - Mar 24, 1941
Monsignor Edmund J. Reilly
source: FindAGrave.com
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 28, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Religion, Violence, 1940s
I Was a Teen-Age Caveman
Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 26, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Antisocial Activities, Music, Violence, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, 1950s
Explosion, Assault, Ostriches
Somehow I missed this video from 2012. Theorized at the time to be a viral marketing ploy. But I can't find any evidence it was ever resolved. Can WU-vies pin down a definitive answer?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 10, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Animals, Violence, Advertising
Woodpecker eats brains
Nature is brutal. And apparently, woodpeckers are particularly so.Smithsonian.com offers some background info:
In 2015, Harold Greeney trained his camera on a mourning dove nest stitched into the crook of a cactus. As an ornithologist, Greeney studies the love lives of birds—cooperative breeding in nightingale-thrushes, parenting strategies of spotted barbtails, breeding biology in speckled hummingbirds, you name it. His goal today was to capture the breeding habits of doves in an urban setting. Instead, he captured perhaps the most horrifying bird-on-bird behavior the world has ever seen...
Greeney has a possible explanation as to what’s happening—but it probably won't make you feel any better. When Gila woodpeckers get thirsty, he speculates, they crack open a couple of nestling heads like you or I might open a six-pack.
Greeney has a possible explanation as to what’s happening—but it probably won't make you feel any better. When Gila woodpeckers get thirsty, he speculates, they crack open a couple of nestling heads like you or I might open a six-pack.
Warning: the video is not for the squeamish!
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 20, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Nature, Violence
Beat your wife tonight… at bowling
I think it was 1973 when a Detroit bowling alley first got the idea to use the tagline "Beat your wife tonight" in an ad. Protests quickly followed. Strangely, this didn't discourage other bowling alleys from then using the same tagline. The last use of it I can find was in 1980.
Lansing State Journal - July 5, 1973
Southern Illinoisan - May 16, 1980
Fort Lauderdale News - July 15, 1973
Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 04, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: Violence, Advertising, 1970s
Beware of Killer Umbrellas
About five years ago (on June 30, 2010), Lynn Stevens was sitting on the beach, minding her own business, when an umbrella came plummeting out of the sky and impaled her leg. Here's her account of the incident:
"It was a very windy day and the umbrella was lifted straight up in the air. It came straight back down and went through my thigh. The pole went into my leg about four inches and it just missed my femoral artery. It didn’t tumble like you see them do so often. Instead, it went straight up and came straight down... It took four men to hold the umbrella steady in the wind to prevent it from doing more damage. They literally sawed off the pole right there on the beach and left about a 12-inch length of the pole sticking out of my leg. They took me to PRMC and the rest of it was taken out in the operating room. It was a little unnerving because the nurses and doctors looked a little astonished to see the umbrella pole sticking out of my leg because I figured they had probably seen everything."
That's pretty terrifying. The worst part is that there's not much you can do to prevent randomly being attacked by an umbrella that falls silently from the sky, because it's other people's umbrellas (improperly set in the sand) that are going to get you. You're at the mercy of their stupidity.
Image source: Nikos Patsiouris, Flickr.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 02, 2015 -
Comments (5)
Category: Death, Violence
Nurse goes nuts
Another day in Florida: nurse rips off all her clothes and starts attacking a patient, who's reported to be uninjured. The police officer says, "The whole thing is unusual." [clickorlando.com]
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jun 15, 2015 -
Comments (9)
Category: Violence
Honk-O-Bag
Please nominate a celebrity from 2014 that you would like to see modeled in punching-bag format.
Original ad here. (Page 13)
Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 05, 2014 -
Comments (8)
Category: Celebrities, Toys, Violence, 1950s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |