Look at these photos. Now, look again. How sure are you that what you’re seeing is actually real? What you think you see isn’t always correct! An odd angle, a shift in perspective, some different lighting, weird dynamics—they’re enough to trick your mind into seeing something that isn’t quite there.
‘Misleading Thumbnails’ is a fantastic online community whose members share confusing and odd photos that trick you and make you do a double-take. All with wonderfully misleading headlines, too, to make the process even more enjoyable. We’ve picked out our favorite odd pics to share with you, and if you’re a fan of optical illusions and humor, you should check them out below.
#1 My Jerk Cat Always Loves To Sit Over The Stuff I Leave In The Table
Image source: CoCGamer
#2 Cooked Chicken
Image source: SeasickBacon
#3 My Friend Tweeted Me The Lunch Salad She Was About To Eat
Image source: BunnyAdorbs
During an earlier interview with the Bored Panda team, Lisa Yaszek, a Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech and the author of ‘The Self Wired’ and ‘Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction,’ was kind enough to share her thoughts on optical illusions.
“As humans, we’re fascinated by optical illusions both because they are a symbol of human creativity and because they demonstrate just how good we are at flexible thinking,” she said.
#4 Unfortunate Split In Leather Couch
Image source: RLG_James
#5 Crowd At A Concert
Image source: qwartet
#6 Trashy Bride Lets It All Hang Out
Image source: vidoardes
According to Yaszek, human beings’ ability to perceive images in different ways may be part of our natural aptitude for learning.
“Whatever the source of our love for optical illusions, it’s fascinating to note that the desire to create optical illusions seems to be as old as humanity itself,” she told us previously.
#7 Vista Of Jupiter
Image source: Thors_Goat
#8 The Head Of Great Pharaoh Cleopatra
Image source: daymanahaha
#9 Aww Man, My Glazed Pastries Came Out All Wrong!
Image source: Shnazzyone
“The prehistoric artists who decorated the Cave of Altima 20,000 years ago used the natural bulges in the rock walls of the cave to give volume and depth to the animals they drew there; the Greek-Egyptian inventor Heron of Alexandria (10CE-70AD) engineered a device that made it look like priests could open temple doors with verbal commands; and the Airavatesvara Temple in India is covered in 800+ year old carvings of animals that change species when viewed from different angles,” Yaszek walked us through the ancient history of humankind’s relationship with optical illusions.
#10 Dog With Horribly Deformed Nose
Image source: anon
#11 Draw Me Like One Of Your French Girls
Image source: paperwasp
#12 Getting Some Fresh Air
Image source: JukeboxSommelier
“Whenever people invent new creative or technical processes, they use them to create optical illusions! Indeed, we’ve seen this throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: pioneering filmmakers like George Melies drew on vaudeville stagecraft and scratched and painted on celluloid to create the first filmic special effects; Op artists Josef Albers and Bridgette Riley manipulated geometric forms on canvas to convince the eye that unreal spatial places existed; and today we have digital technologies that allow us to radically transform the scale and presentation of images in sometimes truly mind-blowing ways, as we see in these images from the ‘Misleading Thumbnails’ subreddit community!”
#13 New McDonald’s Chocolate Sundae
Image source: MaXcRiMe
#14 A Bunch Of Bananas
Image source: FirstWhistle
#15 Pre Production Canon Dslr Caught In The Wild
Image source: Gezzaman
That being said, Yaszek noted that there is a difference between earlier work made by optical illusion artists and the images shared by internet users on Reddit. “The former were intentional about creating their optical illusions, while the ones featured on this subreddit probably didn’t mean, for instance, to make a group of adorable puppies look like fried chicken,” she pointed out.
“Having said that—these accidental optical illusions give the members of this subreddit community a chance to become artists themselves by posting the misleading thumbnails and images online so that others can delight in the illusion with them.”
#16 For 5 Seconds, I Thought It Was A T-Rex
Image source: anon
#17 Fried Chicken
Image source: khaleelu
#18 A Crow Made Its Way Into The Bathroom
Image source: TheXypris
One of the moderators helping run ‘Misleading Thumbnails,’ u/pajam, previously opened up to Bored Panda about the community’s history and mission. They told us during an earlier interview that the group was originally created by another user, Noot, when he was scrolling online and noticed a thumbnail that created the optical illusion of something naughty. On closer inspection, the photo was completely innocent: that of a baby pig between two pigs. This is proof that your mind rapidly jumps to assumptions.
“So he was misled by the thumbnail, and thought it was a unique experience blending optical illusions with a sort of ‘mind-blown’ experience,” the moderator shared the story behind the creation of the group.
#19 My Pan Left A Burn Mark On The Sheet
Image source: anon
#20 Beautiful Bloodmoon
Image source: Patrick_Jatrick
#21 A Fallen Ice Cream Cone
Image source: ISeeOnlyMe
However, due to changes in Reddit’s design, users who don’t actively switch to ‘Classic View’ or change their settings to use the ‘Old Reddit’ design may not get thumbnails. So, some users treat ‘Misleading Thumbnails’ like they would other online communities focused on misleading images, confusing perspectives, pareidolia, etc.
#22 This Giant Antelope Skull I Found In The Desert
Image source: anon
#23 Lava Spreading From A Volcano
Image source: anon
#24 Elevator Scene From The Shining Re-Enactment
Image source: esquonk
“Our content is limited and comes in waves, as it relies on random chance. You never know what images will end up looking different when it gets shrunk down to Reddit’s thumbnail size,” the mod said. “We’d love people to share those posts here.”
