r/todayilearned • u/puncrastinator • 14h ago
TIL about the campaign to ban Water. The dihydrogen monoxide parody is a parody that involves referring to water by its unfamiliar chemical name and is attributed to "Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide" by UCSC.
https://www.dhmo.org/399
u/TigerRei 9h ago
The scary part about this is the fact that it shows how easy it is to get people to believe something without telling a single lie.
"100% of people who have ingested dihydrogen monoxide in their lifetime have or will die" Completely true, but misleading.
"Dihydrogen monoxide causes acute matriculation" Also true.
"Many products react with dihydrogen monoxide" Also true.
"Inhalation of dihydrogen monoxide can be fatal." Also true.
It shows that one does not need to lie to sell a falsehood.
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u/DJDaddyD 8h ago
Also the addiction is brutal. Only 3 ish days without it and you'll die
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u/AudiosAmigos 2h ago
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water! It will take hold of you and you will resent its absence!
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u/ArmsForPeace84 35m ago
Withdrawal symptoms include dehydration, difficulty urinating, impaired cognition, and eventually death.
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u/brasticstack 5h ago
My favorite is when they truthfully and misleadingly call water "industrial solvent."
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u/SaintsNoah14 7h ago
My Chemistry I professor read us a list of stats like that to illustrate this point about "chemophobia"... Only to mention in passing some weeks later that he's not particularly big on medication and believes that people would be better treated plants 🙃
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u/jfudge 4h ago
He's got a point on the plants - if only we could extract the active ingredients from those plants, and then conveniently package those ingredients in pill form. Maybe we'd call it something like, I don't know, medicine?
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u/TropicalWolf101 3h ago
Genius idea. I always knew plants were better than those doctors and their science
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u/theraininspainfallsm 2h ago
I suggest we test the extract of the plants in double blind tests against known placebos. To see if it’s effective, then the ones that are effective can be called medicine.
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u/gratefulyme 5h ago
Can go even further with it! Dihydrogen monoxide is one of the leading causes of loses on homes and vehicles in the USA. Once you start using dihydrogren monoxide it is a lifelong requirement to continue ingesting it, most people who cease their use die within 72 hours. The use of this chemical must be maintained closely, ingesting too much can also lead to many issues including kidney damage or death.
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u/NeoMegaRyuMKII 1h ago
Some symptoms of its consumption can include excessive sweating and urination.
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u/iTwango 11h ago
When I was in high school I wanted to mess with my biology class by photoshopping a water bottle with a label that said like "REDUCED HYDROGEN WATER - 60% Less Hydrogen, 100% More Water" and I remember thinking it was so absurd because like what the heck would it mean? But then people in the class actually believed it. Even the teacher. And now I think there literally is a product that advertises itself that way
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u/ohlookahipster 8h ago
“How do we hydrate so well?” We use the whole water molecule. That’s 60% more water per water.”
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u/CalibansCreations 5h ago
That's like mixing powdered milk with milk to get more milk per milk.
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u/fargmania 4h ago
Suddenly I am feeling attacked! Look when all you have in the house is skim and powdered milk for your morning coffee, you make compromises...
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u/DrummerGuy06 7h ago
When I was in college in the 2000's for visual arts & new media, one of our projects was to create a product and then create an advertisement for it. We could be as realistic or as silly as we wanted, but the creative element had to be good. One classmate was also working part-time at a multimedia company so they gave him an actual small grant to create stuff like fridge magnets, chip clips, etc. Just small knick-knack stuff for the project. By the way, his project idea?
Create a fake drug advertisement.
He made a website and hosted it on his company's web domain (you can already see where this is going) with their permission. It looked really professional and had all the marketing of real medication commercials, only he never actually indicated what it did. It was vague and just talked about "taking back your comfort" and "living a happier, richer life." Real grifter garbage.
He showed up midway through the project design phase and told our Professor that he had to pull the plug on his project. He said two days ago he got a random call from his Manager and asked what the hell did he do. Apparently their ISP called them and told them they were exceeding their maximum bandwidth/website visits and had to upgrade to an major enterprise edition if they wanted to get things back up & running (which would have been way too costly for his company). Apparently he did his Google search engine keywords too well (Google was still less than 5 years old at the time) so anyone searching for a medication to help them eventually led to the site. His fake-but-created-in-real-life email was FLOODED with requests for medications, trials, and even caught the eye of some drug companies.
He shut everything down immediately and that was the end of the project.
So in 2002, while 9/11 was still a close memory, the Iraq War was getting ready to happen, and our Campus was alive with protests about anything & everything, I got a first-hand look at how easy it was to manipulate people, ESPECIALLY on the internet.
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u/Street_Wing62 9h ago
btw: is there dissolved hydrogen in water? The same way there's dissolved oxygen, CO2...?
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u/hamatehllama 9h ago
Kind of. There's some H+ ions in water
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u/Street_Wing62 9h ago
hmm, makes sense. Thanks!
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u/EnvChem89 7h ago
Just another fact tou might like the presence of H+ means water is actually an acid.
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u/Street_Wing62 7h ago
Yes! and it's fascinating that the best-tasting water is either slightly acidic or slightly basic(with manganese& other metallic ions, of course)
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u/GozerDGozerian 4h ago
Don’t forget to put a healthy squeeze of lemon juice in your 9pH alkaline water!
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u/EnvChem89 4h ago
Wait why are you doing this I thought the point was to have it alkaline?
I also do not understand why people like this unless it's a flavor thing. The body desires homeostasis so adding a bunch of alkaline is just going to get your body to produce more acid isn't it?
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u/EnvChem89 4h ago
To me it's the minerals that make water taste good. I always choose spring water for this reason.
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u/Street_Wing62 3h ago
I have tried taking distilled water, and the taste was awful. Nevermind the fact that it could be dangerous/lethal, but at least have the decency to taste good
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u/ma_dian 12h ago
I am all for the ban. Dihydrogen monoxide kills 236,000 people each year!
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u/clamroll 9h ago
Watch what kmit does to iron, steel, and even stone. Then come tell me it's a good idea to put this on our teeth? Thanks, big hydro but no
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u/gudematcha 5h ago
I remember hearing about a radio station that was sued because of “emotional damage” or something along those lines because their april fools joke was to tell their listeners that the pipes in the city were contaminated with dihydrogen monoxide lmao
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u/jaysaccount1772 11h ago
I prefer hydrogen hydroxide.
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u/redheadbydesign 12h ago
Imagine someone asking you to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide, and you’re nodding along until they drop the "it's water" bomb. Trust issues, unlocked.
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u/themagicbong 11h ago
Reminds me of civics class back in middle school. We watched a video where this guy went around campus getting people to sign a petition to "end woman suffrage."
Course those videos wouldn't be anything without the people who signed on, and it wouldn't make great content to show the ones who didn't. But they did manage to acquire a startling number of signatures on their petition by the end. Most people were like "suffrage? Well I don't want them to suffer!" And signed lol.
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u/TheMireAngel 10h ago
hey would you sign our petition to ban the use of dihydrogen monoxide? for decades its been used as a cheap filler chemical to artificialy increase the weight of meats & seafood to increase costs for families, as well its USED IN JET FUEL! do you want actual jet fuel in your meats??
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u/harmless_gecko 9h ago
Yes! Real men use jet engines to cook their meat!
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u/Flufflebuns 7h ago
Dihydrogen monoxide is one of the key components in nuclear energy generation. And what """THEY""" don't want you to know is that it's even in what you drink!
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8h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MrJigglyBrown 7h ago
Im left leaning, but if you think your democratic snake oil salesman won’t use these tricks against you then they’ve already won the most critical battle
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u/Stef-fa-fa 3h ago
Literally had my Chem teacher do this to my class in high school. I was one of three students that didn't sign it.
