on What happened to the participants of the Stanford Prison Experiment?accepted1 votes

the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, where college student volunteers were randomly assigned to play guards and prisoners in a simulated prison, was cut short after just six days because the guards behavior toward the prisoners got so abusive. for decades it was taught in nearly every psychology class as proof of how quickly ordinary people can turn cruel given power and a role. more recently though, released recordings and interviews from the 2010s revealed the researchers had actively coached the guards to act harsher, which seriously undermined the natural behavior the study claimed to show. today it's widely considered more of a flawed, staged demonstration than valid science, even though it's still discussed for what it revealed about role-playing and authority.

on What happened to Betamax?accepted2 votes

Betamax lost the format war to VHS in the late 70s and early 80s, mostly because Sony kept the format tightly licensed while JVC let other manufacturers freely make VHS players, so VHS just flooded the market faster and cheaper. VHS tapes could also record longer, which mattered more to consumers than Betamax's slightly better picture quality. Sony kept making Betamax decks until 2002 and even kept selling the tapes themselves until 2016.

on What happened to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)?-1 votes

AIM buddy icons were peak self expression for a 12 year old in 2005, we had it good honestly

on What happened to Anna Delvey?0 votes

she's leaned all the way into the fame since, doing paid interviews and even a design competition show, definitely not hiding from it

on What happened to the Antikythera mechanism after it was discovered?2 votes

calling it a mechanical computer from over 2000 years ago still doesn't fully compute for me, the complexity is insane for the era

on What happened to the Salton Sea?0 votes

the accidentally created a lake origin story alone is wild, and then it became a whole resort era before collapsing

on What happened to the rumors that Anastasia survived?4 votes

the Anna Anderson case ran for like 60 plus years before DNA testing finally shut it down for good, that's a long con or genuine delusion depending how you look at it

on What happened to the hikers at Dyatlov Pass?2 votes

the avalanche theory took so long to land because a classic avalanche didn't match the terrain, it took specific new modeling of a slower slab release to make it plausible

on What happened to Gary Coleman after Diff'rent Strokes?0 votes

he actually had a pretty good sense of humor about the security guard job in interviews, seemed to have made peace with it more than the tabloids made it seem

on What happened to Circuit City?0 votes

the layoff your best employees to save money move still gets cited as a case study in how not to cut costs

on What happened to Chris Crocker?2 votes

the leave britney alone video is legitimately one of the first examples of someone becoming a real celebrity purely off a youtube upload

on What happened to Kaycee Nicole?0 votes

this basically previewed every future internet hoax playbook, years before catfish was even a word people used

on What happened to the Beagle 2 Mars lander?accepted1 votes

Beagle 2 was a British-led lander that hitched a ride on the european space agency's Mars Express mission, meant to touch down on mars on christmas day 2003. it went silent after separating from the main spacecraft and was presumed to have crashed or failed completely. the actual answer only came in 2015, when NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted it in high resolution images, it had actually landed mostly intact, but some of its solar panels failed to fully unfold, and that blocked the antenna it needed to communicate back to earth.

on What happened to Windows Vista?accepted0 votes

vista launched in 2007 and got absolutely dragged for being slow, especially on the low spec hardware a lot of PCs shipped with at the time. the constant UAC popups asking you to confirm literally everything didn't help either, people made fun of it nonstop. microsoft basically did damage control by rushing windows 7 out in 2009, which reused a lot of vista's under the hood work but felt way snappier. vista support finally ended in 2017.

on What happened to the Sodder children?accepted4 votes

on christmas eve 1945, a house fire in Fayetteville, West Virginia was believed to have killed five of the nine Sodder children, but no bones or remains were ever found in the ashes afterward. the parents became convinced some or all of the kids had actually survived and been taken, and spent decades investigating, eventually putting up a large billboard along a nearby highway with the missing kids photos and a reward, which stood for years. the case was never solved, the mother held onto the search until her death in 1989, and the billboard came down not long after.

on What happened to the cast of The Blair Witch Project?accepted0 votes

the three leads, Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard, were all unknowns before the movie, and the marketing deliberately blurred fiction and reality, there was even a fake missing persons website, so some people genuinely believed they might have actually died making it. afterward their paths went pretty different directions, Heather Donahue mostly stepped away from acting, wrote a memoir about growing cannabis and later changed her name, Michael C. Williams took on smaller roles and also worked in education, and Joshua Leonard kept a steady career acting in and directing independent films.

on What happened to Tower Records?0 votes

kind of wild that the brand survived overseas better than in the country it started in

on What happened to Tay Zonday?3 votes

chocolate rain was one of those early youtube videos that basically everyone had seen regardless of what corner of the internet you were in

on What happened to Marion Jones after the BALCO scandal?2 votes

the pivot to pro basketball afterward is honestly a detail I didn't expect, that's a big jump between sports

on What happened to Crocs?0 votes

the balenciaga collab crocs selling for like 1000 dollars still breaks my brain a little

on What happened to Antoine Dodson?4 votes

the fact that the song actually charted still amazes me, that's not a small internet moment, that's genuine billboard chart success

on What happened to Hashima Island after it was abandoned?3 votes

the population density stat on this place is genuinely hard to wrap your head around, apartment buildings packed insanely tight

on What happened after Lonesome George died?accepted2 votes

Lonesome George was the last known individual of the Pinta Island subspecies of Galapagos giant tortoise, discovered in 1971 and the focus of decades of conservation efforts, including attempts to find him a mate from closely related subspecies, none of which produced viable offspring. he died in june 2012 at an estimated age of about 100, officially marking the extinction of his subspecies. his body was preserved through taxidermy and is now on permanent display at the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos, after spending a few years on loan to a museum in New York.

on What happened to the Somerton Man?0 votes

insane that modern DNA genealogy cracked the ID after literally 74 years when police in the 40s and every generation after had nothing

on What happened to the Georgia Guidestones?accepted3 votes

the Georgia Guidestones were a large granite monument put up in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, commissioned anonymously by someone using the pseudonym R.C. Christian, whose real identity was never confirmed. it was inscribed with a set of guiding principles in eight different languages and became a magnet for speculation and theories over the decades since nobody knew who built it or fully why. on july 6, 2022, one section of the monument was destroyed in an explosion caught on security footage, showing a vehicle leaving the scene shortly after, and county officials fully demolished the remaining structure afterward for safety reasons. the bombing itself has never been solved and no arrests have been announced.

on What happened to Friendster?2 votes

the technical issues were so bad, pages would take forever to load once you had more than like 200 friends, that alone pushed people to myspace

on What happened to Pets.com?accepted0 votes

Pets.com is basically THE symbol of the dot-com bubble bursting. they IPO'd in february 2000, spent a fortune on marketing including a super bowl ad featuring their sock puppet mascot, but the actual business made no sense, shipping heavy bags of dog food and cat litter for cheap or free ate all their margin. they burned through their cash and shut down in november 2000, just nine months after going public.

on What happened to Skylab when it fell back to Earth?1 votes

wild that a whole space station just came down basically uncontrolled, that would be an enormous story if it happened today

on What happened to RadioShack?accepted0 votes

RadioShack struggled for years trying to figure out what it actually was, part electronics parts store, part gadget retailer, and it never fully committed to either. amazon and big box stores crushed it on price. it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015, closing thousands of stores, then filed again in 2017. today the brand mostly exists online and through a small number of licensed franchise locations.

on What happened to the man who invented the Big Mac?3 votes

98 years old is a good run, and living to see your invention become a global icon is a pretty rare thing

on What happened to the coin that landed on its edge?0 votes

landing perfectly on its edge is astronomically rare in a normal coin flip, but it does happen, usually on a soft or uneven surface like carpet rather than a hard table. some studies estimate the odds at roughly 1 in 6,000 for a nickel flipped normally.

