We go through life every single day doing things that we deem to be normal. But some of these things are actually pretty strange if you think about it too much. While you might be inclined to say "then don't think about it so hard," the fact is that it's just fun to think about how weird some of these things actually are. Pets, for example, is a totally normal thing... until you realize you're harboring an otherwise wild animal that just wants your food. There are many other things we do that we don't think about, but if you want to know, you'll just have to keep reading to find out.
Reading
These days, reading is fundamental. That's because we've evolved into a society that requires just about everyone to be literate. But because everyone does it now, we fail to realize how rare and special it really is. It used to be a profession! "Like, there are these random squiggles and we can instantly interpret them into complex thoughts, concepts, feelings, emotions - from people we’ve never met or sometimes even heard of before," points out u/Wishyouamerry. "It’s weird."
We couldn't have said it better than that. Having been taught how to read from a young age puts us on a level that some people use to dream about, and that seems strange.
Language
As long as we're on the topic of language, we want to talk about literal speech as well. One user on Reddit, Vinny_Lam, explained it like this: "The fact that we’ve given meaning to a bunch of random sounds made by our vocal chords is bizarre when you think about it. Like, how did this even start? How were we able to decide what should be called what?" Those are some great questions, and we don't have the answers.
In all likelihood, it all just came together. But an even bigger question is what came first between speech, language, and thought? Did we think of meaningful things and add words to them, or did we add meaning to random noises we made?
Names
We figured that if we're going to be talking about language then we might as well talk about names for a second. Many people take pride in their names because they have some meaning to them or it was the name of someone precious. But at the heart of it all, names are really carefully selected jumbles of noises that our parents assign to us for identification for the rest of our lives.
While we can certainly change them, there's no getting around the fact that these are what names are. And it was probably even more so that way for the first person to make a name.
"Sonder"
Have you ever been going about your day as usual only to realize that there are real people around you who have no idea who you are and will probably never see you (or remember you) again? This is what's known as "sonder"--it's the sudden realization that everyone around you is living a life as vivid and complex as yours, something you might not think about since we're generally focused on ourselves.
To suddenly realize that everyone around you is just as real as you is a strange feeling, indeed, especially since you can only say "I think, therefore I am" in reference to yourself. How can you be sure that this "sonder" phenomenon is even real?
Paparazzi
You probably think of paparazzi as a pretty normal reaction to any celebrity. After all, these are people whose job is to report on the lives of those we want to follow by taking pictures so we can experience it for ourselves. But to get the best job done, they sometimes employ questionable tactics. "they do everything just like a stalker, yet they’re not incarcerated for it and paid to do the things they do," explains u/MotherAgnes.
When you think about it that way, it actually seems pretty weird that these things are allowed to happen. Still, we aren't celebrities, so it's hard to understand what it feels like to be followed everywhere.
Celebrity Fanaticism
When you think about it, paparazzi aren't necessarily the weirdest part of the whole celebrity thing. In fact, the celebrities themselves are a sort of strange thought. These are people that were randomly selected by a variety of circumstances, be it because they were born to famous parents or because they made it big with a convincing role, and yet we follow them blindly and put their opinions on a pedestal.
Obviously, we like to believe we know when they've gone too far, but there are people out there who treat celebrities like some sort of deity. They're literally just people. Quite literally, anyone else could have been put into their situation and we wouldn't think twice.
Being Able To Picture Things
Something we definitely take for granted is the ability to think of an image in our heads. We do it for just about everything. If someone tells you a word--chocolate, for example--all manner of mental processes starts to happen. In this specific example, you'd first see the chocolate in your head, think about how it tastes, and either start watering at the mouth if you like it or feeling disgusted if not.
You would think this is standard for everyone, but the first reported case of aphantasia, the inability to create mental images, was all the way back in 1880. People with this condition probably have existed for much longer.
Migrating Birds
We know that many species of birds fly to warmer climates in the wintertime. How they do this is honestly incredible when you consider the fact that most people can't remember what they had for lunch the month before. Yet birds seem to be able to navigate using a whole bunch of techniques. They can create mental maps like us by using the position of celestial bodies and by remembering terrain as well.
But aside from their crazy memories and knowledge of the stars, they are also programmed with the ability to pick up on Earth's magnetic waves. Can you imagine what we could do with the power that these birds have?
