You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News.
Shocking But Utterly True Facts.
by Writers of Cracked.com.
For refusing to collapse into an earth-devouring black hole under the force of its own staggering density, we dedicate this book to Theodore Roosevelt"s left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
THE Cracked.com editorial team would like to thank the thousands of talented comedy writers who worked tirelessly, often under threat of violence, to make this book possible. editorial team would like to thank the thousands of talented comedy writers who worked tirelessly, often under threat of violence, to make this book possible.
In addition to the folks listed in the credits section, we would like to thank every last member of the Cracked Writer"s Workshop. The Workshop is an ongoing experiment based on the idea that if you let thousands of Internet strangers into your writers" room, some of them will turn out to be geniuses. Others will turn out to be dangerous and deranged, sure, but that was a risk we were willing to take. It paid off-you"re holding the proof in your hands. We would also like to thank the effortlessly funny PWoT forum moderators, for cultivating the only online community where such an experiment could be anything but an embarra.s.sing failure.
We"re eternally grateful to the ill.u.s.trators and Randall Maynard, for their ability to draw exactly what we had in our heads, except way better and without all the d.i.c.ks. Also, to our fact checker Ben Smith, for the hours of Google and library searches that have almost certainly made him a person of interest to the FBI.
A huge thanks to everyone at Demand Media, especially Larry Fitzgibbon, Jeremy Reed, Stewart Marlborough, and Lex Friedman, for taking a chance on a site that, in retrospect, probably wasn"t very good yet, and to Richard Rosenblatt and Shawn Colo, for trusting that it could one day be worth a d.a.m.n. And, of course, thanks to Cracked.com GM Oren Katzeff, for putting up with us and running a tight ship that features far less sodomy than most in naval history. We"d especially like to thank Mandy Ng, Adam Tourkow, Simon Jia, Lina Ung, and Jeremy Rylan, for the incredible work they put in every day to keep GM Oren Katzeff, for putting up with us and running a tight ship that features far less sodomy than most in naval history. We"d especially like to thank Mandy Ng, Adam Tourkow, Simon Jia, Lina Ung, and Jeremy Rylan, for the incredible work they put in every day to keep Cracked.com up and running. We"d also like to thank Matt Polesetsky, David Ho, and Emma Sansing in the legal department, Wadooah Wali and our PR team, and our SEO, marketing, sales, and monetization teams. Special thanks to Wil Teran and the design team for making us look like a real, legitimate website, and to Shannon O"Brien and Moment Design for all the free advice. up and running. We"d also like to thank Matt Polesetsky, David Ho, and Emma Sansing in the legal department, Wadooah Wali and our PR team, and our SEO, marketing, sales, and monetization teams. Special thanks to Wil Teran and the design team for making us look like a real, legitimate website, and to Shannon O"Brien and Moment Design for all the free advice.
We would especially like to thank Becky Cole and Nadia Kashper from Penguin, and our agent Dan Strone from Trident Media Group, for their invaluable feedback, and for giving us the creative license to stray outside of the rules as dictated by the AP (and common decency) when we swore it was necessary.
And of course none of this would be possible without the young men and women who have fought and died so we could go on doing our ridiculous job. We may not know any of your names, but you are the bravest interns in the world.
INTRODUCTION.
THE CONSPIRACY.
YOU have been the victim of a conspiracy to make the world around you more boring than it actually is. have been the victim of a conspiracy to make the world around you more boring than it actually is.
It"s true. Did you know that you could save the lives of thousands of depressed people by painting the Golden Gate Bridge blue? How about the brain parasite currently infecting 50 percent of people on earth that turns lab rats into zombies-did you know about that that? We didn"t think so.
Nearly everything your impressionable mind soaks up from your peers, teachers, parents, and the media is a lie. Imagine if Pulp Fiction Pulp Fiction and and Goodfellas Goodfellas had been rolled into a single movie and set loose aboard the s.p.a.ceship from had been rolled into a single movie and set loose aboard the s.p.a.ceship from Aliens Aliens. That"s the real world you"ve been missing. The people who taught you everything you know took that movie, edited out all of the most aggressively a.s.s-kicking scenes, and made it into a Sat.u.r.day-morning cartoon. This book is the shocking, unrated director"s cut.
