What an incredible twist of fate - one of the greatest minds that humanity has ever known in its entire history remains in our memory not so much because of his ingenious theories, but because of an accidental, completely ridiculous photograph with his tongue out when he just wanted to tease the photographer.
Yes, history knows many examples when very smart and decent people accidentally blurted out something incredibly stupid - and then regretted what they said for many-many years. And then collections of such 'gems' rack up thousands of upvotes and laughable comments online - like, for example, this one in the AskReddit community, the best stories from which we bring to your attention today.
More info: Reddit
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In fact, people do sometimes say something stupid or shameful, for different reasons, in various circumstances. Sometimes this simply becomes a consequence of a basic misunderstanding between the interlocutors, sometimes the speaker just finds themselves in a real 'stupor' in response to an unexpected request. A classic example is when you are asked to say something funny.
Have you ever encountered anything like this? As soon as someone asks you about it, even if you have been doing standup comedy all your life, have watched all the sitcoms in the world and know all the sites with jokes by heart, you will clearly 'freeze' in a painful attempt to remember something. Don't believe me? Then come on, remember something funny right now!
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In addition, there are two reasons why stupid words and phrases from smart people are remembered. Firstly, because they aren't expected to do anything stupid, and against the general 'highbrow' background, these unexpected remarks stand out like Jerry Jones against the background of the current NFL free agent market. And secondly, people are prone to reflection - and the stupidity said will quite possibly torment a person with shame for years and even decades.
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“People tend to remember negativity against an overall good background - this is a general trend,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. “For example, it's enough to compare the ratio of good and bad reviews on the page of any decent restaurant.”
"And this, again, is quite understandable. If we go to a restaurant which is considered to be great, then by default we expect great service - and take it for granted. Otherwise, this causes a clear reaction of rejection. And the adrenaline reaction to negativity encourages people to act much stronger, than positive impressions. So it turns out that stupid phrases from smart people are remembered for a long time. However, the opposite is also true," Irina summarizes.
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In any case, the selection of stories that we've collected in this list is incredibly interesting and funny, so please feel free to scroll it to the very end and maybe add your own tales here. After all, each of us has come up with some incredible stupidity at the most inopportune moment. Me too, by the way. So let's do this - if this post collects 100 upvotes and comments, I definitely tell you in the comments which stupidity I once blurted out (and just believe me, it's damn worth it)!
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