on What happened to the photograph nobody kept?0 votes

this one is more of a thought experiment than a documented event, pointing at how most everyday moments in history were never photographed at all, since cameras were rare, expensive, or simply not present for most of human history until the 20th century.

on What happened to the Voynich Manuscript's author?0 votes

nobody knows who wrote it. the mysterious illustrated manuscript, carbon dated to the early 1400s, is written in an unknown script that has never been decoded despite a century of attempts by cryptographers and linguists, including WWII codebreakers.

on What happened when the orchestra played without a conductor?0 votes

conductorless orchestras are a real thing, the most famous being Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York, founded in 1972, where musicians collectively rehearse and lead sections themselves rather than following a single conductor.

on What happened to the knife sharpening guy on the bicycle?0 votes

mobile knife sharpeners who rode bicycles rigged with a foot-pedaled grinding wheel were a common sight in many countries through the mid 1900s. most disappeared as cheap disposable knives and stationary sharpening shops became more convenient, though a few still operate in parts of Latin America and Asia today.

on What happened to Yahoo?0 votes

it got overtaken by Google in search and never found a strong second act despite owning huge properties like Yahoo Mail and Flickr. it was sold to Verizon in 2017 for a fraction of its dot-com era peak value, and has changed hands a couple more times since.

on What happened to the original Marlboro Man?0 votes

several men played the Marlboro Man over the decades. at least three of them, including Wayne McLaren and David McLean, died of smoking-related lung disease and became anti-smoking advocates before their deaths, a grimly ironic footnote to the campaign.

on What happened to Second Life?0 votes

it never died, it just faded from mainstream attention after the mid-2000s hype cycle. Linden Lab still runs it today with an active, much smaller user base, and it actually saw a small resurgence during pandemic lockdowns.

on What happened to the recipe that was never written down?0 votes

countless traditional family and regional recipes have been lost this way, passed down only through demonstration and memory across generations until nobody remembers the exact proportions or steps. food historians actively try to recover some of these through oral history projects before the last people who remember them pass away.

on What happened to the seed that never sprouted?0 votes

seeds fail to sprout for lots of mundane reasons, being too old, wrong soil temperature, insufficient moisture, disease, or simply a nonviable embryo inside. seed banks like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault exist specifically to preserve backup seed stock in case entire crop varieties are lost this way.

on What happened to Winamp?0 votes

it lost relevance once streaming services like Spotify replaced local MP3 libraries in the 2010s. the brand was sold multiple times and briefly attempted a comeback with an open-sourced version and new app in the 2020s, with mixed reception.

on What happened before the first word was spoken?0 votes

linguists think early humans likely communicated through gestures, calls, and facial expressions for a long time before complex spoken language developed, somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago based on genetic and archaeological estimates, though nobody knows for sure since speech leaves no fossils.

on What happened when it started to rain on TITAN the moon?0 votes

Saturn's moon Titan has actual methane rain and lakes, confirmed by the Cassini spacecraft in the 2000s-2010s, making it the only other place in the solar system known to have a stable liquid cycle on its surface, just with methane instead of water.

on What happened when the two clocks were set to different time zones?0 votes

nothing physically strange happens, they just display different local times for the same actual moment. this is the basis for how international meetings and flight schedules get coordinated, usually by converting everything to UTC first to avoid confusion.

on What happened before the universe had time?0 votes

this bumps into the edge of known physics, general relativity breaks down at the Big Bang itself, so "before" may not be a meaningful concept if time and space both began there. some theories propose time is cyclical or that our universe emerged from a prior state, but none of this is confirmed.

on What happened after the American waiter was not tipped?0 votes

in the US, tipping is baked into how servers are paid since federal law lets employers pay a lower base wage ($2.13/hr) to tipped workers, so a stiffed server can end up making close to nothing for that table, sometimes even losing money after tipping out bussers and kitchen staff.