You hold in your hands the most mind-blowing nuggets of information federal and local anti-headsplosion laws allow us to print on anything that"s not a tarp. In these pages, you will find answers to questions you didn"t even know you should be asking. Questions like, Why were were the n.a.z.i"s so well dressed? and, Why is this five-inch-long hornet chasing me? the n.a.z.i"s so well dressed? and, Why is this five-inch-long hornet chasing me?
THE ROAD TO YOU MIGHT BE A ZOMBIE YOU MIGHT BE A ZOMBIE.
The many shocking answers you"ll find in this book all arose from a single question we found ourselves asking about two years ago: How can we come up with $2.5 million, and fast?
It didn"t take us long to settle on the idea of writing a book. Like our online humor articles, books contain words. But while our website is free, people who suck at shoplifting pay money money for books. The more we looked into this book business, the more the idea checked out. Our first move was to take a quick survey of some of the bestselling books of all time. for books. The more we looked into this book business, the more the idea checked out. Our first move was to take a quick survey of some of the bestselling books of all time.
The Bible (300 BC-AD 95), 6 billion copies soldQuotations from Chairman Mao (1964), 800 million copies sold (1964), 800 million copies soldThe Koran (AD 610-632), 800 million copies soldXinhua Dictionary (1957), 400 million copies sold (1957), 400 million copies sold A number of striking similarities jumped out immediately. In addition to being old as s.h.i.t, we noticed that all four endeavored to answer some of life"s biggest questions. After literally hours of brainstorming, we sent off the first draft of our book proposal and began taking out sizable loans and buying tiny expensive jets (to serve as fuel for our larger, also expensive, jets). Unfortunately, some guy named Webster had somehow retroactively stolen our idea "What Words Mean" and had even found definitions for real words rather than ones he"d just made up. After follow-up calls with publishing houses failed to turn up a single major religion looking to join forces with Crackedism, the official religion we promised to make up, one of the publishers said something that made us realize that life"s "big questions" had changed.
"Life"s big questions have changed," she said. "Why don"t you write a book called You Might Be a Zombie You Might Be a Zombie?"
Whether she realized it or not, that lady (whose name now escapes us) had given us the idea for our book. n.o.body needs to know the meaning of things like existence and words anymore. Hollywood has already answered those questions for us. Modern people have more-pressing concerns, like "Seriously, I"ve been sprinting for like ten minutes straight. Why won"t this enormous hornet stop chasing me?" and "Did . . . did it just shoot poison at my eyes?"
The answers to those questions and more are contained somewhere in the following pages. We don"t want to spoil it for you, but the short answer to the second one is yes, that giant hornet did just shoot poison at your eyes. That s.h.i.t happens all the time all the time.
DIRECTIONS FOR PROPER USE.
You Might Be a Zombie should be read in a seated position. should be read in a seated position.
Due to risks posed by rapidly descending jaws, males are advised to wear an athletic supporter.
Females are advised to wear as little as possible, though that"s more of a marketing thing.
During the course of reading, you may find yourself motivated to lead a torch-wielding mob to the home of every teacher who failed to tell you about Teddy Roosevelt"s life. Our legal department asks that you resist this impulse or, at the very least, that you blame it on Catcher in the Rye Catcher in the Rye.
THE FIVE MOST HORRIFYING BUGS IN THE WORLD.
THERE are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects on earth at any given moment. Seriously, that"s a real number. For every one of us, there are 1.5 billion bugs. are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects on earth at any given moment. Seriously, that"s a real number. For every one of us, there are 1.5 billion bugs.
But some of them are so horrifying, just one is too many. Here are five you"ll want to avoid at all costs.
5. j.a.pANESE GIANT HORNET (VESPA MANDARINIA j.a.pONICA) (VESPA MANDARINIA j.a.pONICA).
It"s the size of your thumb, and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for dramatic effect because, G.o.dd.a.m.n, what a terrible thing a three-inch, acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots the acid directly into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone c.o.c.ktail in it that"ll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive?
