Mental Health and Insanity
Training For A Darwin Award
There's stupid, there's crazy, then there's THIS guy!
Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 01, 2015 -
Comments (4)
Category: Can’t Possibly Be True, Mental Health and Insanity, Goofs and Screw-ups, Trains
Creepy 1948 ad for electro-shock therapy
Back in the 1940s, electro-shock therapy (or "electro-tonic therapy") was promoted as a breakthrough treatment for depression. But it never managed to live up to the hype and was eventually mostly replaced by chemical treatments (popping pills). Though, from what I understand, it's still used in certain situations.If the medical industry was promoting electro-shock therapy today, I imagine they'd show pictures of happy people running through fields and playing with grandchildren. But this 1948 ad (Time - Sep 20, 1948) offered a slightly more realistic and disturbing image.
Note the line: "Brain disclosed for illustration only." Glad they clarified that.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jul 11, 2015 -
Comments (7)
Category: 1940s, Mental Health and Insanity
Montreal Madness of 1892
People acted weird in familiar NOTW fashion even over a century ago, as this Montreal newspaper reveals.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 01, 2015 -
Comments (5)
Category: Emotions, Newspapers, Husbands, Wives, Nineteenth Century, Mental Health and Insanity
ABOUT D@%N TIME
France has enacted a law limiting excessively thin models from working until their BMI reaches a minimum level set forth in the law. Fines and even jail time can be leveled against fashion houses and modeling agents trying to use models that are thinner than the law allows. Its about time we quit letting vanity destroy our little girls.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 05, 2015 -
Comments (13)
Category: Addictions, Eating, Design and Designers, Fashion, Food, Nutrition, Health, Disease, Mental Health and Insanity
Kusama: Princess of Polka Dots
Creator of the "penis chair," among other objects of art.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 14, 2015 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Pop Art, 1960s, Asia, Mental Health and Insanity
Art of the Insane
In early 1946, the St. Anne Insane Asylum in Paris exhibited some of the art work of its inmates. Collecting the art of people identified as insane seems to have been a trend at the time. See, for instance, the book of "Poetry of the Insane," published in 1933, that I posted about back in Feb 2013.The Associated Press caption on the top picture notes, "The writing is a miscellany of seemingly unconnected Gibberish, with no apparent relationship to the drawing."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 21, 2014 -
Comments (4)
Category: Art, 1940s, Mental Health and Insanity
Fear of Phobias
You should be able to amuse and educate yourself for some time at the Phobia List site.
Here are some of my new favorites.
Fear of chickens: Alektorophobia.
Fear of dust: Amathophobia or Koniophobia.
Fear of nosebleeds: Epistaxiophobia.
Fear of virgins or young girls: Parthenophobia.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 08, 2013 -
Comments (16)
Category: Mental Health and Insanity
Special Delivery
Perhaps reviewer GE_Pretzel said it best:
Subject: A sedative masquerading as a bus safety film
There are few films that can surpass or even equal the mediocrity of Special Delivery, a horrendously cumbersome safety film for schoolbus operators that fails to captivate. Instead of simply attempting to discuss the fundamentals of schoolbus safety and procedure in a concise, forthright manner, the film's creators place the necessary educational elements within a dry, unengaging story involving Mickey Miller, a recalcitrant little boy who has developed a strong distrust of the local schoolbus and its driver, Bill Marshall. It appears that Mickey has been reading far too many James Fenimore Cooper novels, as he wears a feathered headdress and continually shoots toy arrows at the schoolbus, a vehicle that he refers to as the "white man's stagecoach." Mickey is miffed when he isn't allowed to board the bus because of his age, but shortly after he reaches "age more than five," he and his older sister Millie are taken on a special bus ride by Bill in an effort to gain the young boy's respect. After a mishmash of schoolbus operation information is conveyed during the trip, Mickey alters his attitude and begins to take well to Bill. At the end of the film, however, Bill humiliates a diminutive boy who isn't allowed to ride the bus by calling him "Shorty" right in front of all of the other children. If Bill is striving to establish a rapport with his future passengers, he certainly isn't doing a good job. This lengthy production is quite a chore to watch.
It should be a crime to wear garish horn-rimmed glasses like the ones Millie sports throughout the film.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 10, 2013 -
Comments (3)
Category: PSA’s, Children, 1960s, Mental Health and Insanity, Bus
The Healthy Mind
Take a psychopath test and see how you rate. My score was as follows; The Healthy Mind, 82% empathic, 24% delutional, 75% sociable, and 74% law abiding. You don't have any gross defects of character at all. You might have your problems, but for the most part you're simply a normal person and most definitely not a psychopath in any way.Please share your scores in comments, we are all friends here after all.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 03, 2013 -
Comments (26)
Category: Mental Health and Insanity
Urban Wingsuit Flying into Rio de Janeiro
Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 16, 2013 -
Comments (5)
Category: Bicycles and Other Human-powered Vehicles, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Flight, South America, Mental Health and Insanity
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |