The way that humans interact with each other has changed a lot in the last few decades , but one thing that hasn’t changed at all is the spread of rumors .
There just seems to be something about human nature that loves the act of passing unverified, often titillating, information around.
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Sometimes, you may even find yourself at the crosshairs of a weird rumor. If this happens to you, just know you’re not alone. A question about this very topic led to more than 3,400 answers on the r/AskReddit subreddit.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
“I guess when I got called down to the principal office and searched for drugs by the school cop. Guess everyone thought I was high all the time but I just have ADHD and was sleepy all the time from playing hockey late at night. Never did drugs in HS. Do now lol.”
Not a spicy rumor, but still a weird one.
“That when I left my previous job, I moved to a better job/company in the same industry. Some variations had me moving out of state to take the promotion. I found this out when I visited my former workplace as a customer and they were shocked to see me. In reality, I still lived very close by and I was forced out of my previous company, so I ended up switching to a completely different career. This was a weird case of the rumor going around actually being much better than what happened to me in reality.”
Quite the saga.
“One time my entire workplace was buzzing with gossip about how a group of us all went to a swingers party but everyone except me and the host couple backed out so we had a three way. No idea how that rumor came about.”
If you’re talking about his noodleyness, this is more than just a rumor.
“That I worshipped spaghetti.
I had a discussion with a group of folks about the flying spaghetti monster, and someone who didn’t like me ran with it to try to get people to think I was crazy and not worth hanging around with.”
– u/meapet
They act weird around him to this day.
“In Basic Training we woke up one day and the guy who had the bunk next to me was gone. Rumors starting going around that he was really sick or something and had been taken to the emergency room. Never showed back up. People started acting weird around me.
After about a week we found out he had tried to kill himself.
Turns out people had, for some reason, thought that I had poisoned him. I have no idea how/why that was the conclusion that people had come to but that’s the reason they’d been acting weird around me.”
She used impeccable logic.
“When I was 6 an older girl at school was weirdly rude to me sometimes. I didn’t even know her? I asked about it once and she told me ‘Oh someone told me you were mean.'”
Always fun to have a common name.
“That I kidnapped my minor girlfriend, and fled with her across state lines after murdering her parents in front of her younger sister.
About 20 years ago, a person a few years younger than me with the same last name, and similar first name did just that a few towns over. This happened on a Friday or Saturday. When I showed up to work on Monday people were looking at me like they had seen a ghost. I was at work for less than 5 minutes when I got called into HR. When I walked in, the plant supervisor, GM, and most supervisors were there as well. The HR rep just casually said ‘Hey, whatcha doin here?’ Well, I was trying to go to work, now I’m wondering what the hell is going on. I had to explain that while his name started with the same letter, it was in fact a different name, he was several years younger, and most importantly looked nothing like me (his picture was all over the news).”
That’s a fun story this guy made up.
“That I was Superman. I used to work in a school district as a network technician. I’m over 6ft tall with a solid build, black hair and glasses. One day I was working in a kindergarten or early elementary classroom and overheard one kid say to another that I was Superman. I didn’t say anything at the time, but couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I proceeded to purchase a superman t-shirt and kept it in my car just in case. I had another service call in that classroom a few weeks later so I put on the tshirt under my collared work shirt. Sure enough, those same boys recognized me and started their chit chat. As I was leaving, I looked at the boys, took off my glasses and showed them the logo under my shirt. I’ve never seen two kids lose their absolute minds before.”
MLG, yeah you know me.
“I got brought to the school principal, vice principal, and 2 police officers who believed without a shadow of a doubt my friends and I were in a gang. The malicious activity, the hand signals, the secret phrases. All meant we were in a gang.
What was the gang called, I hear you ask?
The MLG.”
Wait, what’s his name again?
“That I was having an affair with another teacher. We were not; we simply had a meeting (with two other teachers) in a room not being used for a class during that period. ‘But Mr. Dragon, I saw you go into the room with Ms. Smith.'”
Now say it in French.
“In school in Ireland a girl asked her ex about me because we were in the same class and in a bid to put her off he told her that I was French, that I wrote poetry, I played chess and being half English I ate crumpets all the time.
She still dated me and it made for very interesting conversation on our first date so it kinda backfired on him. What emo teen wouldn’t want to date a French guy who writes poems??”
There are worse rumors.
“There was a rumor In my high school that I slept with all my friends’ moms. Had several classmates who I didn’t really know come up to me and with grave concern ask if I slept with their mother.”
More than a rumor.
“That I was a criminal with a warrant and needed to be in jail. Then the cops showed up because, lo and behold, in the paper there was a person who looked exactly like me with a warrant. Got cleared up real fast, but damn if I don’t have a near identical twin jackass out there.”
Murder rumors are the juiciest rumors.
“I killed my mother. This went around in high school. While I was in high school. Like somehow I was going to be there in class with them if this were remotely true. It kept me from getting bullied though.
FYI I called my mom yesterday and sang happy birthday to her, so…”
They thought a seventh grader was a pilot?
“I got Shingles in 7th grade… I was taken out of school on 9/8/2001… Didnt come back for 2 weeks.
Apparently there was a rumor started that I was one of the pilots on 9/11… Kids are wild.”
I’m going to start a rumor that this person is a sloth.
“That I had 6 toes. Not on one foot, but in total.”
“Thank you for that second sentence, because i was going to ask on one foot or in total after reading the first sentence.”
Kind of an honest mistake.
“That I was dead. I got in a bad car wreck in high school and an off duty nurse was first in the scene. She happened to have a white blanket to cover me up with because I was laying on the ground and it was cold. A classmate drove by and saw my car and a body under a white blanket. I missed the next day of school because I was too sore. When I came in the day after that everyone gasped and said they heard I had died in a car wreck.”
Why not just start your own rumor?
“That I was breeding octopuses for their ink to use in my printer. Spread it myself though as a joke in school, but it caught on and the whole year below me believed it and even asked about it to my friends. Been a while ago but still makes me chuckle.”
If you say you don’t know the person, it just gets worse.
“That my best friend and I had a threesome with this one dude in high school. Until the day I heard that rumor, I had no idea who that guy was.”
“Something similar happened to me. My friend came up to me like is it true you like X and I had never heard of the guy before that moment.”
How do people even come up with these?
“Somebody spread a rumor that I purposefully gave their cat acid by making out with the cat while i had acid on my tongue. They claim their cat has never been the same.
I have never french kissed a cat and I would never risk poisoning an animal.”
