Is "weird" AskMe too chatty?

December 11, 2007 10:50 AM

My 5 year old needs an answer to "What is the weirdest thing you've ever heard of?". Would this be considered chat-filter on AskMe (and therefore inappropriate)?
posted by Brocktoon to Etiquette/Policy at 10:50 AM (73 comments total)

Weirdest thing I've heard of today: 5 year olds wanting to use the internet.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:52 AM on December 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

Yes it's too chatty, though sort of adorable and probably okay for Yahoo Answers which I suspect is populated mostly by five year olds anyhow.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:54 AM on December 11, 2007 [7 favorites]

THROW IT ON THE BBQ!
posted by shmegegge at 10:55 AM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

"What is the weirdest thing you've ever heard of?"

Dane Cook's popularity.
posted by Stynxno at 11:00 AM on December 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

Some people eat their grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup.

I'm pretty sheltered.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 11:04 AM on December 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

I like how you got around the chatfiltery aspect of it by posting the question to metatalk under the guise of asking whether it would be OK to ask. That's pretty clever.
posted by dersins at 11:07 AM on December 11, 2007

Weirdest thing I've heard of today: 5 year olds wanting to use the internet

Just you wait. My five year old uses the 'net all the time. He doesn't watch much TV, but he can sit for an hour viewing the YouTube search results for "lego ball machine" or "card stacking."

Of course, you have to stick around because one can go from "happy fun lego contraption" to "Lego: Vice City" in about two clicks.
posted by bondcliff at 11:09 AM on December 11, 2007

Thanks Jess, but I was hoping to get answers for him from a somewhat more sophisticated member pool. /not sarcasm

Matt: my 5 year old can't read yet is already demanding to play WoW at every opportunity (wouldn't you rather play Professor Fizzwizzle? Is my parently response). 'Course, he can't quite read yet, and he never leaves Goldshire or gets above level 3.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:18 AM on December 11, 2007

Have you shown him that two girls and a cup thing yet? That is pretty fucking weird.
posted by ND¢ at 11:20 AM on December 11, 2007 [4 favorites]

It's pretty dang chatty. And, yeah, I'd be happy to post that on BBQ tomorrow; could be a lot of fun.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:20 AM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dersins, I am not clever, but thanks for the compliment.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:21 AM on December 11, 2007

Well, I once saw a capuchin monkey drink an entire pot of coffee.

Wait, that was the wiredest thing I ever saw.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:29 AM on December 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

he never leaves Goldshire or gets above level 3

I think I teamed with him the other day. Your little n00b got me killed!!
posted by Koko at 11:35 AM on December 11, 2007 [4 favorites]

Maybe you should tell your 5 year old to wonder what to name a cat instead. Because the weirdest thing I've ever heard of is that "What should I name my cat" is not chatfilter and permitted by the rules, and this adorable question that could yield some good answers* and amuse the community is verboten.

I think there are a lot of interesting and weird things in science, nature and technology that are useful and interesting for a community to discuss.
posted by bunnycup at 11:43 AM on December 11, 2007

Weirdest non-spam email I got yesterday said, "We will try to find a way to shield the children's gonads."

I shit you not.
posted by mds35 at 11:44 AM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think I teamed with him the other day. Your little n00b got me killed!!

QQ
posted by jmd82 at 11:49 AM on December 11, 2007

I think the chatfilter guideline is broken. A question is chatfilter, except of course when it yields awesome responses. Your question will be deleted, though, before it has a chance to prove itself. Because it's chatfilter.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:04 PM on December 11, 2007

Why does he need it? For a school project? Just for fun?
posted by ORthey at 12:07 PM on December 11, 2007

I can't think of a weird thing that I've seen that would both be on the extreme side of weirdness and something that wouldn't wreck a 5-year-old.

So maybe you want a little less sophisticated site, y'know? So you don't get "Mapplethorpe's cock and ball torture series transmuting into a holy cross of negative space while I was on MDMA that one time," or "This homeless guy in Ypsilanti, called 'No Face,' whose name is strikingly accurate," or some film of GG Allin, or dada movies…
posted by klangklangston at 12:07 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Some people eat their grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup.

Wait until you try Peanut butter, jelly, and yellow mustard. It's to die for.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:09 PM on December 11, 2007

Mr.Encyclopedia:

Threads like the one linked have been held up as examples of why ironclad black-and-white rules are not as useful as looser guidelines, which may spur more disagreement, but allow the existence of the occasional great thing that might be deleted by knee-jerk rule-following.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken

Sums it up perfectly.
posted by slimepuppy at 12:18 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

ORthey, just for fun; 5 year old exploration.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:29 PM on December 11, 2007

mathowie writes "Weirdest thing I've heard of today: 5 year olds wanting to use the internet."

