5 Mental Disorders That Only Occur in One Place on Earth. What's awesome about crazy people is they always find ways to surprise us.
And there might not be anything stranger in the world of mental illness than culture-bound syndromes. These are specific, and incredibly bizarre, forms of insanity that only happen in certain countries or cultures, for reasons that often leave experts baffled. Such as... #5. Wendigo Psychosis: Normal Folks in a Man-Eating Frenzy The Wendigo is a mythical monster that is featured in the folklore of some northern Native American and Canadian tribes. Pre-Rice Vampires. Now that we've cleared up what a true Wendigo is, you might be wondering in terror what exactly "Wendigo Psychosis" entails, and if you're not, you should probably start right about now. The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth (Part 2) In Cracked's continuous effort to make your local haunted house look like a boring pile of dog turds, we once again present the creepiest real places on Earth.
Whether it's due to their bizarre histories, suspicious coincidences or good ol' human insanity, these are the locations even the die-hardest of atheists wouldn't venture into without a crucifix and a Super Soaker full of Pope-blessed water. Located smack in the middle of a swamp in the heart of Aztec country is the popular tourist destination La Isla de las Munecas, or Island of the Dolls, a name missing at least two adjectives and the word "fucking. " To get there, visitors have to hire a guide to take them by boat through the canals of Xochimilco, then to the island itself, all the while making the guide promise on a stack of Bibles that he's not going to abandon them once they reach their destination. "Seriously, Pablo? 6 Glitches That Accidentally Invented Modern Gaming.
Half of the art you enjoy every day is probably due to some happy accident. For instance, most of the tension in Jaws can be credited to the fact that the fake shark they were using was a mechanical nightmare and too ridiculous to show on screen. You wouldn't think video games would be subject to this, however -- a mistake in the code of a game would most likely just melt your Xbox (again) rather than invent some fun new game mechanic. Yet, some of the most iconic features of games can be credited to serendipity: 6 Intimate Details You Can Tell Just By Looking At Someone. How much would you pay to be able to read another person's mind?
As superpowers go, it's a hell of a lot more of a game changer than, say, flight. Your career, your relationships -- everything would change. 7 Legendary Acts of Petty Revenge. Everyone gets pissed off sometimes.
Occasionally, even the most even-headed among us will overreact in childish ways, such as locking your boyfriend out of the car or calling your girlfriend "the Devil. " But there are some people who take petty revenge to dizzying levels of perfection. Getting a Bunch of Scientists to Sign a Paper Saying You're Stupid Being a scientist has to be tough. They spend their days staring down microscopes, knowing full well that when someone asks, "What do you do for a living?
" Via WhatWouldOakleyDo"Whatever. 5 Guilty Pleasures The Web Killed While You Weren't Looking. We're guessing not a single person reading this would be willing to take a time machine and go back and live in the pre-Internet era.
Some of us start showing signs of physical withdrawal within 10 minutes of losing our iPhone. Yet... there are things we miss about the world before the World Wide Web. Guilty pleasures that a less connected world used to let us get away with. The odds are none of you have ever, say, robbed a liquor store or assassinated a public figure. But we've all broken the law, if only to sneak a beer before the statute said we were old enough, or to paint a dong on an abandoned bridge.
Ah, but now you're living in the future, where the cops can use the miracle of social networking to nail you for crimes you didn't think anyone really gave a shit about. 4 Child Vloggers Who Make Us Fear For Their Future. LinkSTORM. 5 Popular Safety Measures That Don't Make You Any Safer. It's so hard to think logically about safety.
We figure that any time our health or the safety of our children is at stake, it's better safe than sorry. Our safety is too important for logic, damn it! Unfortunately, this leads to a whole lot of well-publicized and expensive safety measures that are often worthless, or downright dangerous. Like... Airport Security Measures After 9/11, we knew that stopping terrorism would take a bold, creative strategy, one flexible enough to adapt quickly to changes in tactics.
And America was saved forever. Thus the no fly list was established. 6 Non-Medical Excuses That Should Qualify You for a Sick Day. There are a handful of good excuses for not going to work: illness, death in the family, and actually that's just about it.
But considering just how soul-crushing so many jobs are, I think that list needs to be expanded. I know for me getting to work on time and in a productive state is dependent on so many rituals, all of which must go exactly as planned or I'm just no good to anyone. Am I being a big baby? I sure I am, but when I'm King these will all be valid excuses. (Also you will be disemboweled for calling me a big baby, you fucking peasant.) #6. It doesn't happen often, but once every five years or so, I dream a member of my family has died.
