One of my favorite pastimes is scrolling through my Instagram Explore page and watching the videos Instagram thinks I’ll enjoy. There’s a lot of baking videos, a lot of cats, and a lot of life hacks. Now, I’m no stranger to a good life hack video — I’ve been known to sit for hours at a time watching the 5 Minute Craft compilations on YouTube — but that also means that I’ve spent time considering the validity of these hacks.
A lot of them make me think: when would you ever need that?
Some of them make me think: there’s no way that wouldn’t go terribly wrong if I tried it.
Very, very few of them make me think: oh, yeah, that seems helpful.
Lately, 5 Minute Crafts, a popular life hack account on YouTube and Instagram, has come under some controversy over the validity of their crafts– and if they’re safe. YouTuber Ann Reardon, host of the YouTube channel How To Cook That, made a video detailing 5 Minute Crafts videos that could be unsafe if attempted.
Craft and DIY videos can be fun to watch, but please make sure to do any necessary research to ensure that the trick will work, and it won’t come along with any dangers.
If that video interested you, though, please check out the rest of Reardon’s series where she debunks “life hacks.”
Now that the controversy is out of the way… Here are some life hacks guaranteed to make your life harder:
This one is tagged as a crafting video despite the fact that it’s definitely an art form that would take a lifetime to master. I mean… look at that thing. That’s someone’s magnum opus, probably.
The first hack in this video is so ridiculous that I don’t even know where to start. There’s no way the ground beef would stay on that stick. You have to build an entire contraption. You could just cook it as a patty and then cut it up! WHY?? This also reminds me, sadly, of The Hamdogger.
This is a double whammy because…. What? This person lives in a world where they have a can opener (because the top of the Coke can isn’t going to just rip off like that) but not a knife, or a vegetable peeler. Not to mention the fact that, with both of these hacks, you would probably slice up your hand because soda cans are made out of thin sheets of metal. It’s dumb, and dangerous, and it doesn’t seem worth the hassle to make a crappy hot glue gun.
All of these organizational hacks seem like they require you to 1) buy supplies and 2) put everything together. You still have to wash the milk cartons after you run out of carrots, so why not keep them in a bag and just organize the bags? You still have to be able to open your junk drawer, so you have to make sure that the stuff you put on top of it sits perfectly and without impeding the closing of the drawer. There’s too many variables here, and I have so little time on my hand. I think I’ll have to pass on this one.
I would love to live in a world where every life hack was helpful, and real, and didn’t make me immediately pull up five different Amazon tabs to prove that the product they’re trying to create out of hot glue and a kitty litter container already exists for very, very cheap. Unfortunately, this is not that world, so we must keep on keeping on using Blossom, 5 Minute Crafts, and Troom Troom solely as outlets for our pent-up aggression.
