Twisted tales from 2017: viral weirdness from around the world
Some might say that after Donald Trump’s inauguration, world events became so bizarre in 2017 that our covfefe of the year’s offbeat yarns would pale in comparison. Not so. From the US president inspiring people to use toilets in India to snakes on trains in Indonesia and outrageous aircrew rage, there’s something to shock everyone. Many of the stories went viral, such as inter-species sexual activity in Japan and animal-to-human disease transmission. No, those last two are not related. Here we go ...
Female monkeys are having sexual interactions with deer in Japan and scientists are intrigued
After spending a few months observing macaque monkeys living in a Japanese forest, a group of scientists found a pattern of behaviour they described as both “unusual” and “intriguing”.
Adolescent female macaques climbed on top of a sika deer and crouched. Then, they moved their pelvises as if thrusting or grinding. They squeaked sexual sounds. They also bit, sniffed and pulled on the deer’s antlers. The deer, meanwhile, stood nonchalantly and continued foraging for food. When the deer walked away, the female monkeys “often displayed sexually motivated tantrums which consist of crouching on the ground, body spasms and screaming, while gazing at the deer,” the scientists wrote in a peer-reviewed study in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour.
Best friends for 60 years discover they are brothers
Two Hawaii men who grew up as best friends recently learned that they are actually brothers and revealed the surprise to family and friends over the holidays. Alan Robinson and Walter Macfarlane have been friends for 60 years. Born in Hawaii 15 months apart, they met in the sixth grade and played football together at a Honolulu prep school. Macfarlane never knew his father, and Robinson was adopted. Separately, they sought answers about their ancestry. They later learned they have the same birth mother. They revealed the relationship to friends and family during a party. “It was an overwhelming experience, it’s still overwhelming,” Robinson said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to get over this feeling.”
Snake on a train: Indonesian kills serpent with bare hands
An Indonesian man who used his bare hands to kill a snake that was discovered slithering on a busy commuter train became an internet hero. The train made an emergency stop after the reptile was spotted lurking on a baggage rack in a carriage headed to Jakarta from Bogor, south of the capital. Video of the incident, which quickly went viral, showed the man casually snatch the snake’s tail and then smash its head on the floor in a violent whipping motion. The creature was apparently killed instantly as shocked spectators – including a baton-wielding transit security guard – kept their distance. The unidentified man then tossed its limp body, which appeared to be about one metre long, out of the door to waiting security staff. It is not uncommon to see livestock or pets travelling on public transport in rural Indonesia, but passengers are prohibited from taking animals on urban transport lines.
Andrew Cho had just returned home alone from dinner with friends in downtown Vancouver when he collapsed. What came next was the terrible realisation that he was paralysed from the neck down – followed by a remarkable display of willpower as he crawled to his phone with his chin, then called 911 with his tongue. “It was completely surprising,” the 29-year-old said. “It was a pretty big panic moment, you know? You always wonder: what would it be like to be paralysed?” He did not know it at the time, but inside his spine, between the neck’s C3 and C4 vertebrae, a blood vessel had already burst. The trapped blood had massed to the point that the pressure on his spine paralysed him. Cho survived by crawling to his phone with his chin and then dialling 911 with his tongue.
United Airlines came under fire for the violent handling of a seated passenger, who was dragged off a flight by police after the airline mistakenly overbooked the flight and randomly chose him to leave to make room for airline employees who wanted seats. And the video went viral. Officers pulled David Dao from his window seat and then dragged him, while bleeding, down the aisle as other passengers yelled at them to stop. A recording of the incident posted on social media sent people into an apoplectic rage over the carrier’s heavy-handed response. Dao was reportedly a Chinese American doctor who said he had to be in Louisville Monday to see patients and would not relinquish his seat. The incident ensured United Airlines scored one of the year’s biggest PR disasters.
Pepsi pulls ‘stupefyingly diabolical’ ad depicting Kendall Jenner joining protest march
Not to be outdone in terms of PR disasters, Pepsi was forced to pull an advertisement that featured celebrity model and reality television star Kendall Jenner re-enacting a seminal moment in the Black Lives Matter protest movement to sell soft drink. Created by Pepsi’s in-house ad agency, the sweeping spot features Jenner breaking from a modelling shoot, doffing a blonde wig and joining the swelling ranks of a generic street march, where she defuses the tension by handing a Pepsi to a cute police officer. The Twitterverse erupted with derision, outrage and threats to boycott the beverage company. Pepsi initially defending the ad, issuing a statement saying it “reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that’s an important message to convey”. And then they backflipped and pulled the ad.
