Honestly, if you came across some of these moments, you might think you’d stepped into an alternate reality, and we wouldn’t blame you. Just seeing them on a screen is enough to make us question our reality, let alone seeing them with our own eyes.
But oddly enough, not everyone notices these moments when they happen right in front of them. Cognitive research suggests people can miss even obvious, unusual events happening right in front of them, a phenomenon called "inattentional blindness." This shows how observant the photographers in this listicle truly are!
In his autobiography, Mark Twain noted that the “laws of nature take precedence of all human laws,” but that the “purpose of all human laws is one—to defeat the laws of nature.”
This is a fantastic example of how nature operates beyond the restrictions we humans try to impose on it. Just look at plants growing out of a lake in weird and unexpected ways, with no regard for human aesthetics or the need to look nice. Nature follows its own unpredictable logic, and there’s no point in fighting it, making these bizarre sights perfect subjects for a photograph.
But sometimes, it’s not just nature giving us the pleasure of creating randomly hilarious images. Sometimes, it’s people — that’s right. Humans are just weird, and sometimes, it shows.
Nowadays, everything is under surveillance. There are cameras on the streets, on people’s doorbells, and on everyone’s phones. So, being weird in public comes at a cost. However, researchers say most people are becoming desensitized to surveillance. The brain normalizes it because the immediate consequences of doing something non-criminal are low, even if not everyone feels the same way.
Curiously, this constant surveillance also affects both the person on the other side of the camera and the person behind it. Psychologist Linda Henkel studied a phenomenon showing that when someone records an event with their phone camera, they retain less information than they would otherwise.
So, everyone in this thread may end up remembering fewer details than they would have if they had simply observed the events with their own eyes. Obviously, we appreciate the giggles they’ve brought us, but it’s kind of sad when you think about it.
