We’ve all seen countless things on screens that seem like a good idea. Movies, Youtube, T.V. shows, vines… All filled out with scenes that not only entertain us but also let our imagination flow and wonder, “This seems so awesome, maybe I’ll try it out.”
Think again, always!! Think again. While doing research for this story I thought, “O.K. I’ll try the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge”. I didn’t want bigger lips, I just thought it would be funny. I read all the warnings from doctors but I didn’t read something very important: it can leave a big nasty bruise! I did it for less than 30 seconds, enough to leave me looking like a two-year-old that’s been drinking grape juice.
Now I have a purple moustache over my upper lip. Yes! I’m embarrassed to say I’m an educated woman who tried a silly thing I saw online. Moral of the story… Don’t try everything that you see on the screen!
Now more than ever, people around the world are following trends and ideas they see on their screens, this has resulted in multiple visits to the E.R, embarrassing moments, death, an extremely bruised egos, or in my case a bruised face.
15 Sex On The Beach
If you ever watched Chris Isaak’s music video for “Wicked Games”, then you probably tried or imagined how sexy sex by or in the ocean could be.
IT’S NOT!!! Waves come and knock you over, water goes up your nose and you struggle to breathe while you’re trying to kiss your partner. Sand gets into your private parts and trust me! Those are some areas you don’t want to exfoliate.
Hollywood just takes a couple days to come up with these perfect scenes. It is of course scripted and edited, devoid of reality. We never see the model’s skin with a rash from constantly rubbing herself against the sand or the guy nearly breaking his back carrying her around all the time.
14 Waking up flawless after a long night of partying
We see it in movies, T.V. shows and music videos. Men and women go out, drink, dance, sweat and have ridiculously sexy sex with a perfect stranger. They wake up the next morning and they look flawless; no dry skin, perfect wild looking hair and they kiss the handsome stranger while they make their exit.
First of all the screen doesn’t transmit smells! Regardless of how beautiful a woman or a man is, if they drank A LOT the previous night, there WILL be smells, and not pretty ones.
The screen also comes with professional makeup artists and hair stylists that make sure to leave an already beautiful woman as a flawless walking and talking mannequin. Reality will slap a real life woman in the face when they wake up the next morning after a long night of partying; their hair would look fuzzy, their skin would be all broken, wide pores, visible wrinkles, dehydrated skin and the smell!!! The screen tends to forget about the negatives of reality and focuses on the positives of fantasy.
13 Drug Use
If we owe anyone the glamorization of drug use, it would be Hollywood! They made it seem so sexy and cool. T.V. shows like The O.C. made it appear like the hot, rich, cool kids were all doing it. Yeah!! It looked so cool right?
Well it’s not! Drug use actually destroys every inch of your body. It’s not sexy, it’s not cool, and drugs really destroy your body.
Doing drugs is not sexy, look at what it did to Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes and Courtney Love, just to mention a few of the long list of famous people who got mixed up in the wrong crowds. Hollywood has taken a serious problem people face in their lives and sensationalized it to make it seem “edgy”, “exciting” and “cool” in order to make that extra emotional hit in their TV shows.
12 Losing Weight In No Time
The overweight actress goes on a diet for three days, exercises a little bit and voila! She’s back to looking skinny again. It doesn’t work like that, at least not in a healthy way or in real life.
Losing weight in a healthy manner involves lots of exercise, a healthy diet, discipline, patience and time! It’s not easy! The simple fact that people on the screen make it seem easy is what keeps so many of us mere mortals believing it is and looking for an easy way out.
If it were so easy, obesity wouldn’t be the epidemic of the XXI century. Eat healthy, exercise and be disciplined, these three things will not only do wonders for your body but also for your long term physical and emotional health.
11 Sex In The Shower
If you’ve tried it, you know it’s impossible to kiss under the shower head, unless you can breathe under water or have extremely low water pressure.
Just like sex by the ocean, sex in the shower is not as sexy as it seems; it’s slippery, there’s water forcing its way to your eyes, nose and mouth. You make weird faces trying to open your eyes a little bit to make sense of what part of your partner's body you are kissing. You may cough when water gets into your mouth and most often, runny noses do occur.
Let's not even talk about being lifted up in the shower, it's dangerous and doesn't look as graceful as it does on the big screen.
10 Children Talking Back To Their Parents
How many Youtube videos have we watched of rude children talking back to their parents and thinking “How Adorable.” You read the comments and people love it!
However, this is only “cute” for a minute or two, because you personally do not have deal with that child constantly. It’s not cute seeing a child disrespect and talk back to an adult, it shows a lack of respect and discipline.
Then they become teenagers that keep following this pattern and parents wonder why did they become such nasty teenagers that have no respect for others?
