They say finding yourself in the right spot, at the right time, is the key to success, and this Nigerian homeless man who got the opportunity of a lifetime while sleeping under a bridge is the perfect example.

You could say it was fate that Ali Olakunmi, a young Yoruba man from Nigeria’s Osun State, found himself sleeping under the same bridge that a creative director had chosen as the backdrop for a fashion shoot. As a homeless man in Ikeja, a suburb of Lagos, he didn’t really have any better options, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Afolabi (AL), the creative director we mentioned above, was waiting under the same bridge for a male model that was running late, and he happened to notice this young man who seemed to have all the features he was looking for in a model, so he approached him about putting on some clothes and posing for some pictures. And that’s how Ali the homeless became Ali the fashion model.

Read More »

Almost nothing is what it seems on the internet these days, and this 53-year-old man posing as a woman in her 20s on social media is perfect proof of that.

If you’re familiar with FaceApp, you probably already know about its switch gender option, which lets you see what you would look like as the opposite gender. It’s all in good fun, but one Japanese male fan of the app has managed to build quite an impressive following on social media by transforming himself into an attractive, realistic-looking young girl. The 53-year-old man, who describes himself as “addicted to FaceApp”, spends his free time taking selfies, editing them and uploading them on his social media profiles.

Read More »

A member of a popular South Korean K-pop group has been getting a lot of attention because of his unusual hairstyle – long bangs that completely cover the upper half his face, including his eyes.

Junji (준지) is one of the seven members of OnlyOneOf, an all-male K-pop group founded in 2019. He’s easy to identify among his band mates, as he’s the one with the face half covered by long, blonde bangs. He’s been sporting the bizarre hairstyle since January 2020, and has managed to generate quite a lot of buzz in South Korean entertainment business, because of it. Some people have been speculating that Junji is trying to conceal his looks because he wants fans to like him for more than just looks, others that he is simply not as handsome as the other six members, but the important thing is that they’ve been talking about him a lot.

Read More »

A small village located on the banks of the Yangtze River, in Sichuan Province, has become known as one of China’s premier suppliers of ornamental stones, generating millions of dollars in revenue every year.

Positioned in an idyllic location, right next to China’s largest river and surrounded by green, forest-covered mountains, Hejiaba village gets a decent number of tourists every year, but tourism isn’t the most profitable local business. That title goes to the collection and sale of ornamental river stones; not the small ones that fit in the pocket as good luck charms, but heavy boulders that enthusiasts all over China pay good money on to add them to their collections. It’s estimated that Hejiaba village generates around 20 million yuan ($3.08 million) annually from the sale of this virtually inexhaustible resource.

Read More »

A retired elderly couple has been fighting the desertification of their home in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for the last 19 years by planting hundreds of hectares of drought-resistant plants.

Seventy-year-old Tububatu and his wife Taoshengchagan live in a village on the edge of Badain Jaran, China’s third-largest desert, and they’ve been spending every day since their retirement (in 2002) fighting the advancement of the desert with the help of plant-life. Others had tried fighting the desert and failed, but Tububatu just wanted to know if he could make a difference. He started out by planting just 50 trees, but kept doubling his efforts to the point where he now plants thousands of saplings a year. His small desert oasis now spans over 266 hectares and numbers tens of thousands of drought-resistant trees.

Read More »

Indian media recently reported the bizarre case of a young couple who has shifted 18 houses in just 3 years, due to the wife’s extreme cockroach phobia.

Let’s be honest, few people genuinely like cockroaches, especially the ones they find crawling through their kitchen, but how many people do you know who have moved out of their home repeatedly because of cockroaches? Well, that’s exactly what this couple in Bhopal, India’s Madhya Pradesh state have been doing for the past 3 years, hoping to finally find a cockroach-free house. However, after no less than 18 moves in 3 years, the wife’s extreme fear of cockroaches has taken a toll on their marriage, and the exasperated husband is now preparing to file for divorce.

Read More »

Joy Chapman, a singer/songwriter from British Columbia, in Canada, recently set a new Guinness record for the lowest musical note sang by a female, a C1.

For as long as she can remember, Joy Chapman has always been able to sing in a very wide vocal range, from the alto, to tenor and base, but it wasn’t until her niece started encouraging her to go for a world record that she actually considered it. The girl had learned that the former record for the world’s lowest vocal note (female), was held by a singer who hit a D2 (the second lowest D note on a piano), and she was convinced that Joy could go significantly lower than that. She turned out to be right!

Read More »

A Japanese man who has been struggling to sell a misprinted iPhone 11 Pro found himself inundated with tempting offers from buyers after photos of his device became the subject of fake news circulating on social media.