After this nightmare, I then go to work, but I shouldn't. Dear Boss, 10 Words and Phrases You Won't Believe Shakespeare Invented. Shakespeare invented more words than most people even know.
Seriously, there's at least 1,500 different words and phrases that don't appear anywhere prior to the Bard of Avon putting them on paper. When he got stuck trying to think up a word, the man just made his own. It's kind of like what rappers do today, except the words Shakespeare made up got embedded into our culture and have formed the cornerstone of our discourse, rather than being obnoxiously spouted by white college students trying to be ironic. 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead fucking zombie.
So there. Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse: Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor. How long until somebody tries this? As seen in... 5 Personality Flaws That Science Will Cure in Our Lifetime. At least half of the bad people in the world avoid trying to change because they insist nothing is their fault.
It's all due to their childhood, or their genes -- their temper, their weight, their bad habits -- all of it is outside of their control. It's bullshit, right? Well ... not entirely. As we learn more about genetics, we find that more and more bad habits at least have their roots in our DNA. The 10 Coolest Foreign Words The English Language Needs. Have you ever blurted out, "Wow, that guy is just so...so... " and then were left floundering with nothing to say? Well, it's not always your fault. English doesn't have words for every situation, or even the ones that happen every damned day.
Fortunately, other languages usually do. And since we already borrow words from them (just recently we've taken "schadenfreude," the German word for pleasure in someone else's misfortune) here's a few that we need to pick up right away: Bakku-shan (Japanese) The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some places in which none of us would want to spend a night. These places have well earned their reputations as being so creepy, tragic or mysterious (or all three) that they definitely qualify as "haunted. " Places like... Aokigahara is a woodland at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that makes The Blair Witch Project forest look like Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood.
It probably has something to do with all the dead bodies scattered around. What Niagara Falls is to weddings, Aokigahara is to suicide. More than 500 fucking people have taken their own lives in Aokigahara since the 1950s. The trend has supposedly started after Seicho Matsumoto published his novel Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees) where two of his characters commit suicide there.
6 Adorable Cat Behaviors With Shockingly Evil Explanations. There seem to be two kinds of people in the world: those who don't understand cats, and those who think cats are kind of douchebags. Unfortunately for cat lovers, science has kind of come down on the side of that second group. 5 Reasons The Internet Could Die At Any Moment. The Internet was originally invented to be a communication network that could survive a nuclear war. Ironically, the monster that grew from that idea known as the World Wide Web is actually very, very fragile. They didn't anticipate what the Internet would become--because they weren't fucking insane--and as a result, the whole operation now sits on a rather shaky foundation. #5. The Internet is a Series of Cables, and Cables Can be Cut The Catastrophe: The 5 Most Horrific Ways People Have Tried to Discourage Sex. 7 Shockingly Dark Origins of Lovable Children's Characters.
6 Creepy Animal Behaviors That Science Can't Explain. Animals do a lot of strange things: dogs will go after their own butts for hours, some fish fly and if some people are to be believed, sheep have the amazing ability to attract New Zealanders and Scotsmen. But there are some things about the animal world that leave the smartest of us scratching their heads in puzzlement saying, "Fucked if I know... " 6 Things That Are Secretly Turning You Into A Bad Person. The 5 Most Popular Safety Laws (That Don't Work) Really, is it ever possible to be too safe? 6 People Who Had No Clue Their Faces Were World-Famous. Becoming accidentally famous must be an unpleasantly surreal experience. The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales. 6 Shockingly Evil Things Babies Are Capable Of. 6 Ways They're Turning Random Crap into Alternative Energy.
Look, people, if we're going to solve this whole energy crisis thing, we're going to have to think outside the box. Way the hell outside. Fortunately, the alternative energy gold rush is full of researchers and companies doing just that. 9 Words That Don't Mean What You Think. The English language is under assault by stupid people who use words they don't understand, and is defended by pompous asses who like to correct those people. The 5 Least Romantic Keys to a Happy Relationship. 6 Terrifying Things They Don't Tell You About Childbirth. 8 Racist Words You Use Every Day. 6 Everyday Words With Disturbing Alternate Meanings. 5 Reasons The Internet Could Die At Any Moment.
The 8 Worst X-Men Ever. The 9 Most Devastating Insults From Around the World. 5 Retarded Health Campaigns That Backfired (Hilariously) 5 Unexpected Downsides of High Intelligence. 5 Modern Sports That Started As Excuses for Sex and Violence.