Well… Parents saw it on a screen and thought it was cute, so they let it happen for longer than they should.
9 Touristic Areas
In movies they look empty, clean, and quiet with perfect sunsets and perfect weather. Even if it’s winter, you see the actors warm in their coats, not shaking one bit. If its summer they look fresh, no sweat in sight and don’t get me started on fashion!
You think it would be a great idea to go there on your next vacation and SURPRISE!!! You have to fight other tourists to at least have a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.
8 Sex In General
Sex in general looks amazing on the screen, there are no body odors or unwanted sounds, people look hot and spectators get turned on. Well… I’m pretty sure you’ve had sex and you’ve probably noticed it is not as sexy as they make it out to seem. Real life sex can be awkward and can have some moments that we would like to forget. Sex with someone new can be the most awkward sex and it is not portrayed that way on the big screen.
7 Beauty
Flat tummies, clear skin, invisible pores, big boobs, big butts, no cellulite, perfect hair, perfect everything!
In real life, ordinary women are nothing like that, not even the actresses playing their perfect female roles. It requires extensive makeup sessions, hair stylists retouching their exteriors every 5 or so minutes, multiple facials, excruciating workout sessions and A LOT of plastic surgery.
How many times have we left a movie theater feeling like Princess Fiona from Shrek? Countless!!! However don’t feel bad, those actresses don’t look like that without makeup or without their millions of dollars in beauty teams.
6 The “Perfect” Man
Women around the world fell deeply and madly in love with Edward Cullen and Christian Grey. They became the representation of the “Perfect” man and women liked it.
They were authoritarian, controlling and expected for their partner to be submissive. In a real life relationship this would carry countless series of psychological and emotional problems for women who would be treated in such a way.
On the screen it all looks sexy and wonderful, but in real life is a form of abuse and control. Harming and dangerous in any relationship.
5 Family
Yes! We do see many mom’s complain, however, they all swear having children was the best thing that ever happened to them, regardless if they’re living below the poverty line, struggling with their own existence or being absolutely depressed.
Most TV or movie families have a great dynamic, are financially comfortable and love being around each other. For those who have kids and or struggle with money from time to time you know that things are not always peachy.
4 Gender Roles
Women look pretty, have children, work part time and have dinner ready for hubby. He on the other hand goes to work, brings home the bacon and rules over the house, the mom and the children.
Girls are models, moms and cooks, while boys are scientists, engineers, doctors and in the military. Girls are meant to be dumb and sexy and boys meant to be the strong alpha male.
Gender roles that have dictated what a woman is suppose to be. Like Holly Madison --- Huff Hefner’s ex-girlfriend said on her book Down The Rabbit Hole, how she felt the need to play a stupid woman on her reality show The Girls Next Doors because it was what was expected of women; Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie had made millions portraying themselves that way. Men’s dream! Pretty and stupid.
This affected Holly emotionally later on, she realized she didn’t agree, nor like the image she had been portraying of herself.
3 Running Forever and Never Getting Tired
People on the screen really know how to run! Through airports, through cities, through malls, it doesn’t matter where they’re doing it or how big the distance is, they run endlessly and when they reach their destination the look flawless, no sweat, not excessive heart palpitations, they regain their breath in no time and it seems like they never get tired.
If they were competing in a marathon, they’d win for sure! They just never get tired!
Unless you’re an Olympic (gold winner) athlete, there’s no way you could run that much and not even sweat.
Average Joe’s like the ones in the movies would be sweaty, exhausted and unable to regain the breath for at least four minutes and their shirts would be stain with sweat marks.
2 Street Racing
Fast and the Furious made street racing a trend. Everyone left the movie theater and wanted to be Vin Diesel racing everywhere. Street racing incremented in Los Angeles straight after the first movie came out in theaters, this according to The Guardian.
The speed, the hot actors, the adrenaline, car crashes where most people made it out alive made it out to seem like a “fun” idea. Street racing might look sexy, however the consequences can be deadly.
We all heard the tragic news of Paul Walker, one of the leading actors in The Fast and the Furious series, when he lost his own life when his friend was speeding his Porsche at over 100mph, resulting in a deadly car crash that cost both men their lives.
1 Sex Videos!
No!! Sex videos will not catapult you to stardom and unimaginable riches. Why did it work for Kim Kardashian? Multiple factors; she was already from a sort of “known” family, her momager made sure to exploit her daughter’s sex video and for some random weird reason people became obsessed with the Kardashians.
Doing a sex video to attain fame and money will most likely make you end up on an adult film site and lead nowhere but exposing your privacy to complete strangers or even worse it could become viral but only between your acquaintances. Awful.
Sources: theguardian.com, abcnews.go.com, psychologytoday.com
