The Top Ten Stupidest Ideas on Flickr

5th August 2008

Did I spend several hours perusing photos tagged “stupid” on Flickr? I did. And I did it for you, my friends. Here’s the payoff for all that arduous clicking while I watched Tivo.

The Top Ten Stupidest Ideas on Flickr

10. Standing over a body of freezing water on a hunk of thin ice.

9. Nude photo shoot at the base of a waterfall, over which logs frequently crash.

8. Using a wet/dry vacuum on exhaust mode to stoke a fire.

7. Lighting fireworks on your head or standing over the pretty, pretty lights.

6. Playing guitar while driving.

5. Sweeping snow off an icy roof.

4. Breathing fire… in your kitchen.

3. Rigging an extension cord to float in the pool. (So halfwitted that I almost assume it’s a joke.)

2. Ignoring crossing warnings at the train tracks.

1. Leaping from cliff to cliff, in flip-flops, with one arm full of camera equipment. (Update: Snopes says the photo has been cropped to seem more dramatic.)

Pretty spectacular, no? And lest you think this is all the stupidity the Internet has to offer, tune in tomorrow for the “kids do the darndest things” version of this list.

2,609 thoughts on “The Top Ten Stupidest Ideas on Flickr”

  1. sandra

    Aww, too bad some people have already removed the “stupid” tag. And unfortunately, #1 links back to…this post.

  9. Ana

    #1 made my stomach drop like on a roller coaster. And #3? Hmmm those guys deserve what they get! Don’t you learn about electricity and water in 3rd grade?

  10. Norby

    #1 isn’t as bad as it looks (it’s covered either in the comments or elsewhere). I’m willing to bet #2 was staged. And that guitar guy? Go search youtube or liveleak for the guy lying down on his motorcycle and texting while weaving through traffic …

    -/\/

  12. Elise

    I have little patience for abject stupidity so… I am dying laughing at these. Especially the jackass with the guitar and the fact that the white power strip in #3 is BEING HELD UP BY RUBBER SANDALS. *cries*

  14. Steph

    All of these are proof that product warning labels need to be removed and nature allowed to take it’s course BEFORE they’re old enough to end up on Flickr.

  15. J. Bo

    I’m reminded of Click & Clack’s “Famous Last Words” series– unbelievably stupid stunts that are invariably prefaced with the phrase “Hey, watch this!”

  18. Jen

    LOL! I love how the fire ball pic has the guy tell you exactly how to do it and then he adds, “don’t do it”. Um yeah, thanks for that buddy.

  19. Robin

    The extension cord in the pool makes me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. That is beyond crazy.

  20. Laura

    #3 was debunked on another web site a bunch of months ago (I can’t remember where, sorry). It was set up as a joke, the end of the cord that is out of frame isn’t plugged into anything.

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  26. Debby Phillips

    I have to say the guy leaping from cliff to cliff in his flip flops was the most shocking one. You may be able to recover from getting shocked in a pool with a floating 6 way… but falling in-between those cliffs… I doubt it!

  28. Miss A

    The cliff jumper photo is misleading, as the photographer crops out the connecting bridge of rock between the two he’s jumping between (this is a popularly photographed area spot). Still a cool and dangerous photo, but the fall would have been more like 20 feet if he’d missed. Still, flip flops!?

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  30. August

    #5 – Sweeping snow is only dangerous if you’re a moron and goof off while you do it. It is, however, very necessary if you live in areas with heavy snow fall and long winters. Letting six to eight feet of snow accumulate on your roof is a very, very bad idea. It will most likely buckle in places, and you’ll have crazy leaks when it all thaws. Or even worse, the water will pool in the spots that have buckled, and then freeze again… which will cause even worse damage to your roof from all the expanding and contracting. The stupid part of that photo is that he’s doing it while wearing running shoes.

  31. Timo

    Hello,

    Number five is not certainly stupid, it’s what you have to do up north when there’s a lot of snow if you don’t want your roof to collapse because of the weight of the snow.

    While snow can be as light as powder, wet snow that has rained in not so freezing temperatures is very heavy. Hence going up to the roof.

    Number 10 is certainly very stupid, but it’s not that uncommon as a kid if your home (and dry, warm clothes) are close by.

    Many people voluntarely swim in holes cut in the ice, when the air temperature can be below -20 fahrenheit. Just google “avantouinti”

    timo / finland

  32. history is a weapon

    Um, let me join the chorus: It isn’t fun to do, but you sometimes have to sweep snow off the roof. When I was a teenager, I’d have to help my dad do it because otherwise the roof would cave in. When you get a few feet of snow up there, the weight can be pretty serious. The rest of these are dumb, yes, but sweeping snow off the roof isn’t.

  33. Lyz

    The roof-sweeper looks like he’s been working at it awhile, so he probably has a good technique.

    And letting 6-8 feet accumulate is definitely NOT a good idea.

  37. Shawn

    I am the photo taker of #8 and although it was VERY dangerous, I was impressed at how innovative he was and how quickly he got the fire going.

  38. Steph Mineart

    I’ve seen that outcropping of rock at the Grand Canyon, and I disagree with Snopes – it’s still wicked dangerous and very, very stupid. He might land on that little ledge, but he could just as easily not.

    They have an average of 8-10 deaths in the Grand Canyon every year from people doing crazy stuff like this.

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  40. Jyri

    Well, the picture with the extension cord looks scary and is also if the cord is just connected to the normal outlet but if theres an isolating transformer between the outlet and pool the setup is in fact quite safe…

  43. WB

    I don’t know. The way the guys in the pool are looking at the extension cord makes me think it’s a joke. The other end of that cord isn’t necessarily plugged into anything.

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  52. Nikki

    #2 probably isn’t that bad since it is probably the train tracks right next to Purdue Calumet. Trains are always stopping while at crossings or stopping right before/after them. So, I’m gonna bet that train wasn’t moving at the time the picture was taken.

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  55. The Sinner

    hmm
    funny
    but those aren’t really GOOD photographs, they’re just pictures with a very high amateur rate, if you know what I mean…

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  58. andyou

    Hey, I’m a newbie & just wanted to say I love your site. So diverse and interesting. I could stay all day but life calls!!

    Thanks for the perusal!

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  65. Perplexed.

    Why would you write a post about photos but have none of them in the story? Linking to them is a good thing but I’m not going to open a whole bunch of tabs to get to your point. Great idea but you lost me the second I realised that reading your post would be hard work. I hope you learn from this before I next stumble across your site.

  86. DAWG

    I’m the one who took the second picture. It is definitely not staged, I don’t know anyone who is stupid enough to do something like that. Also this was not by the college, if you looked at the comments, this was in front of the train station where people get killed for doing this.

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