Not many people would rate “giving a presentation” as their favorite thing to do. But whether you love it or hate it, there’s a good chance you’ve had to give at least one during your school career. Presentations can help build communication skills, confidence, public speaking abilities, self-esteem, and other useful traits. But no matter how prepared you are, things can still go awry. When they do, it’s always good to remember that everything in life is a learning experience.
Someone once asked, “What was the ‘please stop’ school presentation that you witnessed?”—and the internet went wild. The post clocked 11,000 comments as people shared the most cringeworthy and embarrassing moments they'd seen in class, from a Computer Security student openly admitting to illegally hacking a website, to another who fully plagiarized an essay—even a voice actor who took things to the next level by awkwardly running around the stage pretending to be all the (bear) characters in a children's book.
Bored Panda has picked the best of the absolute worst presentation moments for your scrolling pleasure. Let us know your favorites by upvoting them, and feel free to share your own experiences of epic presenting fails.
#1
The antivaxxer chick that did a presentation on why vaccines cause autism... followed up by someone elses presentation on how vaccines do not cause autism. It was a weird day.
134points
#2
Psychology class. Our final was to research and to a presentation on a mental illness. One group chose necrophilia. Started with the first slide saying 'lets crack open a cold one'
126points
#3
Someone in my class did a book report on the dictionary. The teacher was pissed, all of us students thought it was hilarious. Never heard the end of the presentation.
125points
#4
Us.
We were to make a film retelling the story of Hamlet. It was supposed to be five minutes. Being the creative nutcases we were, we made a 22 minute film complete with a commercial break which made fun of prior books we had to read. Ophelia was a Jersey Shore whore who refused to take her Prozac, Polonious was a perverted Greek philosopher, and Hamlet was a depressed emo. Sword fights were video game based, with Mortal Kombat themes. We presented it to the class and were cut off after five minutes.
We received an A-.
We were to make a film retelling the story of Hamlet. It was supposed to be five minutes. Being the creative nutcases we were, we made a 22 minute film complete with a commercial break which made fun of prior books we had to read. Ophelia was a Jersey Shore whore who refused to take her Prozac, Polonious was a perverted Greek philosopher, and Hamlet was a depressed emo. Sword fights were video game based, with Mortal Kombat themes. We presented it to the class and were cut off after five minutes.
We received an A-.
118points
#5
In college during Abnormal Psychology, a student did an entire presentation on Obama's bipolar disorder she kept citing an article from The Onion.
110points
#6
This one happened a few months ago only actually :
We were in law and entrepreneurship class and we had to make a presentation about a made up company we would invent and the two class "clowns" made their presentation about a drink and their slogan was "If she's drunk she can't say no" and neither of them wanted to read it.
They just wanted to skip over it, but the teacher made them read it and asked them to go back to their places, i had never seen someone so calm and angry at the same time. When the class started hesitatingly clapping, the prof said "Stop, this isn't worth clapping for"
The next week, the two of them went around all the classes during the morning reading time to present a video about consent
Edit : Sorry for my english, i meant teacher, not professor, we're still in high school.
We were in law and entrepreneurship class and we had to make a presentation about a made up company we would invent and the two class "clowns" made their presentation about a drink and their slogan was "If she's drunk she can't say no" and neither of them wanted to read it.
They just wanted to skip over it, but the teacher made them read it and asked them to go back to their places, i had never seen someone so calm and angry at the same time. When the class started hesitatingly clapping, the prof said "Stop, this isn't worth clapping for"
The next week, the two of them went around all the classes during the morning reading time to present a video about consent
Edit : Sorry for my english, i meant teacher, not professor, we're still in high school.
103points
#7
In college, someone was doing a presentation on Nelson Mandela and kept referring to Africans as “African Americans”.
95points
#8
An Anti-Bullying campaign
They spent most of the presentation explaining different types and ways to bully/harass people
Bullying increased in school and everything got 10 times worse now that the students were more “educated” on the subject.