My kid points at the computer all the time, because he wants to see pictures of cars and videos of cars on YouTube. He isn't even two yet. So big ole 5 year olds wanting to use the internet is nothing.
posted by Bugbread at 12:45 PM on December 11, 2007

Could your 5 year old possibly need the answers for a book she/he is writing on the subject? That might throw off the chatfilter sensors. Except you've already ruined it by posting this thread which has essentially turned into a preemptive self-callout.
posted by sveskemus at 12:48 PM on December 11, 2007

Wait until you try Peanut butter, jelly, and yellow mustard. It's to die for.

Try vanilla yogurt and Cheeze-Its. No joke.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2007

PB, banana and mayo. Never a greater homemade sandwich constructed.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:00 PM on December 11, 2007

Maybe this. 5 months off, it still kinda boggles the mind. They used ashes of dead people...to print photographs...of those same dead people!?!
posted by juv3nal at 1:01 PM on December 11, 2007

Why does he need to know? (Having a purpose often makes it not chatfilter. Because this isn't defined "weirdest animal", etc., it's pure chatfilter.)

Are you one of those cruel parents who hasn't yet bought your Son the Guinness Book of World Records or taken him to the Ripley's Believe it Or Not museum (or bought a book, etc.)? For shame, sir. Children need to discover weirdness the way God intended -- wandering Hollywood Boulevard.

(And here is where I would add the END SARCASM tag if it weren't such a hotly contested issue.)

Seriously. When my daughter was in that stage, Guinness Book of World Records. "Mystery Hunters" worked as well, but was a bit scary occasionally.
posted by Gucky at 1:19 PM on December 11, 2007

So: would Metachat be a good venue for questions like this? (Or should I have posted this question on MetaChat?)

10 GOTO 20
20 GOTO 10
posted by not_on_display at 1:19 PM on December 11, 2007

PB, banana and mayo. Never a greater homemade sandwich constructed.

cortex, try peanut butter (must be chunky kind), grape jelly, dill pickles and bologna on white bread. Yum!
posted by mds35 at 1:29 PM on December 11, 2007

No good. Can't brook dill pickles, not a bologna fan.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:30 PM on December 11, 2007

Weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of was BUDH-ghalkabngsBDBUBUBUBUBUgitchygitchyF’tang-DKLHDGhgdnnbbbbhnggggi gi gi gi gig GAAAAA!

...oh, wait, sorry, that wasn’t in the form of a question: BUDH-ghalkabngsBDBUBUBUBUBUgitchygitchyF’tang-DKLHDGhgdnnbbbbhnggggi gi gi gi gig GAAAAA?
posted by Smedleyman at 1:57 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I saw a guy take off his nose outside of a Stewart's once. He ate an ice-cream cone and then put it back on. He looked at me and my friend the entire time. The hole in his face seemed to go back forever, when he put the nose back on, he settled it in with a satisfying little twist and pop motion, like when you fit together two pieces of a really well made tool. I was entirely sober during this event, but very soon after that I was enthusiastically done up on Carlo Rossi Paisano until I couldn't see anything but a warm red haze. I don't know why you'd want to tell a five year kid that though.
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:02 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Rule 34? Then again, maybe not.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 2:09 PM on December 11, 2007

I've seen a monkey stripper do his thing on a naked man duct taped to a chair. I also have video of this, somewhere...

I could go on forever.

If you're in the Dallas area and need a monkey stripper, contact me.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:11 PM on December 11, 2007

Ask him to consider his own consciousness.
posted by popcassady at 2:15 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Weirdest thing I ever heard? Easy. A suprising number of people believe that George W Bush was legitimately elected in 2000.

If by "weirdest" you mean "scariest," anyhow.
posted by contessa at 2:38 PM on December 11, 2007

My 5 year old needs an answer to "What is the weirdest thing you've ever heard of?".

And you couldn't answer?
posted by agregoli at 2:43 PM on December 11, 2007

Ooh, or here's a non-adult weirdo one:

I was watching a movie called Death By Design, which I didn't really expect to be about programmed cell death, but it was and it was incredibly fascinating. One of the things in there that they mentioned were these amoebas that live in, like, Madagascar or some shit. They live solitary lives until the food source starts to dry up. Then they slowly congeal into slugs, migrate up trees, then turn into mushrooms and fruit out amoeba spores that spread the individual amoebas to places where there might be more food. I found some video and posted it to my blog, like, a month ago. That shit was pretty goddamned weird to watch, and led to all sorts of dreams about invisible microbes coalescing into slime molds that would cover my body while I slept and transmute into iridescent mushrooms releasing clouds of weird spores that were me but not me.

That's both true and should freak his teacher out.
posted by klangklangston at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2007 [8 favorites]

Maybe you should tell your 5 year old to wonder what to name a cat instead. Because the weirdest thing I've ever heard of is that "What should I name my cat" is not chatfilter and permitted by the rules, and this adorable question that could yield some good answers* and amuse the community is verboten.