A few days ago, during my daily internet surfing sessions, I came across a South Korean article about an iPhone with a misaligned Apple logo that had apparently sold for $2,700. The explanation was that Apple’s quality control is so stringent that whenever design errors slip by, the handheld in question becomes somewhat of a collectible. Only it turned out that, like many other internet stories, this was just fake news picked up by several popular news outlets that didn’t bother doing any research.

Read More »

A man has spent the first 100 days of 2021 livestreaming 24/7 from a locked room in Los Angeles, but he plans to stay there for the rest of the year, or even longer, if he gets the right financial incentive.

34-year-old Tim C Inzana has been locked in a shed since the start of the year, and he has no intention of coming out anytime soon. The Los Angeles artist he hopes to spend at least a whole year isolated like this, and then sell his livestream in a custom frame as an unusual piece of art. Right now, he is streaming for free on Twitch, but plans to find people willing to shell out $5 million and keep him locked for a whopping 5 years. He has also offered to stay isolated for 1o consecutive years, if someone agrees to pay him $10 million for the effort.

Read More »

A Taiwanese man came up with an ingenious of getting extended paid leave from work: he got married four times and divorced three times in just 37 days.

According to Taiwanese law, a person has the right to 8 days paid work leave when they get married, which is exactly what one unnamed clerk received when he got married last year, on April 6th. Only that was only meant as the beginning of an extended paid leave, for which the hero of our story had prepared in advance. On the last day of his 8-day leave, the man divorced his wife, only to marry her again the next day and ask for another paid leave, to which he felt he was entitled to, by law. He went on to marry the same woman four times, and divorce her three times in 37 days, for a total of 32 days of paid leave.

Read More »

South Korean beauty brand Innisfree has attracted a lot of criticism after a bottle labeled as being made of paper turned out to be plastic simply wrapped in thin cardboard.

Innisfree,  a company that specializes in naturally-inspired beauty products, apparently didn’t expect anyone to actually check if the bottle for its face serum was actually made of paper, as suggested by the texture of the packaging and the “Hello, I’m paper bottle” branding printed on it. Only someone did check, slicing open the thin cardboard only to find a regular plastic bottle inside. This person posted photos of their discover on a Facebook group called “No Plastic Shopping,” and it didn’t take long for them to go viral.

Read More »

Portugal’s Supreme Court of Justice has ordered a man to pay his ex-wife 60,000 euros ($72,000) in compensation for the cleaning and cooking she did during their three-decade-long marriage.

There was a time when housework was considered a wife’s duty, but those times are long gone, as evidenced by the avalanche of court rulings in favor of housewives asking for compensation from their ex-spouses. The latest such case comes from Portugal, where the Supreme Court recently ruled that a woman was entitled to $72,000 in compensation from her ex-husband for performing domestic activities like cooking and cleaning throughout their 30-year marriage.

Read More »

A Taiwanese man sparked controversy on social media after complaining about getting a pay cut for spending too much time in the bathroom during work hours.

The disgruntled employee, identified only as ‘Mr. A.’, recently took to Facebook to voice his frustration and disappointment at having part of his monthly salary withheld by the company he works at, for having spent too much time in the bathroom the previous month. The man admitted to spending a whopping 49.5 hours in the toilet, which amounts to about two hours of bathroom time per day, but said that his employer failed to inform him that his wages could be cut for taking too long toilet breaks.

The Taiwanese man posted his story on the Blame 2 Commune Facebook Group, asking the other member for advice on how to proceed. He clarified that he had worked 22 days as an intern last month, for a total of 195 hours and an hourly salary of 160 yuan. However, on pay day, he noticed than about 4,400 yuan had been deducted, so he decided to take up the matter with human resources.

Read More »

The pen you’re about to see is one of those shocking products that makes people say they’ve seen it all. This Japanese souvenir actually comes with a live nematode parasite swimming inside it…

Anisakis is a genus of parasitic nematodes that infect various species of fish and can cause anisakiasis  – a parasitic infection of the gastrointestinal tract – in humans who consume raw or undercooked seafood containing larvae of the aforementioned nematode. Some people can also suffer an acute allergic reaction like anaphylaxis after eating fish infected with anisakis. In short, this aquatic parasite is not the kind of thing you’d want anywhere near you, so why would anyone create a pen with a live anisakis worm encased inside?

Read More »

Designed by Louis Vuitton’s menswear artistic director, Virgil Abloh, as part of this year’s men’s collection, this airplane-shaped handbag recently went viral for allegedly costing more than a used, single-engine airplane.

Virgil Abloh’s collections have always divided critics and fashion fans, with the main critique being that he overloads his creations with a bunch of ideas and concepts, and his latest one is no different. Unveiled in January, LV’s Fall/Winter 2021 men’s collection featured a variety of over-the-top ideas, including clothes inspired by famous architecture and popular landmarks. But what really caught people’s eye on the internet recently was an airplane-shaped handbag featuring Louis Vuitton’s iconic monogram, and a spicy price tag – $39,000.

Read More »