A toilet-building charity’s effort to rename an Indian village after US President Donald Trump has been blocked. Officials who oversee Maroda said the renaming effort was a fundraising stunt for the charity. But residents of the village in Haryana state worried they would not get free toilets if they abandoned the new name “Trump Sulabh Village”, the charity said. Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak said he hoped the renaming would bring attention to their efforts to improve sanitation in India, where about 60 per cent of people defecate in the open. “The real issue is that the area had already been declared open-defecation free,” Pathak said. Most villagers who attended a renaming ceremony said they did not know who Trump was.
China has shared bikes, umbrellas, and basketballs, but one company is taking the country’s love affair with the “sharing economy” to an erotic extreme with a line of rentable sex dolls. Touch, a Chinese sex-products retailer, on Thursday launched its “Shared Girlfriend” service in Beijing, featuring Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Hong Kong versions, as well as an Amazon-like “Wonder Woman” who comes armed with sword and shield. Like many of China’s pioneering shared-economy products, the life-size silicon seductresses are reserved via a phone app for up to a week a time. “They have perfect bodies, are totally submissive and can meet the needs of the single home boy,” a company statement says. “With one touch of a key, you are no longer single!”
For most people, the Chechnya region in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus brings to mind a dark history and grim present. The mountainous republic was the scene of two brutal separatist wars against Moscow that left tens of thousands dead and Grozny devastated. It has since been pacified, under the iron-fisted control of Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel turned Kremlin loyalist. Nonetheless, authorities insist they are looking to turn Chechnya into an unlikely tourist draw. “Recently people have been spreading lies about our republic, saying we torture gays, violate human rights and that it is dangerous to come here” said information minister Jambulat Umarov. “But this is completely false and we are going to show you that tourists are welcome.”
A group of men seen swimming inside a baited crocodile trap in Australia near where a woman was recently eaten were blasted as “idiots of the century”. Photos posted on Facebook showed the four men clambering on the floating trap set near a marina at Port Douglas in northern Queensland state and even posing inside it. It is not far from where a 4.3-metre crocodile killed a woman. Douglas Shire Mayor Julia Leu said she was stunned at their stupidity. “I was absolutely gobsmacked, this is incredibly stupid and dangerous behaviour,” she said told broadcaster ABC. “I’m wondering if these fellows are vying for the idiots of the year award or the idiots of the century award.” Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles also weighed in, tweeting: “Srsly? The meat we put in these traps is bait. For crocodiles. Don’t swim in them! It’s stupid, and illegal.”
A university building in central China was mocked by internet users for looking like a toilet. They joked that the front of the 12-storey block was at the North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power in Zhengzhou in Henan province looked like a toilet bowl and the back a cistern. Even the roof of the block at the college looked like a toilet lid, they joked. “It looks ugly and strange,” one internet user was quoted as saying. About 86 million yuan (US$13 million) was invested in the building which is designed to help the college’s graduates start their own businesses. One internet user was a little more forgiving about the building’s design. “I can’t see any innovation and beauty in the building, but the designer did well if it’s to help local graduates,” they wrote.
The writing on the wall: ‘fontgate’ spells trouble for Sharif
A typeface sparked uproar in Pakistan after documents using the font were produced in a corruption case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – despite being dated a year before the design was released.
Microsoft’s Calibri font was used to type certified papers naming Sharif’s daughter Maryam as a trustee for several of the family’s high-end London properties. The plush flats were at the heart of the case against the Sharif family, with authorities and the opposition questioning the legitimacy of funds used to buy them via offshore companies. The font led investigators to conclude the papers had been falsified. That conclusion, dubbed #Fontgate, set Pakistani social media alight with jokes and memes. Journalist Mubashir Zaidi said the prime minister should write his resignation “in #Calibri font”.
A former internet tycoon who wore a Hitler T-shirt on a talk show sparked anger in Japan, with the broadcaster forced to apologise. Takafumi Horie is the founder of popular internet service provider Livedoor, who spent nearly two years in jail for accounting fraud before his release in 2013. Appearing as a guest on the Gogo Nama talk show on Wednesday, the entrepreneur donned a black T-shirt with a caricature of Adolf Hitler on it and a peace symbol next to the words “NO WAR”. Despite what public broadcaster NHK called the shirt’s “anti-war writing”, the Hitler imagery drew a barrage of criticism. “The T-shirt is not appropriate because it evokes Hitler,” one viewer said according to an NHK spokesman. Periodic actions and comments in Japan deemed anti-Semitic have sparked controversy, though they tend to be blamed on ignorance rather than malicious intent.
