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We managed to get in touch with Redditor Xlh883dragster, Brad, who was kind enough to have a chat about his thread. When asked about what inspired him to start this conversation in the first place, he told Bored Panda he’s not 100% sure where it came from. "It was just one of those things that kind of materialize or occur randomly in your consciousness. However, I have been binge-watching (and re-watching) 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and 'Seinfeld' recently, so that could have had something to do with it."
Brad explained these popular sitcoms have put him in this weird frame of mind. "[It] has me thinking about ordinary day-to-day things that happen to me or random thoughts that streak through my mind in the context of 'Hey, that would have been a funny scene in Curb' or 'That would have been a hilarious Seinfeld character', followed by the respective theme song playing in my head," the Redditor added.
When asked about the avalanche of replies his thread received, Brad said it felt good to put something out there that many people connected to. "I definitely didn’t expect it to get the response that it did," he added. "But was pleasantly surprised (and slightly mortified at the thought of trying to read all of them) when I started to see hundreds and then thousands of replies flooding my inbox."
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As you’re scrolling through this list, you can’t help but feel entertained by the dumb things that inevitably leave our mouths. While it makes for some cringe-worthy material, we humans seem to always feel intrigued by these stories.
Brad shared a few reasons people are drawn to devour stupid things others overhear. "First is, it’s funny. I found myself laughing out loud at several of the quotes that were posted. Some were just absolutely hilarious. It’s the whole concept of Schadenfreude — laughing at others' misfortune. We do it because laughing makes us feel good."
The other explanation we enjoy reading about these moments is that it offers us comfort and makes us feel slightly better about our own embarrassing blunders. After all, they represent a certain universal truth — we all sometimes hold false hopes and wrong beliefs that are hilariously stupid. "It’s a little bit of a confidence boost, and also something you can relate to as a fellow traveler. Some people might think 'Thank god I’m not the only one who thought or said the same thing' or 'Whew, at least I know I’m not the dumbest person on Earth!'"
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Moreover, these stories can "teach people that we all say a lot of dumb things, and may have incorrect or false beliefs, but it doesn’t mean you’re uneducated or stupid, and shouldn’t be labeled as such," Brad added.
"There’s a phrase I like, and that’s 'Common sense is learned'. No one was just born with common sense, it's not innate. It’s built through experiences and everyone’s are different, and we all followed a different path to get where we are today. So what’s common sense for one person isn’t necessarily for another."
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Brad stressed that while these replies represent some hilariously painful things people voiced out loud, he guaranteed that many of them were said by intelligent people. "Just because someone says (or does, for that matter) something really dumb or absurd, doesn’t mean they are stupid or ignorant."
"My advice for anyone that made the list or has said things that still make them cringe and haunt their memories to this day is just to say — Welcome to the club! We all have our moments. Everyone’s brain farts. The smartest among us think, say, and do some really dumb things, so don’t ever let yourself or anyone else make you feel bad, stupid, or less than," Brad said.
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While it looks like there's no limit to dumb things people end up saying aloud, it's also true to our brilliantly foolish actions. As Balazs Aczel, an associate professor at ELTE University in Budapest, and author of the study What is stupid?: People's conception of unintelligent behavior, explained to us in a previous interview, people use the label "stupid" for three very different types of actions.
"We call the first category 'confident ignorance'. In these actions, people's confidence tends to exceed what their skills or knowledge would allow," the professor told Bored Panda. "In other words, they think they know how to do risky things, and they do it. For example, they go bungee jumping with their home-made gear, such as a metal cord."
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The second type of "stupid" happens due to absentmindedness. In this case, people have sufficient knowledge to act rationally, except they don't monitor their actions. "Whenever we turn into auto-pilot, we risk doing something very irrational. A good example is a professor who was so engaged in a deep conversation with his colleagues at his home that when he went to his bedroom to get a book, seeing the bed he got into his pajamas and went to sleep," Aczel explained.
The third kind of stupidity is "lack of control". "Here, people know how to do things right and are aware of their actions, they still make that mistake," he continued. "Impulsivity and short-term emotions can make us act against our best thinking. In heated conversations, we can easily lose control. Overindulging in food or drinks can also seem stupid the day after."
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She was hand writing on paper.
I'll mock her forever for that one.
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