S-w-e-e-t. /not sarcasm.

Thanks Jess, but I was hoping to get answers for him from a somewhat more sophisticated member pool

I was hoping for that, also.
posted by wafaa at 3:27 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow, my pickle, butter and onion on a darkly toasted bagel is sounding tame by comparison, now. But it is oh so tasty
posted by Deathalicious at 3:39 PM on December 11, 2007

Some people put mayo on their freedom fries. That's weird.
posted by Rumple at 4:24 PM on December 11, 2007

Maybe zombie snails. Although that one might be a tad disturbing.
posted by juv3nal at 4:28 PM on December 11, 2007

Try vanilla yogurt and Cheeze-Its.
Blazecock, that is remarkably similar to my plain yoghurt and Dorito indulgence. I got it from some kids my age who were Iranians. It was a delicious cross-cultural snack.
posted by cobaltnine at 4:51 PM on December 11, 2007

My answer would have been:

The weirdest thing I've seen was this one time your mom's belly got really really big and we took her to the hospital and the doctor took a knife and made a really big cut on Mom's belly and pulled out her stomach and some other junk and kind of moved it off to the side, and then he pulled out a BABY@!!!! And it was connected by a skin-rope and he CUT THE SKIN ROPE!!! and the baby was all purple and covered with slime, and it was you.

Of course I am a bad father.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 5:28 PM on December 11, 2007 [5 favorites]

"Some people put mayo on their freedom fries. That's weird."

I seen 'em do it, man. They fuckin' waterboard 'em in that shit.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:29 PM on December 11, 2007 [7 favorites]

This homeless guy in Ypsilanti, called 'No Face,' whose name is strikingly accurate

Without a doubt, a very weird thing. This guys face is just a big hole, and he has been known to be quite aggressive in his panhandling.
posted by Roger Dodger at 7:07 PM on December 11, 2007

I was just googling around, and it appears "No Face" is a bit of a Ypsilanti celebrity.
posted by Bugbread at 7:28 PM on December 11, 2007

Meatballs slow cooked with grape jelly and salsa are fantastically delicious. Seriously.

At one time, Europeans believed that ducks grew from barnacles.

There are lots of AskMes that might be good for this. Also, googling things like "amazing facts" can yield fruit.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:43 PM on December 11, 2007

Also, ice cream (vanilla or chocolate) with tortilla chips is awesome.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:43 PM on December 11, 2007

There's a town in Canada called Dildo, but I wouldn't expect your 5 year old to know what Canada is, yet.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:39 PM on December 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

Look up any of the octopus threads.
posted by casarkos at 8:57 PM on December 11, 2007

OK. The house behind mine, separated by a 5 foot fence and a jumongous elderberry bush, is a rental, whose people occasionally, mostly on weekends, appear to include a kid, who could be 5 years old (if I paid him), who comes out on the back patio, way early, on Sunday mornings.

I've been playing Allman Brothers recordings on Sunday mornings, with the patio door open, and he and I, separated by the fence, the elderberry bush, and 25 feet, have been dancing, individually, while my stupid dog, on a tether, approvingly watches. That Dickie Betts!!! Now, if I could find a 'net radio station, playing 100% Allman Brothers music, known to this 5 year old, and approved by a no-account black dog in northeastern Florida, and got the 5 year old to dance to it with me, and the dog to approve of it all, would that be weird enough to answer such a hypothetical AskMe?

If not, what, exactly, about the above seems, to you inappropriate?

Desperate to chime in, from JAX.
posted by paulsc at 9:11 PM on December 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I suggest checking out snopes.com and looking for the true stories. There's some pretty crazy stuff in there.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:31 PM on December 11, 2007

Thank you, ND¢, My thoughts exactly. Weirdest goddamned thing I ever saw.
posted by mitzyjalapeno at 9:47 PM on December 11, 2007

I think the fact that Resusci-Anne is based on a real person, one who drowned, is pretty damn weird. And awesome. But more weird.
posted by graventy at 10:53 PM on December 11, 2007

The weirdest thing ever, when I was five, was the time my dad asked how I knew that strangers were people and not robots. That was serious, heavy, mind-blowing stuff for a kid who had just figured out that other people had minds at all.

Later on he asked why it was, out of all the eyes out there, that I could only see through mine, and I remember that one kept on puzzling me up until I was a teenager. He's always been full of good stuff like that. I think half of it was because he taught philosophy, and half was just from being curious and keeping his brain open. I didn't have a clue he was trying to teach me about metaphysics or personal identity or whatever — I just liked riddles.