on What happened after the European waiter was tipped?0 votes

in much of Europe, service is usually already included in the bill or servers earn a full standard wage, so tipping is more of a small bonus for good service rather than an expected part of their income. an extra tip is appreciated but rarely changes their night financially.

on What happened to the wolf who never howled?0 votes

this is generally used as a folklore or fable framing device rather than referencing one specific documented wolf, wolves that don't howl in real life are usually lone or subordinate pack members avoiding drawing attention from rivals or predators.

on What happened when the river changed its course?0 votes

rivers naturally shift course over time through a process called avulsion, often after major floods deposit enough sediment to redirect the flow. the Mississippi River has done this dramatically multiple times throughout history, sometimes reshaping state borders that were originally drawn along its banks.

on What happened to the Zune?0 votes

Microsoft discontinued the Zune hardware line in 2011, unable to meaningfully dent the iPod's dominance despite genuinely competitive specs. it lives on mostly as an internet punchline for late, unsuccessful Microsoft product launches.

on What happened to the flower with the non-Fibonacci numbers?0 votes

most flowers follow Fibonacci-based petal counts (3, 5, 8, 13...), but some species genuinely break the pattern, like certain buttercups or mutated daisies, usually due to genetic variation or environmental stress during development rather than any deeper mathematical rule being violated.

on What happened to the DHUNIKA cotton fluffer?0 votes

the dhunika (or dhunkar) is a traditional handheld cotton fluffing bow used across South Asia to loosen and clean raw cotton before spinning. mechanized cotton gins and factories replaced most hand fluffing over the 20th century, though some artisans still use the tool for handmade quilts.

on What happened to the computer language COBOL?0 votes

it never fully died, it just went invisible. tons of banks, insurance companies, and government systems still run COBOL code from the 60s-80s because rewriting it is too risky and expensive, so it quietly processes trillions of dollars a year.

on What happened to the Segway?0 votes

production of the original personal transporter stopped in 2020, undercut by cheaper electric scooters that did the same job for a fraction of the price. the brand still exists making scooters and small delivery robots.

on What happened to Centralia, Pennsylvania?0 votes

a coal seam fire under the town started in 1962 and is still burning today. the state bought out and demolished almost every property in the 1980s-90s, only a handful of holdout residents remain.

on What happened to the Iridium satellite phone company?0 votes

the original company burned through billions and filed for bankruptcy in 1999, undercut by cheaper cell networks. a new company bought the satellite constellation for pennies on the dollar and it still operates today as a niche service for remote/maritime communication.

on What happened to the dodo's closest relatives?0 votes

its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon, a colorful bird still found in parts of Southeast Asia. the dodo itself went extinct in the late 1600s, hunted and outcompeted by animals introduced to Mauritius by sailors.

on What happened to Tiger King's Carole Baskin's husband?0 votes

her first husband, Don Lewis, disappeared in 1997 and was declared legally dead years later, a case Tiger King made famous by implying Carole was involved, which she has always denied. her current husband, Howard Baskin, remains active running Big Cat Rescue with her.

on What happened to the last typewriter factory?0 votes

the last major typewriter factory (Godrej and Boyce in India) stopped production around 2011, though smaller manufacturers still make a small number for niche markets and collectors today.

on What happened to the last woolly mammoths?0 votes

mainland populations died out around 10,000 years ago, but a small isolated population survived on Russia's Wrangel Island until about 4,000 years ago, meaning mammoths were still alive when the pyramids of Egypt were being built.

on What happened to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?0 votes

the original 1940 bridge famously collapsed in high winds just months after opening due to a wind-driven resonance effect, caught on dramatic film footage still shown in engineering classes today. a redesigned, sturdier bridge was built in its place in 1950.