Also, it can fly fifty miles in a day. It"d be nice to say something rea.s.suring at this point, like "Don"t worry, they only live on top of really tall mountains where n.o.body wants to live," but no, they live all over the freaking place. They kill more people in j.a.pan than all animals-venomous, nonvenomous, irradiated mutant-combined. At least forty people die that way every year, each of them horribly.
You"d think the fact that humans aren"t their favorite target would provide some measure of consolation. You"d think that until you heard what they do to bees. An adult hornet will fly miles to pick a fight with a hive humming with thousands of them. Outnumbered, the Vespa mandarinia Vespa mandarinia sprays the nest with some of the acid/pheromone and brings in reinforcements, usually thirty or so fellow hornets. They then descend upon the beehive like an unholy plague of h.e.l.l-born death engines and proceed to make this world a scary place. sprays the nest with some of the acid/pheromone and brings in reinforcements, usually thirty or so fellow hornets. They then descend upon the beehive like an unholy plague of h.e.l.l-born death engines and proceed to make this world a scary place.
In three hours, thousands of adult bees will be lying around, in piles of limbs and heads and bits of things that could possibly have been alive at one point, and the hornets will have stormed the hive and flown away with all the bee"s children, who will then be eaten.
Yeah, nature is hard-core.
4. BULLET ANT (PARAPONERA CLAVATA) (PARAPONERA CLAVATA).
It"s a full inch long, lives in trees, and can and will fall on you to scare you away from its hive-the one you didn"t know was there, because it"s in a G.o.dd.a.m.n tree. Before it does this, it shrieks at you. This ant, you see, can shriek.
It"s called a bullet ant because its unusually severe sting feels like you"re getting shot. On the Schmidt Sting Pain Index (yes, somebody with the worst job in the world has calibrated the relative pain of different insect stings), bullet ants rate as the number one most try-not-to-s.h.i.t-out-your-spine painful in the entirety of the phylum Arthropoda.
Also-and we do feel the need to stress this-they f**king shriek at you before they attack.
Some of the peoples indigenous to the Central American rain forests, where bullet ants live, use them as part of their initiation-to-manhood ceremony. You know the kind. In the West it"s a big party where your relatives give you money. In bullet ant country, they knock out a few hundred bullet ants with naturally occurring chloroform, weave them into leaf sleeves so their heads are stuck and their stingers are facing inward. They then wait for the ants to wake up cranky, put the sleeves on their arms, and immediately have the holy bejesus stung out of them by-and this is important-the hundreds of bullet ants woven into the sleeves, stingers inward. The goal is to leave them on for ten minutes, after which the young man"s arms are stiff, useless lengths of twisting agony, and his body wracked with uncontrollable spasms for days. In order to actually become a man, they have to endure this ritual twenty times.
3. AFRICANIZED HONEYBEE (APIS MELLIFERA SCUTELLATA) (APIS MELLIFERA SCUTELLATA).
You know how you can spot one of these? You can"t. There is no physical way to determine the difference between an Africanized bee and a common European bee.
You can, however, easily tell the difference based on their behavior. Regular bees will give you about nine seconds of being too close to their hive before attacking you. They"ll typically consider you chased off after about three hundred feet.
Africanized bees do not roll like that. They give you half a second of being too close before they decide it is time to completely mess your s.h.i.t up. They empty the entire hive-tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of angry, angry bees. When you run, flailing and crying and soiling yourself screaming, "Jesus Christ, I"m covered in bees!" they will chase you for over half a mile.
Africanized bees owe their existence to science. Warwick E. Kerr created them in Brazil during the 1950s by crossing a European bee with an African bee. He wanted a bee that could live in the jungle. He got a bee that swarms by the hundreds of millions, is insanely territorial and mindlessly aggressive, has already killed more people than European honeybees in a relatively brief time in existence-and can live in the jungle.
