Mistakes are just lessons waiting to be learned! Unfortunately, some of those mistakes can be very, very expensive. They hit your wallet with the force of a charging rhino, leaving you clutching your head in agony and letting out incomprehensible bleats about how much money just went down the drain.
That’s where the ‘That Looked Expensive’ subreddit comes in. It’s an internet community that’s dedicated to documenting all the hilarious (not to mention painful) times that people made expensive mistakes. Like wrecking their cars. Or planes. (Or presidential campaigns. Sorry, Mike Bloomberg.)
Bored Panda spoke about the best way for people to deal with mistakes and how important a role emotions play in learning from them with researcher and Assistant Professor of Marketing Noelle Nelson from the University of Oregon. She told us that people vary in how much they tend to justify their mistakes. “Some learn early that it’s important to accept when you’ve done something wrong while others get in a habit of justifying/deflecting/making excuses. Everyone, though, has done this to some degree.” Scroll down for our in-depth interview with Noelle and for our chat with the founder of the ‘That Looked Expensive’ subreddit, Approx-, dear Pandas. Remember to upvote your fave expensive blunders and to let us know in the comments what the most expensive thing that you wrecked was and how you did it.
#1 If Insurance Companies Had Nightmares…
Image credits: Liberal_Leopard
#2 Parking On The Beach
Image credits: Hera03a
#3 $5000 Canadian After Someone Using The Microwave To Disinfect It
Image credits: jdk
Noelle told Bored Panda that there are a lot of reasons why we justify our mistakes and she told us a couple of the main ones. “We don’t like feeling negative emotion and the goal is very often to ‘get back’ to a positive state. If we can justify something we did wrong, we don’t have to feel bad about it anymore.”
She continued with the second reasons: “We want to protect our positive self image. Justifying a mistake means that I didn’t do anything wrong or whatever went wrong wasn’t my fault. That means I can still feel like I’m ‘good.'”
Noelle said that her research suggests that taking the time to stop and feel the negative emotions associated with the mistake helps a person learn from that mistake. “We find that it’s not enough to just think about the mistake and why it happened. Our brains are designed to be guided by emotion, so actually feeling that negative emotion is important,” she said.
#4 Florida House Split Via Crane Mishap
Image credits: IAmGodMode
#5 Don’t Tailgate A School Bus When Your Car Is Shaped Like A Door Stop
Image credits: DPLaVay
#6 When You Forget You Parked On Top Of The Self-Hiding Garage
The car at the bottom was flooded. Car at the top was crushed
Image credits: tsMineDK
“In our experiments, people who were asked to feel those negative emotions corrected their behavior on a similar task later on. This happened even though they didn’t know the tasks were connected! That suggests that the emotional learning doesn’t have to be consciously done by a person; simply making sure to allow oneself to feel those negative emotions leads to learning.”
Noelle revealed to us that lately she’s been working on research that addresses why people have a hard time changing their minds about important topics and how we might be able to communicate in a way that would help them absorb new information that they don’t necessarily agree with. “Generally, how people process emotions and thoughts is important in how they learn, function and interact with their environment.”
#7 When The Fire Suppression Foam Is Accidentally Released
Image credits: 5_Frog_Margin
#8 Your Internet Access Will Be Restored Between January And December 2020
Image credits: jazz_man
#9 A $5,000,000 Oops
Image credits: sdoodle
Reddit user Approx- told Bored Panda that they started the subreddit back in March 2018, as a result of a comment made by another user, Deathtastic.
According to Approx-, the subreddit grew steadily and naturally gained users since it was first created. “We haven’t really done anything in particular to make it grow, other than ensuring content is well moderated,” they said.
“I think the appeal of expensive mistakes is twofold. First, it’s just straight-up entertainment to see expensive things destroyed. But I think it also gives folks a bit of a sense of relief that maybe their screw-ups aren’t all that bad after seeing a multi-million dollar mistake,” Aprrox- said.