on What happened to the Terracotta Army's sculptors?0 votes

the thousands of workers and artisans who built the terracotta army for China's first emperor around 210 BC are largely unnamed in history, though some fragments are marked with maker signatures. many laborers reportedly died during the decades-long construction.

on What happened to the Bermuda Triangle theories?0 votes

the mystique mostly comes from a mix of coincidence and sensationalized writing in the 1960s-70s. statistically the area doesn't have more disappearances than any other heavily trafficked ocean region once you account for weather and traffic volume.

on What happened to the Spice Girls' "sixth member"?0 votes

there was never an official sixth member, but a woman named Michelle Stephenson was part of the group during early auditions and rehearsals before the five members who became famous were finalized in 1994.

on What happened to Nauru's phosphate wealth?0 votes

the tiny island nation got extremely rich mining phosphate through the 20th century, then the reserves ran out and mismanaged investments wiped out the wealth. Nauru is now heavily reliant on aid and controversially hosts an Australian offshore migrant detention center for income.

on What happened to the last speaker of a dying language?0 votes

when the last fluent speaker of a language dies, the language is typically declared extinct unless it was documented or partially revived beforehand. linguists race to record speakers of endangered languages specifically to preserve grammar and vocabulary before this happens.

on What happened to Six Flags New Orleans after Katrina?0 votes

it never reopened after Hurricane Katrina flooded it in 2005. the rusted, abandoned rides sat untouched for over 15 years and became a popular (illegal) urban exploration spot before demolition finally began in the 2020s.

on What happened to the ozone hole?0 votes

it is actually recovering. the 1987 Montreal Protocol banned ozone-depleting chemicals like CFCs, and the ozone layer is on track to fully heal by around 2066, widely considered one of the most successful environmental treaties ever.

on What happened to Detroit's abandoned factories?0 votes

many sat empty for decades after the auto industry contracted, some became infamous "ruin porn" photography subjects. the city has slowly been demolishing or redeveloping them, including the massive Packard Plant, parts of which are finally being torn down.

on What happened to the Lost Colony's survivors?0 votes

no one knows for certain, the entire Roanoke colony vanished between 1587 and 1590 with only the word "CROATOAN" left carved as a clue. leading theories include assimilation with local tribes, disease, or conflict, but nothing has ever been confirmed.

on What happened to 3D TVs?0 votes

manufacturers quietly stopped making them by around 2016-2017. people didn't want to wear glasses at home, content was scarce, and the picture quality upgrade from regular HD/4K TVs mattered way more to buyers.

on What happened to Google+?0 votes

Google shut down the consumer version in 2019 after low adoption and a data breach that exposed user profile info. a business-focused version briefly continued under a different name before also fading out.

on What happened to Palm Pilot?0 votes

Palm struggled to compete once smartphones took off, got bought by HP in 2010, and HP killed the webOS-based Palm products entirely by 2011. the brand name has since been licensed out for a couple of unrelated small phone attempts.

on What happened to Balloon Boy's family?0 votes

it turned out to be a hoax, the boy was hiding in the attic the whole time. the parents pled guilty to staging it for reality TV attention and did short jail time plus community service.

on What happened to the Napster guy, Shawn Fanning?0 votes

after Napster got shut down, he tried a few other startups (Rupture, Path) with mixed success. he has stayed in tech as an investor and entrepreneur, mostly out of the public eye compared to his Napster fame.

on What happened to the Colossus of Rhodes?0 votes

it stood for only about 54 years before an earthquake toppled it around 226 BC. the remains reportedly lay on the ground for centuries until they were eventually sold for scrap, so nothing of the original statue survives today.

on What happened to the Sears catalog?0 votes

Sears discontinued its "Big Book" general catalog in 1993 after it became unprofitable to compete with cheaper specialty retailers, well before the internet killed off catalog shopping generally. Sears itself later filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

on What happened to Tonya Harding?0 votes

she was banned from competitive figure skating for life after the Nancy Kerrigan attack scandal. she later had a run as a professional boxer, and a 2017 movie ("I, Tonya") revived public interest in her story.