Still do, come to think of it. Every now and again, I can work myself back into a good solid state of slack-jawed bafflement over those questions. It's good exercise (and cheaper than drugs!)
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:55 PM on December 11, 2007 [7 favorites]

dersins: "I like how you got around the chatfiltery aspect of it by posting the question to metatalk under the guise of asking whether it would be OK to ask. That's pretty clever."
Not only is it not clever, it's not even original.

mathowie: "Weirdest thing I've heard of today: 5 year olds wanting to use the internet."
My five-year old has to be pried away from Firefox on a regular basis and has had a gmail address for a couple of years. Of course, he can never remember his password and doesn't get much beyond The Wiggles or ABC Kids, but still ...
posted by dg at 12:12 AM on December 12, 2007

Wouldn't it be weird if a shark attacked a kangaroo?
posted by bunglin jones at 1:18 AM on December 12, 2007

klangklangston: You're talking about slime molds, and they stay slime molds the entire time, they don't turn into "amoebas", "slugs" or "mushrooms". And they live everywhere, not just madagascar. here is a blog entry by Carl Zimmer about them.
posted by delmoi at 2:58 AM on December 12, 2007

Feels half-redundant at this point, but for Brocktoon and posterity here's the Big Big Question thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:06 AM on December 12, 2007

My 5 year old needs an answer to "What is the weirdest thing you've ever heard of?"

Send the kid to goatse.cz
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:24 AM on December 12, 2007

In Tokyo there are these little old women, bent almost double by age and a lifetime of carrying heavy burdens or stooping to sow rice or wearing spine-weakening kimono backboards, who walk the sidewalks and train platforms early and late with cloth-wrapped bundles twice their size on their curled backs; five or six of them form a train, and they move at a glacial pace, sometimes stepping with canes, like something from The Dark Crystal.

In my neighborhood (Taito-ku Yanaka 3-chome) there was a wizened nonagenarian who walked her adorable pomeranian puppy in a high-sided grocery cart with a soft blanket folded in the bottom and chew toys in case the puppy got tired during her walk. When the old lady decided the puppy needed to go, she would pick it up, place it on the sidewalk, wait, scoop and bag the poop responsibly, and then wipe the dog's ass with soft toilet paper.

Watching another human wipe a dog's ass is humiliating in a strange way; knowing it happens every day is weird.
posted by breezeway at 7:28 AM on December 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

The first ones that come to mind:

Kid weird: Pillbugs (rollie-pollies, potato bugs) are actually crustaceans.

Teenage weird: There are alkali elements that you can drop in water that are really reactive.

Adult weird: Watching my close friend on Ripley's Believe it or Not suspend himself from his back and hang from a mobile, all while bouncing around and generally acting like a nut.
posted by quin at 8:25 AM on December 12, 2007

"You're talking about slime molds, and they stay slime molds the entire time, they don't turn into "amoebas", "slugs" or "mushrooms". And they live everywhere, not just madagascar. here is a blog entry by Carl Zimmer about them."

Uh, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. Note that Zimmer uses the words "amoeba" (since that describes their unicellular structure) and "slug." They then fruit like mushrooms. You could try reading the link you gave me if you'd like to know more.

The ones in Madagascar were huge, up to about six inches when in slug form, and they were the ones featured in the movie.
posted by klangklangston at 8:39 AM on December 12, 2007

How about just telling him...

"You used to live in my balls, man!"

Apologies to Mr. Chapelle.
posted by utsutsu at 8:48 AM on December 12, 2007

Take it to Metachat.
posted by theora55 at 10:15 AM on December 12, 2007

PB, banana and mayo. Never a greater homemade sandwich constructed.

You are one fucked up human being. I think I hate you a little, now.
posted by middleclasstool at 10:28 AM on December 12, 2007

It is a perfect sandwich. It's understandable that you would be frightened, but the path to enlightment lies, guiding torches flickering warmly in the night, before your hesitating feet.

PBMB.
PBMB.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:40 AM on December 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'll grant you that if you toast the bread, remove the banana, and add B, L, and of course T, then you've got something.

OR...

You could remove the banana, replace the bread with hamburger buns, add a greasy hamburger patty, lettuce, and tomato, and then, why, you've got the world famous Guber Burger. Which, for those who dreaded its demise (goddamn MoDOT highway construction) is BACK.

Sedalia represent!
posted by middleclasstool at 10:58 AM on December 12, 2007

Some people put mayo on their freedom fries. That's weird.

In a gas station bathroom a while back, I saw a vending machine selling "freedom ticklers" for a couple quarters. That's weird.
posted by vytae at 11:05 AM on December 12, 2007

Ok, French Ticklers in general are weird. I mean, there's not many nerve endings on the cervix. Can someone explain this to me?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:42 PM on December 12, 2007

They go on your fingers. You rub her vulva.
posted by klangklangston at 3:36 PM on December 12, 2007