#10 Technician ‘Accidentally’ Fires Vulcan Cannon & Obliterates F-16 Sitting On The Runway
Image credits: J00G0LD
#11 If You’re Having A Bad Day, Just Know That At Least You Didn’t Shatter A 16,000$ Bottle Of Victory In Europe, 1945 Château Mouton Rothschild
Image credits: I_kickflipped_my_dog
#12 No Matter How Much You Screw Up, You’ll Never Ever Have To Tell Your Boss: Sir, I Toppled That 290 Million Dollar Noaa-N Prime Satellite Right Onto The Shop Floor.
Image credits: Snow-Lemur
The ‘That Looked Expensive’ subreddit has more than 416k members and the community has been going strong since it was first founded.
It’s one thing to mess up as an individual but it’s a whole other ball game when companies or countries mess up. For example, back in 2000, Netflix approached Blockbuster with an idea to take care of the digital part of their company. Blockbuster said ‘no’ and, well, we don’t have to tell you how things worked out over the next two decades for both companies, do we? A ‘yes’ instead of a ‘no’ and we could still have a healthy version of Blockbuster!
#13 It Will Hurt The Wallet
Image credits: Venom4174
#14 Should’ve Thought That Through…
Image credits: Turtlechampy
#15 New Boeing 737 Fuselages Wrecked In Train Derailment In Montana (July 2014)
Image credits: PerciFlage88
Another costly blunder happened when the so-called ‘Walkie-Talkie’ skyscraper was built in London. It took millions of pounds to fix a huge issue: the southern wall of the skyscraper was covered with reflective glass that was causing fires and melting cars. Yeah, you read the right—actually melting cars like a heat beam that some comic book villain would use.
We all know that failure’s a part of life and we can’t avoid it forever. So it’s important to learn how to handle it in the right way. Common sense tells us to let things go but that might not be what’s best for us.
#16 Big Oof
Image credits: Dcln-e
#17 Renewable Energy Needs Renewing
Image credits: Absentfriends
#18 Landslide On Highway
Image credits: voy_conlag_mental
#19 Some One Forgot To Lower The Dump On The Truck
Image credits: phetish23
#20 Don’t Leave Your Malinois With Your Porsche
Image credits: koogledoogle
#21 Tug Hit An A300
Image credits: ttv_Alotta
#22 What Happens When A Bandsaw Hits A Nail
Image credits: hazzardous010
#23 Cement Truck Mishap
Image credits: KevlarYarmulke
#24 The Slide Opened Inside The Aircraft
Image credits: viboux
#25 This Guy Sunk His Raptor And Jeep Trying To Save His $300,000 Boat That Was Sinking
Image credits: SloppyToppyDownSouth
#26 Remember Kids: Unused Airliners Can Still Make An Airline Some Money If Someone Crashes Into Them Because Insurance
Image credits: fightmilk22
#27 70m Yacht Capsized In Greece
Image credits: TheRigSauce
#28 Porsche Panamera Hybrid vs. Tesla Model S
Image credits: PhilpotBlevins
#29 A Rock’n Boat
Image credits: istionyyc
#30 See The Problem There Is That The Back Fell Off
Image credits: OvercastHaze
#31 Flipped The Apc And Crashed A Truck That’s Gotta Be Expensive
Image credits: Saint9407
#32 Two Carnival Cruise Ships Colliding
Image credits: unknown
#33 Expensive Tip…
Image credits: _w0xy
#34 Well, Not One But Two
Image credits: feliciteer_mij
#35 300,000$ Porsche Crashed During Test Drive
Image credits: urmommyre
#36 Rag Left In Engine After Repairs Turned To Shreds
Image credits: Geovestigator
#37 Jim Bean Wearhouse Fire That Was Left To Burn Through 45 Thousand Barrels Of Whiskey To Avoid Runoff Into Nearby Water Sources
Image credits: liamurray12
#38 Stray Bullet Landed On A Solar Panel I Just Installed.
Image credits: zopilord
#39 Aston Martin That Was Worth £1.5m.
Image credits: Jorarl
#40 The Alcoholic In Me Is In Tears!