Clapping
We know that when someone does something fantastic, applause can be a great way to express to them how much we loved their performance. But who in the heck decided that a good idea would be to literally hit yourself repeatedly in order to make some noise? And for that matter, how is this annoying sharp banging sound the first thing that everyone agreed would be a great idea for applause?
Snapping is already better--it uses one hand and is much easier on the ears--but it seems slamming our hands together has quickly become our first instinct when we see a good show.
Having Kids
Come on, how could having kids, arguably the point of being alive, be strange in any way? Well, aside from the fact that a person literally grows inside another person for 9 months before deciding to bailout... we'll just let u/Holysh*tspace (apt name) explain this one for you: "You're just gonna make a person? You're just gonna snatch an innocent soul out of the void and force sentience upon it? What the hell."
Honestly, it feels weird to think about it that way. One day we're literally nothingness and that's totally okay, then the next thing we know we're afraid to return to that state and life is a mess. Fun!
Being Alive
And there's no denying that being alive is even weirder than our capability of producing other life forms. This may be getting really philosophical, but all of those philosophers were definitely on to something when they questioned reality. Many people bless God every day simply for living, but does anyone ever think about how weird that is? None of us chose this and we certainly didn't ask to enjoy it.
And that's especially weird considering our inevitable doom. We are all going to die one day, yet most of us are fine with that and our being forced to enjoy it.
Dying
As strange as living is, what about dying? We mentioned before that we return to whence we came and that we would have been fine with that if we had never lived, but have you ever thought about the fact that every single year we pass the anniversary of the date of our own deaths? We've thought about the fact that we're always getting closer to death, but that thought is just scary to think about.
That can literally be any time, even right now as we're typing this out but some years in the future. At the very least we don't have to worry about when that time is, but that is also kind of weird and scary.
Laughter
This is something that we tend to only think about when people laugh out of turn or someone laughs in a funny way. But even then, we don't think about how weird this response actually is. We all love entertainment because we'd be bored to death without it. But how did our bodies suddenly make a response to being entertained? One day someone told a joke and suddenly their body forced a chuckle out of them?
Like, let's be honest for a minute. When we laugh a true laugh, there is no stopping it. We can muffle the sound, but once your body thinks you should laugh, you're kind of forced to deal with it.
Teeth
While we're on the topic, let's also talk about those pearly whites that so often make an appearance when someone laughs. "I don't know why [teeth are so weird]," admits DaniJHollis on Reddit. "Your teeth are the only part of your skeleton that you can see. You bleach 'em, you lose 'em, you put metal racks on them so you remold your bones to the shape that society finds visually appealing."
"There's a fictional woman that breaks into your house to pay you for these bones. It sounds like a straight-up sociopath. We get film on them that calcifies & solidifies & makes other bone-like materials. Like teeth are weird, dude."
Pets
Pets are awesome. They're fluffy, cute, sometimes too "smol" for us to function, and they simply bring us joy in every facet of our lives. But have you ever thought about what a pet really is? They're really just some creatures that we decided one day we must own and now they sit at home chilling and enjoying the good life of being dependent on someone for the rest of eternity.
When you think about it that way, it seems pretty random for us to be housing animals for our pleasure alone. It probably started with working animals before we realized that having an animal friend is simply a good idea.
Our Pets' Ancestries
It's one thing to think about how weird having a pet is, but have you ever thought about how strange it is that we were able to tame them and breed them into entirely new types of animals? Dogs and cats didn't start out that way. It was through the domestication of other, much scarier creatures (wolves and wildcats for dogs and cats, respectively) that we were able to bring home our furry friends.
But it's not just one scary animal you have to domesticate, you have to choose multiples in order to breed down the traits you want. That is too many possible deaths to understand how we successfully continued the process until we got what we have today.
The Internet
The internet has quickly become one of the most widely adopted phenomenons in all of history. Before the internet was released to the public, people could only dream about the possibilities we have today, some of which weren't even thought of by anybody who had ever lived before the last few generations. Yet here we are, talking to people from all over the world and writing entertaining articles for you all to read.
Remember newspapers? While most of us do, think about the fact that some kids have to be shown the thing these days to learn about it. They don't just look and ask what that is, the internet already provides them the same thing, and so a newspaper may not have ever appeared in their house after they were born.
Not Sharing Money Amongst The Family
"As someone from an Asian cultural background, [what's strange is] how American kids can get financially cut off from their families at 18," u/fangyingx began to explain. "Like, they’re still a family and on good terms, but my friends have said stuff like “my mom owes me 300$”, or that they’re taking out student loans though their parents are financially able to support them through college. But, their parent’s money isn’t their money anymore so they have to take on debt.