2. ARMY OR SOLDIER ANT (ECITON BURCh.e.l.lII) (ECITON BURCh.e.l.lII).
By now, you will not be surprised to hear that these ants are huge, with the soldiers reaching a half inch in length. You will also not be surprised to learn that they have ma.s.sive, powerful, machete-like jaws half the length of the soldiers themselves. They"re notorious for dismantling any living thing in their path, regardless of size. They"re also completely blind, which for some reason makes the whole thing worse.
They"re called army ants because the entire colony, comprising up to and over one million insects, is a 100 percent mobile battalion. They don"t make permanent hives, like other ants; they bivouac down in single locations just long enough for the queen to push out thousands of eggs, while the soldiers spread out in wide fans in search of food. Then the eggs hatch and they enter the dreaded swarm phase of their existence.
Much like the word killer killer, nature takes words like dreaded dreaded and and swarm swarm very, very seriously. The ants go on the move, a near-solid ma.s.s of insect death and horror, moving steadily and swiftly along the jungle floor, flaying alive and disa.s.sembling every living thing too stupid, slow, or asleep to get out of the way. There are no painful stingers or ballistic acids; this is the kind of terror that simply flows over you by the hundreds of thousands and rips you apart with unbelievably powerful jaws, utterly and literally blind to size and species, considering everything in its path to be a threat to the continuation of the colony. very, very seriously. The ants go on the move, a near-solid ma.s.s of insect death and horror, moving steadily and swiftly along the jungle floor, flaying alive and disa.s.sembling every living thing too stupid, slow, or asleep to get out of the way. There are no painful stingers or ballistic acids; this is the kind of terror that simply flows over you by the hundreds of thousands and rips you apart with unbelievably powerful jaws, utterly and literally blind to size and species, considering everything in its path to be a threat to the continuation of the colony.
There are reports of animals the size of horses being overwhelmed and shredded by them. Go stand next to a horse and then think about what that means for you.
Army ants are also masters of wholly organic, living architecture. For the good of the colony, the ants will use their own living bodies to build any conceivable structure necessary, latching on to each other to create protective walls and ceilings against the ravages of the weather, bridges to cross otherwise impa.s.sable spans, whatever happens to be needed.
There is no other living thing in the entire world that does this.
And, they"re blind.
1. BOTFLY.
Oh boy. Ohhhhh boy. Okay, botflies.
Each variety of botfly is highly adapted to target a specific animal, and they have delightfully descriptive names like horse stomach botfly, sheep nose botfly, and, hey, guess what? Human botfly. The details vary, but each botfly has the same MO.
The horse stomach botflies, for example, lay their eggs in gra.s.s. Horses eat the eggs when eating the gra.s.s. The eggs hatch in the heat of the horse"s mouth; then the larvae chew through the horse"s tongue and burrow into its belly. There they meet up and dig honeycombs into the horse"s stomach, getting fat. When they"re ready to be flies, they just let go and get p.o.o.ped out of the system.
The human botfly lays its eggs on a horsefly or a mosquito, which finds a human and lands on him or her. The eggs rub off onto the human, whose body heat hatches them. The larvae drop onto the skin and burrow right the h.e.l.l in. Where they live. Under your skin. Eating.
The larvae can grow anywhere in your body; it just depends on where the eggs wind up. You could end up having a fat wormy thing in your tear duct. Or eating through your brain. We know, because it"s happened.
THREE COLORS YOU DON"T REALIZE ARE CONTROLLING YOUR MIND "COLOR doesn"t matter; it"s what"s inside that counts." "Love is color-blind." "There"s no black and white; everything is just shades of gray." Phrases like these dismiss the influence of color, but that"s not what science says: Science thinks colors are s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with your head pretty much 24-7. doesn"t matter; it"s what"s inside that counts." "Love is color-blind." "There"s no black and white; everything is just shades of gray." Phrases like these dismiss the influence of color, but that"s not what science says: Science thinks colors are s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with your head pretty much 24-7.
3. BLUE.
Blue skies signal a nice, relaxing day, and blue eyes have more songs written about them than all other eye colors combined. People who don"t fish or swim will pay more money to live next to the ocean blue. It seems that blue just happens to be a.s.sociated with a lot of the things that make us feel good about the general state of the world.