They said: “Clicking into the post and getting your mind blown, or a few seconds of straight-up confusion, was a unique experience we wanted to capture in our subreddit.”
#25 Cosplayers Headed To Frogcon 2018
Image source: pjlear
#26 Crazy Bacterial Growth After Swabbing And Culturing My Work Keyboard
Image source: gdogg897
#27 Pretty Girl Showing Off Her Homemade Inuit Doll
Image source: opheliamobley
According to the friendly mods who run the awesome ‘Misleading Thumbnails’ group, their entire goal is to share posts found online that might mislead people into “seeing something entirely different than what the full-size image ends up being.”
They add: “This almost always occurs in an unexpected fashion, where shrinking down an image to thumbnail-size suddenly creates an illusion one would not have expected.”
The community has been up and running since late 2011.
#28 Horrible Crime Scene
Image source: freeloder11
#29 This Bible Has Been Passed Down For Six Generations
Image source: YouGotWorkedMark
#30 A Sewing Needle Going Through A Cotton Sheet
Image source: incognityo
Tell us what you think in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.
Which of these images tricked you and genuinely gave you a hard time figuring them out? Which ones made you laugh embarrassingly loudly? What’s the coolest optical illusion that you’ve ever seen?
Upvote your fave misleading photos and share your thoughts with everyone.
#31 Stunning Aerial View Of The Amazon River
Image source: Zetbor
#32 My Newest Keyboard
Image source: _Kabak_
#33 My New Eyeglasses Are Blurry
Image source: kalup_pollo
#34 A Broken Chair
Image source: anon
#35 Some Really Dank Bud
Image source: TreborVu
#36 Blue Flower
Image source: DoItSarahLee
#37 Herd Of Brachiosauruses On A Large Field
Image source: ToporArt
#38 Insanely Hard Cello Piece Mozart Wrote When He Was 15
Image source: Asentro76
#39 Nice Aerial View Of A Ship And The Sea
Image source: SombodiReddit
#40 Super Rare Blood-Moon Eclipse Caught On My Cellphone Camera
Image source: i_eat_p_o_s_l_y_f_b
#41 Clouds Covering A Blue Sky
Image source: anon
#42 Beaker From The Muppets
Image source: NLioness
#43 Two Men Emerging From The Water
Image source: ChrisRunsTheWorld
#44 A Community Pool In Asia
Image source: anon
#45 Kim Kardashian In Her Stunning New Dress This Weekend
Image source: sydthefuckdown
#46 Uncontacted Man From North Sentinel Island Warns Approaching Visitors
Image source: jacobo
#47 Delicious Sushi
Image source: aRealAmateur
#48 Impressive Splits For A Bride With Very Long Legs
Image source: hobocheese88
#49 Microscopic View Of Tweezers Picking Up An Organism
Image source: DlxSwgMstr
#50 Volcanic Island In The South Pacific
Image source: Barry987
#51 Train Speeding Down A Old Tunnel
Image source: sgibbons746
#52 This Hole Right In The Middle Of My Kitchen
Image source: bananahands0666
#53 Uncooked Bacon
Image source: MattCloudy
#54 Giraffes Enjoy A Serengeti Sunset
Image source: Uniqueusername111112
#55 My Pokémoncard Collection
Image source: ThePizzaDoc
#56 Girl’s Mangled Leg Injury
Image source: BunnyAdorbs
#57 This Massive Ethernet Hub
Image source: athanathios
#58 Molten Lava As It Flows Through Rocks
Image source: anon
#59 Found A Weird Reptile In My Bathtub
Image source: Janeiskla
#60 My Son Poured Spaghetti In My Good Shoes :(
Image source: dexemplu
#61 This Is What Happens When Your Sink Doesn’t Have A Filter!
Image source: 123coolmania
#62 Bean Bag Chair For Sale
Image source: anon
#63 Mike Wazowski
Image source: BufordTeeJustice
#64 Those Chickens Look So Happy!
Image source: Flaming_Ice_
#65 Cute Little Doggy Yawns
Image source: BunnyAdorbs
#66 Giant Oreo Waiting For Creme Layer
Image source: th3_rhin0
#67 This Rash Climbing Up My Heel
Image source: gold2lead
#68 Extremely Venomous Caterpillar
Image source: GeorgiaDevil
#69 Just A Tree With A Broken Branch. Nothing To See Here Folks
Image source: mcarbelestor
#70 Smooth Caramel Drizzled Over A Chocolate
Image source: LuminousRain
#71 Piano Tiles
Image source: AlyxeZeZ
#72 UFO Above A Forest
Image source: Petkevic29
#73 This *rare* Pair Of Shoes
Image source: arichone
#74 A Snowy Hedgehog Statue
Image source: Thorthir
#75 Aerial Photo Of New York, 1974
Image source: TitsAndAssMan
#76 A Spilled Bag Of Doritios In The Dirt
Image source: anon
#77 Who Sat On My Sandwich?!
Image source: born_lever_puller
#78 Aerial View Of An Industrial Complex
Image source: lurkandload
#79 For Once, The Crack On My Phone Actually Improved My Wallpaper
Image source: TruthSpeaker67
#80 Heat Lamp Burning Tree Stump
Image source: anon
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