"It’s so strange to me, as the expectation in (most) Asian households are that parents support you financially when you’re young and then you support them financially when they’re old, and there’s no clear demarcation of my money your money."
Dreaming
As if dreams weren't already weird enough, the concept of dreaming is even weirder. Why do we do it? Is it because our brain is trying to process the memories that we've made throughout the week? But in that case, what about dreams that have nothing to do with our recent experiences? Whatever the reason may be, we still don't have a clear answer as to why our bodies do this.
What's even weirder is that it seems we only really started reporting having dreams in color when TVs came out with color programming. Not that it was impossible before, but studies dated between 1915 and 1950 reported most dreams being in black and white.
Actual Sleep
We're not sure which is weirder between dreaming or sleeping but one thing is for sure: sleeping is darn weird. Every night we suddenly get so exhausted that we pass out and become completely vulnerable for up to 12 hours sometimes in an attempt to recover our stamina. How does this even help? And should we remind you about the whole dreaming thing? It seems like a big risk for something so necessary.
As good as it feels to get some sleep, the fact that scientists don't even fully understand how it works is also unsettling. But it can't be helped. We'll just have to sleep on this one.
Deja Vu
It's highly likely that you've experienced this sensation at least once in your life. And if you haven't, we can assure you that the feeling is very real. Sometimes, everything around you starts to seem so vivid that you could have sworn you've done this already. For some people, that feeling can be so intense that they can almost predict exactly what will happen next. It's like clairvoyance has become a reality.
Having said that, it's entirely possible that we might be experiencing some time of clairvoyance. After all, no one fully understands why we have deja vu, so until then we'd like to believe we have superpowers.
Dancing
Much like laughter, dancing is one of those things that the body just makes you feel like doing. Unlike laughter, however, this feeling is mostly manageable. Otherwise, we'd probably never be able to go anywhere without someone pulling out their best moves. In this day and age, just about everyone listens to music at some point during the day, and if it's your jam it would be time to boogie.
And by boogie, we mean flail about in all manner of silly and awkward ways that someone decided was beautiful and artistic. Have you ever seen a dance from TikTok before?
The Unexplored Reaches of Space
There is no way that anyone can sit there reading this and tell us that we're wrong about this one. If there was any completely normal thing in this world that is just too weird to really be normal, it's outer space. In the immediate surroundings of Earth, space is actually pretty anticlimactic (we're not speaking for astronauts here). It's simply blackness all around with the sun in the distance and some other stars dotting the "sky".
But what about the extended universe? We know there's too much space out there to comprehend it all and the fact that, statistically speaking, life out there exists in an ever-expanding, never-ending collection of gasses and energies leaves us quite unsettled.
Tears When We're Sad
Crying is another thing our body does that is unavoidable. And when we say crying, we're not trying to point out crying as being the weird thing. Like laughter, it's not the response to sadness (crying) that's weird, but the things we do while responding to it. It's the tears that are weird. They make sense when you think of it as flushing something out of the eye, but why do they come out when we're sad?
Again, it's tears that we understand. What we don't understand is why our eyes make this liquid when we're upset. You'd think that it would just make us more stressed out.
Attraction to Certain Parts of the Body
Almost everyone is attracted to some part of the human body. The perfect example that we're going to use here, for sake of ease and reliability, is the buttocks. For those who don't like butts, you'll probably agree with us on this one (even if you like butts you might agree, too). Butts are literally just mounds of fat and muscle that protect our soft spots from rough and hard surfaces when we sit.
So why is it that we tend to find some of them so interesting? And the same can be said for the rest of the body. We're just a bunch of shapes... why do we like that? Maybe we should be a little less existential.
Kissing
And how exactly do you know if you are attracted to someone in that way? Well, you might just find that you have the urge to taste their mouth for a little while. Yes, you heard us right. You can't deny that kissing someone isn't, at its core, putting your taste tester nearby someone else's. How do you think the first person felt? Do you think they said, "Hey, can I lick your mouth for some unspecified amount of time"?
While it definitely feels lovely in the moment, lip contact really has no sensible meaning to it other than feeling close to one another (which is possible without kissing). Just try not to laugh thinking about it the next time you try it.
