INSANE: Interesting random facts - The Real Truth

Founded back in May 2020, the ‘WTF Facts’ Twitter account has been educating and entertaining internet users for nearly three years now. It’s carved out a sizeable niche for itself on the social media platform. At the time of writing, it had 270.8k followers.

The founder of the page posts new content every single day, so there’s always something for the fans of the project to look forward to. If you enjoy the facts, be sure to follow the account for the freshest posts.

One surefire way to stand out on the internet is to find a mix between education and entertainment, just like the ‘WTF Facts’ account does.

Internet users end up learning a lot of things they’d otherwise probably never have heard about. Meanwhile, they also end up enjoying themselves and sending the facts to their friends, classmates, and coworkers. (Personally, we like to keep a list of cool and bizarre facts in our suits to wow guests at fancy dinner parties whenever there’s awkward silence.)

At the same time, researching and double-checking absolutely every tiny tidbit of information can be incredibly time intensive. So you need to leave that for the fringe cases where your alarm bells are really ringing. In the meantime, try to evaluate the credibility of the source that’s publishing the information.

How trustworthy is the account, outlet, or reporter? How do they ensure the reliability of the information that they share? What does their track record look like?

The fact of the matter is that there are no perfectly reliable sources; however, this doesn’t mean that all sources are equal. Though everyone makes mistakes, professional outlets make fewer of them, make corrections, and acknowledge if they’ve accidentally misled their readers.

So it’s always best to opt for reliable sources like Reuters, Associated Press, or The New York Times that employ fact-checkers and editors. These are always better choices than random, extremely biased, clickbaity websites that only care about getting views at any cost.

There are some signs that indicate that some facts or claims might be fake. Some of the red flags that you should look out for include things like the information being incredibly outlandish or unheard of before, or the facts coming from a source that’s either disreputable or completely unknown.

You should also listen to your gut: if something sounds too good or too awful to be true, it might just be. Look for some other sources that might back up the claim before you repost it: it’s very easy for misinformation to spread in this day and age because there are more and more internet and social media users. Even doing some minimal Googling is better than blindly accepting everything as fact.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that as our attention spans are shortening, content creators and news outlets are having to adapt to the changing needs of their audiences. People prefer short-form content these days because that’s what they’ve been consuming. It’s all a bit circular.

So you end up having to condense a ton of information into bite-sized posts, meaning some context gets left out. At the same time, long-form content and in-depth analyses still have a place in the world for those who want to learn things in a nuanced way, instead of having a very black-and-white perspective on life. Long-form content also has the added bonus—it can help restore our attention spans and ability to focus.

Which of these facts, photos, and insights about the world made you do a double-take? Which ones did you find the most interesting? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments, Pandas! We’d love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to enjoy some more interesting facts and edutainment, check out Bored Panda’s earlier features about ‘WTF Facts’ right here, here, here, and here.