The Silliest Thing People Actually Believed as Kids

What's the dumbest thing you've ever believed? Little kids often get weird ideas in their heads that end up solidifying as hard and fast beliefs even though they are total nonsense. Raise your hand if you, for example, believed that a watermelon would grow in your stomach if you accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed. Yeah, me too. This Ask Reddit thread is full of silly things like that (and weirder!) that people actually believed growing up. 

When lordsamethstarr was little, they lived in a small town that had an oil refinery, and their parents convinced them that if you farted on site, it would explode. That's a terrifying thing to tell a kindergartener, especially when said kindergartener goes on a field trip with their class and discovers they have to fart. "I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time with my hand down my pants, blocking my fart," they wrote.

DarkangelUK was convinced that getting new sneakers made you actually run faster. I think that's a common thing for kids to believe because a lot of sneaker commercials peddle that particular falsehood.

Growing up, jessimusic didn't realize that the car driver controlled the turn signal. They thought the car just knew where you wanted to go. Even today's "smart cars" aren't that smart. 

This is a weird one. Moline-12 thought that people stopped fitting their clothes not because they grew bigger but because the clothes got smaller and smaller by themselves. Why would they believe such a thing?!

Lovelydaysahead was convinced the moon or the sun actually followed them whenever they were in the car. How else do you explain it always being there, even when you take a trip to somewhere far away?

When CHSgirl76 was little, they really thought the whole world was black and white for years and that it just turned colorful at some point. On TV and in pictures, everyone and everything was black and white until one day, it wasn't! Obviously, the only explanation is that the whole world gained color at the same exact moment.

I think that at some point we all believed that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, a whole watermelon would grow inside your stomach, so _November_ is definitely not alone in this one. There's a whole Rugrats episode about it!

Username-fatigue tells us that there was a "lighty-uppy fountain" near where they grew up and the lights changed colors. Their dad told them there was a tiny little man who sat under the fountain flipping the lights on and off, and they believed him for years!

ItsKaaaaaayshuh believed that every time they went to watch a movie or a TV show, the actors performed it live. "I always wondered how they got it perfect every time and were always available every time I popped in my favorite VHS tape," they wrote. "Sometimes, I'd watch closer, hoping to catch an imperfection."

Gendered products are largely useless, but jmem01123 didn't know that when his sister told him that if he used "girl shampoo" he would turn into a girl. He believed her until he was 14 years old!

Poor nevermidit believed that in old movies, when someone was killed, they actually died. Their sister (what is with lying sisters?) told them that people volunteered to die so the movie could be made.

Someone must have told DarthVadersDad94 that the color green was "good for your eyes" because they believed it and sat in their room staring at green construction paper for 45 minutes. Needless to say, they were wrong. 

This is a funny one. Art_brohan believed that adults could not run. They saw kids running around all the time, but adults usually just walked, so they thought that adults literally didn't have the ability to run. 

DerbhaleHitzgerald's sister believed all panthers were pink because of the Pink Panther cartoon. What a world that would be! 

"Carpool" is a confusing term, and FremenDar979 thought it meant exactly what it sounds like. They thought that it was "a very small pool in a very large car." That would be way more exciting that what carpools really are.

Johnnypanicked, at 26 years old, just found out that reindeer are real animals. Not some Christmas creation. Narwhals are also real. I've known real adults who haven't realized that narwhals are real. Reindeer, narwhals, platypuses...all real!

I don't know where keyboaraot got this strange idea, but they used to believe that removing a scab would "leak all the things you ate." Maybe someone told them this to keep them from picking their scabs or something, but man, that's a weird one.

Izyvgngrl's mom told them she turned orange from eating too many carrots when in reality, it was a bad spray tan. But you can turn orange from eating too many carrots! That's a real thing! 

It was a common belief growing up that the crust on the bread is the "healthy" part, and mang0_k1tty totally believed this. I definitely heard this when I was a kid too, and I'm now realizing just how ridiculous that notion is. 

I don't know where azatalyzer got this weird idea, but when they were young, they used to think that girls "had different colored rings around their nipples. Eye colors like brown, blue, and green." While that would actually be really cool, it's obviously extremely false.

GRyZiN_06's sister (sisters are evil! And I am one!) told them that octopuses can come out of the drain while you're taking a bath. While in some places it's not entirely impossible, it's much less likely than she made it seem.

MNLYEvangelista thought that if a kid swears, the cops will magically show up at the door, ready to arrest the offender. That's why you don't say bad words.

Arteemiis was 7 years old when their hamster bit them. That's traumatizing enough, but then their dad told them they would slowly start to turn into a hamster. Why would you tell this to a child?! The "slow" part is the most terrifying thing, too. You might not even realize it's happening. 

When doubleflusher was little, they, like many others, thought The Blair Witch Project was real. It was released before that documentary-style filmmaking was really popular. 

Thelosermonster used to think that wind was "caused by the trees waving the air around." While I really love that image, of trees basically volleying the air back and forth, I don't think that's quite how it happens.