There Is a Dangerous Acid Inside of Us
If you have gone through any amount of schooling past kindergarten, it is likely you already know about stomach acid. Well, that stuff is a powerful thing. It's made from a range of chemicals that brings the typical pH balance of stomach acid to anywhere between 1 and 3! Though there is only a small amount, one chemical in your stomach, hydrochloric acid, is strong enough to burn through metal.
Thankfully, our bodies are prepared with a special coating that prevents our own stomachs from digesting themselves and sphincters to prevent leakage. But you can already understand some of the dangers of this acid if you suffer from acid reflux.
Allergies
This one, while definitely very normal, is probably the one that really makes people wonder why it's a thing. Many of the items before this were things we have or do without thinking about it, but this time around we want to point out something everyone hates but is fairly common. Put simply, an allergic reaction happens when you're body mistakes something harmless as something foreign and dangerous, and the symptoms are the response to it.
This may only happen the second time someone is exposed to an allergen and we just have to wonder why our bodies, when we all eat many of the same base ingredients and live on the same planet, can confuse something harmless as deadly and then kill us while trying to save us.
Edible Mold
Whenever we see mold, there is something quite gut-wrenching about it. Even though certain foods can be cut from the mold and still be okay, like some hard cheeses, we're typically inclined to throw away whatever it is so as to be better safe than sorry. But some foods, like blue cheese, are meant to be eaten with the mold, as it's non-harmful and gives the cheese its musky flavor.
Many people can love and appreciate this, but other people can't stand the thought of it. Either way, it's weird that we use a sign of spoilage to make our food taste better.
Milk
Now let's talk about a food that is more common to enjoy than moldy foods: milk. It's magical, really. It allows us the smoothest, creamiest hot chocolates, cheeses (moldy or otherwise), and desserts and is the perfect addition when you have something a tad too watery that could do with some dairy. And also cereal and milk is the bomb dot com. But what's this? We're the only ones who drink milk at all.
Well, not "at all", per se, but we're the only species that drinks milk from a different animal. Even that myth about cats and milk is just a product of our creation. And we're not even going to mention the process of obtaining milk because that might put you off forever.
Earrings
Regardless of culture, earrings, in our opinion, are some of the weirdest things we put on that should seem relatively normal. Just think about it: one day someone decided that their beautiful jewelry should be hanging from their ear, but it would be more convenient if they stab themselves to make it easier. They weren't wrong about the first part, but getting your ear pierced is a whole separate issue.
Sure, we have clip-on earrings these days, but that is even weirder for some reason (and made fun of sometimes), so it's not like those are going to save you the trouble.
Time
We know that time exists because physics wouldn't make sense without it. More than that, there has to be some explanation as to how things change as, well, time passes, so we came up with the concept of time to try to make sense out of it. But we can't control it, we can only see its measurements, and there's no way that we know of to reverse it, which sounds pretty inconvenient.
Still, as time goes on we just have to accept that it's a real part of our reality as we have so many of these other items. That doesn't make it any less weird...
Colors
No, we're not grasping for straws here. This is by far one of the most confusing concepts on this list due to the number of technicalities it has. Firstly, seeing color is great, but did you know that the reason things are the color that they are is that light is being reflected off of them in a certain way? This technically means, for example, that grass isn't green but rather its true color forces green away from it and into our eyes.
That seems pretty backwards if you ask us. But even weirder is that these images are literally backwards (upside-down) before our brain interprets and fixes it using three simple types of cells and a couple of nerves.
Balloons
Everyone loves balloons at some point in their lives, but that's perhaps why we find it a little strange. It's like, "Hello, child. Would you fancy a plastic sack of my breath?" And let's be honest, most of the time you get balloons for your friends it's the kind you bring home, blow up yourself, and scatter on the floor. So yes, not sacks of helium, but random peoples' lung gasses.
Luckily for our kids, they're typically getting the kind you hang from a string. But even then, they're so simple. One day someone realized helium was lighter than air, trapped it, and gave it away (at least, that's how we imagine it).
Seeing People Play Wind Instruments
This one is pretty exclusive to deaf people, but we thought we'd include it anyway. According to Reddit user Wit-Hoid6674, "As a Deaf guy, looking at people kissing musical instruments is quite bizarre". We can't necessarily imagine what it might be like to be deaf (we can try to cover our ears, but that only goes so far), but this description is so good that, now that we think about it, we'd feel the same way watching them on mute.
When you see someone play the flute with no sound, for example, all we can see is them puckering up and getting all up in the instrument. We can imagine that feeling awkward for someone who can't or has never been able to hear music.