Well, actually, science says it might not be a coincidence that all those blue things make us feel so d.a.m.n good. After all, blue is the only color in the spectrum that has actively prevented people from killing themselves.
Wait, what?
Blue has a scientifically proven calming effect on human emotion, and that"s being exploited in a variety of ways. In 2000, police in Glasgow, Scotland, installed blue streetlights in high-crime areas. Since then, crime in those notoriously dangerous neighborhoods has dropped by 9 percent.
Figuring anything that might reduce drive-by head b.u.t.ts in the heart of Braveheart Braveheart country was worth a try, police in England and parts of j.a.pan began using the color blue around popular suicide destinations like Blackfriars Bridge in London, which was repainted blue in an attempt to reduce the number of jumpers. For the same reason, several large j.a.panese railway companies switched exclusively to blue light at all their railroad crossings. So far it"s been an astounding success: In 2007, the year before the lights were installed, there were 640 suicides by train. In 2008, after the switch was made, there were none. Zero! country was worth a try, police in England and parts of j.a.pan began using the color blue around popular suicide destinations like Blackfriars Bridge in London, which was repainted blue in an attempt to reduce the number of jumpers. For the same reason, several large j.a.panese railway companies switched exclusively to blue light at all their railroad crossings. So far it"s been an astounding success: In 2007, the year before the lights were installed, there were 640 suicides by train. In 2008, after the switch was made, there were none. Zero!
If you find yourself asking the perfectly valid question, "What the h.e.l.l?" hold on: It gets weirder from there. One theory states that the color itself has a tangible, biological effect on our brain chemistry. Harold Wohlfarth, president of the German Academy of Color Science, conducted a study that found the color of lighting did indeed have an effect on children, but even more bizarrely, it had an equal effect even if they were blind even if they were blind.
It"s hard to argue that children have preconceived notions a.s.sociated with a color when you have to stop in midsentence and explain the entire concept concept of color to them until they break down and cry about all the things they"re missing. Wohlfarth believes that traces of the electromagnetic energy that makes up colored light affect certain neurotransmitters in our brains. When light of a certain color falls on an eye, even if it"s the defective nonseeing variety, it"s relayed to the gland that produces melatonin, which sets off a chain reaction that elevates mood and calms emotions. Basically: blue gives you eye o.r.g.a.s.ms. of color to them until they break down and cry about all the things they"re missing. Wohlfarth believes that traces of the electromagnetic energy that makes up colored light affect certain neurotransmitters in our brains. When light of a certain color falls on an eye, even if it"s the defective nonseeing variety, it"s relayed to the gland that produces melatonin, which sets off a chain reaction that elevates mood and calms emotions. Basically: blue gives you eye o.r.g.a.s.ms.
2. RED.
It"s what you "paint the town" if you"re about to go out and get drunk (a.s.suming you drink with your grandpa). It"s the color that tells bulls to charge, that tells people to stop (a.s.suming they"re not suicidal and approaching a j.a.panese train track). It"s what mysterious women wore in 1980s soft-rock ballads, a decade when it was generally a.s.sumed that painting your car red would make it go faster. Yes, people have believed and said a lot of contradictory, ridiculous things about red over the years, and they can all be backed up by science.
Wait, what?
Behavioral studies have revealed that the color red leads to heightened respiratory and cardiovascular rates. This encourages a sense of heightened awareness, making people more likely to act on impulses and therefore more aggressive.
That"s why red is a common color in bars and restaurants. An experiment on partygoers was conducted by a group of designers and architects, who specially built model rooms decorated entirely in solid colors. They found that the red room was by far the most popular with revelers, who not only flocked to that room in greater numbers but also left substantially earlier. "But why would they leave early?" you might ask if you"ve never had irresponsible, drunken s.e.x with a stranger. It"s the same reason why "red-light district" isn"t just a name-where you find brothels, you will usually find red lights bathing the street in the international color of bad decisions.
But if red makes us worse at controlling our impulses, why do we use it on stop signs? Well, as coffee drinkers know, having elevated heart and breathing rates helps people pay attention. In a study conducted by the University of British Columbia, red was proven to focus attention and increase performance in detail-oriented tasks.