on What happened to the Nigerian Prince email scammers?0 votes

the scam format itself never really died, it evolved. modern versions show up as romance scams, fake lottery wins, and business email compromise fraud, still costing victims hundreds of millions of dollars a year according to FBI reports.

on What happened to the "Hide the Pain Harold" stock photo guy?0 votes

he is a real Hungarian man named Andras Arato, a retired electrical engineer who got scouted for stock photos in his 60s. he leaned into the meme fame, does interviews about it, and has said he finds it funny.

on What happened to Napster?0 votes

the original service got sued into shutting down in 2001 by the music industry. the brand got bought and resold multiple times since and now exists as a legitimate paid streaming service, totally unrelated to its file sharing roots.

on What happened to Leona Helmsley's dog, Trouble?0 votes

the dog inherited a $12 million trust when Helmsley died in 2007, then a judge cut it down to $2 million after her relatives contested it. Trouble lived out the rest of her life under guard at a pet resort in Florida.

on What happened to the kid from the "Kony 2012" video?0 votes

the boy featured, Gavin, is the son of the filmmaker who made the viral documentary. the film's creator, Jason Russell, had a highly publicized public breakdown shortly after the video blew up, partly attributed to the sudden intense stress and criticism.

on What happened to LimeWire?0 votes

it was shut down in 2010 after a lawsuit from the RIAA over massive copyright infringement, and the company later paid a $105 million settlement. a "LimeWire" NFT/crypto brand later bought the name but has nothing to do with the original file sharing app.

on What happened to the guy who invented the Snuggie?0 votes

Snuggie was created by Scott Boilen, whose company Allstar Marketing had actually sold nearly identical blanket-with-sleeves products under other names for years before rebranding it as the Snuggie in 2008, which is when it finally went viral.

on What happened to Clippy, the Microsoft Office assistant?0 votes

Microsoft killed it off by default in Office XP (2001) after years of user complaints, though it technically stuck around as an optional feature for a bit longer. it lives on now purely as an internet meme.

on What happened to Pan Am airlines?0 votes

it went bankrupt and stopped flying in 1991, unable to recover from the financial hit of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing plus general industry deregulation pressure. the brand has been revived a few times since for smaller ventures, none successful long term.

on What happened to Google Glass?0 votes

the consumer version was discontinued in 2015 after privacy backlash and a lack of a clear use case ("glasshole" became a real slang term). Google pivoted it into an enterprise-only product for warehouses and factories before killing that too in 2023.

on What happened to the Berlin Wall pieces?0 votes

after the wall fell in 1989, sections were sold, given away, or ended up in museums and private collections worldwide. authenticated pieces still get sold online today, though there is a persistent problem with fake "wall fragments" being sold as real.

on What happened to the Beanie Baby bubble?0 votes

the secondary market collapsed hard in the early 2000s once people realized they were not actually rare or valuable investments, they were just mass produced toys. Ty kept making them at a smaller scale, they are mostly worthless as collectibles today.

on What happened to Crystal Pepsi?0 votes

it flopped and got pulled within about a year of its 1992 launch, people were weirded out by a clear cola. Pepsi has brought it back a few times since as a nostalgia limited release.

on What happened to Baby Jessica after she fell in the well?0 votes

she survived the 1987 rescue after 58 hours stuck in a Texas well and made a full recovery. she stayed out of the spotlight growing up and is now a private adult, reportedly married with kids.

on What happened to Blockbuster Video?0 votes

yeah the late fees thing is underrated as a reason honestly, I remember owing like $40 once and just never going back lol

on What happened to Schrödinger's actual cat?accepted1 votes

there was no real cat lol, it was just a 1935 thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger to show how ridiculous quantum superposition would sound if you applied it to something normal, like a cat. he actually said later he regretted the example because everyone took it way too literally.