Image credits: OrangeJeepWdw
#41 That’s Not Where The Stairs Go…
Image credits: theannomc1
#42 Insane Storms In Australia Are Flooding What’s Left Of The Country After Millions Of Hectares Have Been Burnt
Image credits: Cloquelatte
#43 When You Want Your Insurance Adjuster To Pay More Attention To Your Claim
Image credits: Ienjoyduckscompany
#44 Bmw Driver Tries To Drift
Image credits: _Gamma__
#45 Underground Parking – Inside Cam
Image credits: ElRapidoEjaculatore
#46 A Regional Passenger Train After Hitting A Liquid Gas Train. You Can See The Buckled Roof. The Tanker Car Hit Was Essentially Undamaged. No One Died.
Image credits: Max_1995
#47 Residential Homes Built In South Dakota Over Undisclosed Abandoned Gypsum Mine… Sinkhole Renders Entire Neighborhood’s Property Values Now Worthless.
Image credits: feministia
#48 Tank Flipped From A Landslide Into The Woods.
Image credits: NoEyedFish
#49 Flooded Bitcoin Mining Farm
Image credits: undertow661
#50 Trailer Full Of New 2020 Shelby Gt500s Tipped Over In Detroit Today.
Image credits: ablebodiedmango
#51 This Was A Fun Conversation To Have With My Boss
Image credits: wisdomfish
#52 All Around View Of Your Car In A Single Image
Image credits: mro21
#53 Told My Manager My Crane Wouldnt Pick Up A 70,000 Lb Was Told I Could, Minutes Later This Happened
Image credits: Jlevanz
#54 Lightning Hitting A Boat
Image credits: DanLT1
#55 Hope Insurance Covers This
Image credits: andocromn
#56 Suv Crashes Into Mclaren Dealer
Image credits: netg0d
#57 Plane Lands So Heavily The Landing Gear Comes Through The Floor
Image credits: DesertV17
#58 Let’s Hope The Damage Is Just Cosmetic
Image credits: N_M96
#59 Shopper Knocks Over 4 TV’s Worth $7,000
Image credits: PaperNeutrino
#60 A Rocky Day On The Water
Image credits: Totalgeek9224
#61 Had A Leak Develop In Our Laboratory This Morning. Nobody Was On Campus To Catch It So There Was 4 Inches Of Standing Water And Countless Ruined Pieces Of Equipment.
Image credits: hpbojoe
#62 The Tree Fell On My House Today…
Image credits: mliazuk
#63 That Can’t Be Cheap
Image credits: trenko
#64 The Complete Overhaul On Sonic Must’ve Been Pretty Expensive, Definitely Welcomed Though
Image credits: buttwhat123
#65 F
Image credits: ElBarani
#66 Of All The Cars The Deer Had To Pick…
Image credits: vaudvaud
#67 There Are Load Charts For A Reason!
Image credits: GreatWhiteM00se
#68 Tank Barrel Miss Fire
Image credits: communistrock
#69 Each One Of Those Blades Is About $2000.
Image credits: _SP3CT3R
#70 Customer Ignored The Pressure Rating Of His Cylinder And Shot Oil Out At Such A High Pressure It Cut 1 Inch Thick Steel
Image credits: bingbong982
#71 Lhc Magnet Quench Back In 2009, Damaging A Total Of 53 Superconducting Magnets And Their Mountings, And Contaminating The Vacuum Pipe, Which Also Lost Vacuum Conditions.
Image credits: Restorer37
#72 That’s One Way To Finish Your Camping Trip Early
Image credits: almostnotallthere
#73 Ferrari F40 Burns In Monte Carlo Today
Image credits: Eki75
#74 They’re Gonna Need A Lot Of Hot Glue To Stick It Back On
Image credits: RussellFighter
#75 This Man’s Camera Rig
Image credits: rencednel
#76 Text While Driving And You Might Smack Into Some Dude’s $1,450,000 Mclaren Senna.
Image credits: ains2
#77 12th Century Norte Dame Cathedral Currently On Fire.
Image credits: bravo102
#78 Rip To The Insurrance Of This Guy.
Image credits: theoden747
Source: boredpanda.com