But the stimulant red seems most closely related to is cocaine. Like that drug, red speeds up your pulse, heightens your awareness, and was integrally involved in making the eighties an embarra.s.sing decade to live in. Only, red is still getting you high every day of your life, whether you know it or not.
1. PINK.
So all those connotations of femininity-of pa.s.sivity and gentleness-that"s all a lie, right? Wearing pink is just a way of expressing how comfortable you are with your masculinity, right? Not so fast: turns out pink may actually be girlier than you ever imagined.
Wait, what?
Back in the day, high school football teams would often paint the visiting team"s locker room pink. The gesture was probably given as much thought as whether to call the opposing kicker Nancy or Sally, but then it began to show serious results. Teams that did it won. A lot. So much so that the University of Hawaii and University of Colorado adopted this practice in the NCAA. Unbeknownst to visiting players, the walls didn"t just mock their s.e.xuality but actually sapped their will to fight: Overwhelming win-to-loss ratios were recorded by home teams whose visiting locker rooms were painted pink. It was so effective, the NCAA"s Western Athletic Conference banned the pink visitor"s locker room like it was a performance-enhancing drug.
Operating on the same logic, the sheriff"s office in Mason County, Texas, converted all its inmates" uniforms to pink, including shoes, socks, and even underwear (which brings up an important, if slightly tangential, question: There"s jail-appointed underwear?). The chief goal of this practice, according to the sheriff, was to reduce theft. And it worked. Not only did theft rates drop to zero after the switch, but overall repeat-offender imprisonment rates are down 68 percent as well.
Pink is such an effective calming influence that a specific shade, called Baker-Miller pink, currently graces the walls of many drunk tanks and solitary confinement cells across the country. One such facility is the U.S. Naval Correctional Center in Seattle, Washington. Before switching its color palette, it averaged one a.s.sault on staff every day. After going pink, there was none for six months. So either pink is subliminally pacifying violent criminals across the world, or the secret motivation for all crime is the desire to be pretty, and having satisfied it, these hardened criminals are simply and finally happy.
Dr. Alexander Schauss, director for the American Inst.i.tute for Biosocial Research in Tacoma, Washington, has suggested that pink also has neurological effects on physical abilities. Even if a person wanted to be angry or aggressive, their body would be less likely to respond in the presence of pink. Somehow it limits their heart rates and makes the adrenaline surge needed for most violent actions nearly impossible.
Of course, wearing pink doesn"t necessarily mean that you you are affected by it. After all, if it"s on your body you"re less likely to see it yourself. But everybody else? Well, they have to see it every time they look at you. Do you realize what that means? Wearing pink doesn"t make you a wimp; it makes are affected by it. After all, if it"s on your body you"re less likely to see it yourself. But everybody else? Well, they have to see it every time they look at you. Do you realize what that means? Wearing pink doesn"t make you a wimp; it makes everybody around you a wimp everybody around you a wimp. Technically speaking, that means the toughest guy in any any given situation is the guy in the My Little Pony shirt. given situation is the guy in the My Little Pony shirt.
THE FOUR MOST BADa.s.s PRESIDENTS OF ALL TIME.
THE stories you learned in school about some of America"s most important presidents skipped a few details. Most of what you know about the guys whose faces are on the money in your pocket and the mountain in North Dakota were edited for the same reason health cla.s.s edited out the best aspects of human s.e.xuality: Because telling you the truth was far more likely to end with you putting someone"s eye out. stories you learned in school about some of America"s most important presidents skipped a few details. Most of what you know about the guys whose faces are on the money in your pocket and the mountain in North Dakota were edited for the same reason health cla.s.s edited out the best aspects of human s.e.xuality: Because telling you the truth was far more likely to end with you putting someone"s eye out.
4. ANDREW JACKSON.
When the 1828 election rolled around, a lot of people were terrified when they heard Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson was running. If you"re wondering how a guy we"re calling a bada.s.s got such a lame nickname, it"s because he used to carry a hickory cane around and beat people senseless with it, and if you"re wondering why he did that, it"s because he was a freaking lunatic.