The ‘Confidently Incorrect’ subreddit is really a gentle (and often much-needed!) reminder to always double-check our facts even when we are totally sure about them. With the internet being a perfectly safe place to voice out whatever is on your mind, many people abuse that by spreading false assumptions, gossip, fake news and facts.
No wonder the community, which is only a year old, has been sharing a lot of content “for those times when people are way too smug about their wrong answer.” With 633k members, ‘Confidently Incorrect’ is growing day by day, and you can see how very relatable people find it.
So to find out more about the subreddit, Bored Panda previously spoke with the founder ShadowAlchemy, who said that it was created on a whim. "Someone posted a video of Conan interviewing Jennifer Garner to another subreddit called r/WatchPeopleDieInside. I scrolled through the comments and saw someone who thought stuff like that would make a great community of its own. It was super late at night when I saw that, so I made a subreddit really quick for no reason, posted a video or two, then went to bed."
After ShadowAlchemy launched the sub, he never could have expected it would go viral. "I wake up with probably 1,000 or so notifications, apparently the sub had blown up overnight! Tons of people were talking about the ridiculously fast growth of the sub, I think we got around 30k members on our first day. It was super popular its first week, and its growth died down a bit after that. We've been on a steady increase ever since. We just hit 400k members, actually!" the founder recounted.
Having said that, the founder agreed that confidence is one of the most important traits we could have and that without it “we're nothing. Confidence is what gets us out of bed, what gets us out the door to face life. People definitely listen to those who show confidence."
"Just look at politics. Politicians are probably some of the most confident people on the planet, and a pretty large amount of people just listen to what they say. Our sub is probably 75-80% politics. It's people parroting what they've heard their favorite politicians say, and they parrot it because they believe those politicians. They believe in confidence." According to the founder of ‘Confidently Incorrect,’ no one’s going to listen to a shy person with all the facts.
But if it turns out that you are confidently incorrect, ShadowAlchemy suggests openly admitting that you're wrong (both to others and to yourself). "If someone corrects you and they're right, you've just gotta accept it right then and there. Insisting that you're correct is what makes you look like a dumbass, and what makes you remember it for years and years,” he explained.
The founder concluded that “nobody wants to be confidently incorrect, but if you are, you've gotta admit it. You've gotta admit that you're wrong."