They spent most of the presentation explaining different types and ways to bully/harass people
Bullying increased in school and everything got 10 times worse now that the students were more “educated” on the subject.
84points
#9
It was my sophomore year English class, this kid who was reading his essay in front of the class and started to stumble over some of the words. The teacher recognized the words and found the essay the kid plagiarized and started HELPING HIM READ IT the kid didn’t understand what was happening and just thanked the teacher and kept reading.
Edit:
I don’t have time to reply to everyone but here’s a few more details for clarity. This was in like 2004, the teacher found the essay on the internet. He gave the kid a day to try again. The kid was stumbling over the words because they were big ones he’d evidently never seen before. Everything else is fuzzy since it was over 15 years ago. Cheers! Thanks for the upvotes!
Edit:
I don’t have time to reply to everyone but here’s a few more details for clarity. This was in like 2004, the teacher found the essay on the internet. He gave the kid a day to try again. The kid was stumbling over the words because they were big ones he’d evidently never seen before. Everything else is fuzzy since it was over 15 years ago. Cheers! Thanks for the upvotes!
78points
#10
I studied went to school for Computer Security. In an introduction to computer security course, we had to do a project on Social Engineering. A student decided that for his project he was going to find a way to gain access to a chosen website.
* He found a small local business website.
* Identified that the domain was registered to an email address from a local ISP
* Called the ISP to reset the password, they asked him for his last 4 of his SSN, so he hung up.
* He found the phone number of the business, so called them and pretended to be from the ISP offering 3 months free if the person did a 5 question survey. They accepted, and answered some BS questions, then he asked for the last 4 of the guy's SSN, which they gave no problem
* He then called the ISP with the last 4, got them to reset the password of the email account
* He then logged into the email, and used it to get the domain registrar to send a password reset to the email, which he used to reset the password of the domain account (and deleted the email).
* He recorded all phone calls and screenshotted the whole process
As he presented all these we kept expecting him to say "but that would be illegal, so I didn't do X", but he went all the way.
The professor finally stopped him after he said he logged into the domain registrar and told him to destroy everything and never speak of it again.
I think the professor was a bit nicer than he could have been... potentially to the point of accomplice (telling him to destroy evidence).
* He found a small local business website.
* Identified that the domain was registered to an email address from a local ISP
* Called the ISP to reset the password, they asked him for his last 4 of his SSN, so he hung up.
* He found the phone number of the business, so called them and pretended to be from the ISP offering 3 months free if the person did a 5 question survey. They accepted, and answered some BS questions, then he asked for the last 4 of the guy's SSN, which they gave no problem
* He then called the ISP with the last 4, got them to reset the password of the email account
* He then logged into the email, and used it to get the domain registrar to send a password reset to the email, which he used to reset the password of the domain account (and deleted the email).
* He recorded all phone calls and screenshotted the whole process
As he presented all these we kept expecting him to say "but that would be illegal, so I didn't do X", but he went all the way.
The professor finally stopped him after he said he logged into the domain registrar and told him to destroy everything and never speak of it again.
I think the professor was a bit nicer than he could have been... potentially to the point of accomplice (telling him to destroy evidence).
76points
#11
When I was in high school, a girl from an absurdly wealthy family gave a presentation on why the rich are just as oppressed as anyone. This was in a normal public school in Kentucky where about 90% of the students were middle class at best. You could feel the eyes rolling in that room.
62points
#12
Ooooo do I have a good one! When I was in school we were asked to create a project that would help solve some issues in our environment. Anyway, this one guy who is probably one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met (and I don’t say that lightly) suggested the idea of flying cars, and his reasoning for why it would help the environment was because “then we wouldn’t use so much gas, just like airplanes!” And I just sat there like what does he think airplanes run on? F*cking pixie dust?
62points
#13
Freshman year college public speaking course. Had to give a persuasive speech on a “controversial” topic.
Being the deep thinker I was, wrote my speech arguing we shouldn’t have seat belt laws, it was a personal choice... blah blah blah. Almost finished my speech, cute blonde girl gets up and runs out of the room crying. Girl sitting next to her says that her friend had just died in a car accident from... not wearing a seat belt.
I freeze and look over at the prof. She says don’t worry about it, it happens. If I remember right I got an A or B. The girl ended up being a friend of some friends and I would see her around campus and at parties. Never worked up the nerve to talk to her or apologize.
Being the deep thinker I was, wrote my speech arguing we shouldn’t have seat belt laws, it was a personal choice... blah blah blah. Almost finished my speech, cute blonde girl gets up and runs out of the room crying. Girl sitting next to her says that her friend had just died in a car accident from... not wearing a seat belt.
I freeze and look over at the prof. She says don’t worry about it, it happens. If I remember right I got an A or B. The girl ended up being a friend of some friends and I would see her around campus and at parties. Never worked up the nerve to talk to her or apologize.
61points
#14
Sophomore year of high school we were tasked with a bringing in an object from home and giving a presentation on how/why the object explains you as a person. Kid brought in a knife, not a big one, but a knife nonetheless. He actually gave a decent presentation...but ended getting expelled because of it later that day.
60points
#15
Enviromental science. For our final project in the class we were allowed to talk about
Dude decides to do his project on global "cooling". Buddy was up there for 7 mins explaining to the class how the earth has been getting colder and colder, and how its eventually going to cause problems to other species.
Teacher was really passionate about this class and you could se her squirming in her seat the whole way through the presentation. Whole thing was a Big WTF.
His sources were online forums.
Dude decides to do his project on global "cooling". Buddy was up there for 7 mins explaining to the class how the earth has been getting colder and colder, and how its eventually going to cause problems to other species.
Teacher was really passionate about this class and you could se her squirming in her seat the whole way through the presentation. Whole thing was a Big WTF.
His sources were online forums.
57points
#16
Some guy in my class, about 12-13years old, confused "heroic" and "erotic". The teacher asked if he really read an "erotic" book and he said yes, as the student watched in disbelief. Took the teacher 30 seconds to catch up the misundersting.
57points
#17
This was my presentation, and it was about the science behind how mountain dew can dissolve a mouse. This was in 4th grade. Needless to say I got some parent complaints.
55points
#18
It's me. I did this. I cringe about it to this day, nearly 20 years later.
I was 16 and in high school. My high school was going to do a spring talent show. I wanted to be in the talent show and show off my talents. The problem was, my actual talents are not ones that I could show off at a talent show. So I decided to try singing.
I have never sung in my life. I have never had voice lessons.
I was in my prime weeb stage and chose an anime song to sing. I didn't know any actual Japanese, I had just memorized the lyrics from hearing the song so many times.
Luckily I didn't make it past auditions, but several people saw an overweight girl in a Sailor Moon shirt try to sing 'Butterfly' despite having never done any singing or voice training ever in her life.
Nearly 20 years later, and remembering it keeps me awake at night.
I was 16 and in high school. My high school was going to do a spring talent show. I wanted to be in the talent show and show off my talents. The problem was, my actual talents are not ones that I could show off at a talent show. So I decided to try singing.
I have never sung in my life. I have never had voice lessons.
I was in my prime weeb stage and chose an anime song to sing. I didn't know any actual Japanese, I had just memorized the lyrics from hearing the song so many times.
Luckily I didn't make it past auditions, but several people saw an overweight girl in a Sailor Moon shirt try to sing 'Butterfly' despite having never done any singing or voice training ever in her life.
Nearly 20 years later, and remembering it keeps me awake at night.
53points
#19
Someone gave a speech about durian in a class once. She brought a small frozen sample that thawed as the class went on. The professor let students step out the room. Coincidentally, one of the culinary classes reported a gas leak and pulled the fire alarm.
52points
#20
In high school a student died in a car accident where she was driving. There was no record that stated she was distracted by her phone or anything, but the school decided to have an assembly shortly after talking about distracted driving and using her as an example. Telling the whole school she'd be alive if she was doing what she was supposed to.
49points