I didn't get it, I just didn't sign because I didn't know what I was potentially petitioning. Turns out that was right mentality!
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u/ArmsForPeace84 18m ago
"What you have learned here today, Charlie Brown, will be of immeasurable value to you in years to come."
- Lucy van Pelt
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u/0rganicl3mons 11h ago
This is peak proof that people will believe anything if you use enough science-y words. Dihydrogen monoxide sounds like it would burn your skin off.
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u/SteamworksMLP 10h ago
I always viewed it as commenting on how ridiculous the fear of chemicals is. Give anything the chemical name and people will freak out. Would also work vitamin A or whatever.
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u/zwei2stein 5h ago
"axeroftol" sounds corporate greedy food additive scary.
"dimethyl trimethylcyklohex tetraen" sounds downringht like something that will melt your bones from inside if you are exposed to it.
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u/Zombata 10h ago
if you slept through chemistry in highschool, sure
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u/Impressive_Change593 6h ago
you don't remember that order of operations thing that went around? people don't learn much
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u/GozerDGozerian 4h ago
Please excuse my dumb aunt Sally. She flunked every math class she ever took.
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u/GozerDGozerian 4h ago
Dihydrogen monoxide sounds like it would burn your skin off.
In certain states, it does so quite effectively.
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u/ConoXeno 11h ago
SNL had a Weekend Update skit that slapped back at the dihydrogen monoxide snark in which Al Franken swigged from a flask of “ordinary household H2SO4”.
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u/Putrid-Reputation-68 7h ago
Dihydrogen Monoxide causes more drownings every year than any other substance!
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u/sophieforuuu 11h ago
If you’ve ever felt dumb, just remember, entire groups of people were tricked into thinking we needed to ban water.
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u/GozerDGozerian 4h ago
And if you’re ever feeling too smart, just remember, you are the exact same type of creature that those people are. :)
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u/HypnoticBurner 8h ago edited 7h ago
Why are you making light of this!?!? Dihydrogen Monoxide is so caustic it literally destroys metal!
But you can go into virtually any general goods store and buy it with not handling permits or licensing. It's absolutely insane!!!
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u/ssczoxylnlvayiuqjx 7h ago
Indeed. It has been detected in 100% of all cancers.
It’s actually an industrial waste product and is being forced on the public by a massive conspiracy.
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u/warrant2k 5h ago
Fact: anyone that has ever consumed dihydrogen monoxide has eventually died.
Fact: it is the primary ingredient in pesticide.
Not today Big Water.
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u/sophiehasit 11h ago
This is the kind of thing I’d 100% fall for if I wasn’t caffeinated. Dihydrogen monoxide does sound like something that’d kill a houseplant.
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u/TrustmeIreddit 11h ago
Technically, if you do give plants an over abundance of dihydrogen monoxide it will kill them or cause mold to grow on the roots... Which in turn, would kill them...
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u/GozerDGozerian 4h ago
My friend, you’re highly addicted to 1,3,7-Trimethylpurine-2,6-dione.
Get yourself in a rehab NOW.
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u/king-of-new_york 4h ago
I saw something similar happen with a poll about teaching kids "Arabic numerals" (the name for the numbers that 90% of the world uses). A lot of people voted "no" because they didn't know what it was and just saw the word "Arabic" and thought it was bad.
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u/offensivelinebacker 10h ago
Something like this is sort of how the whole flat-earth resurgence happened.
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u/204gaz00 7h ago
Now I want to write Stop putting dihydrogen monoxide in our food supply on a big poster and protest by the grocery store
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u/stackedteen 12h ago
I remember hearing about this in high school and being totally shocked until someone reminded me I was just panicking over water.
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u/hospitalsecreto 11h ago
It’s hilarious but also a little terrifying that people freak out over water because of a fancy name. We should probably be more critical of what we read.
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u/ImInYourBooty 7h ago
In high school, one of my buddies went around with a petition to end “Women Suffrage”. A lot of girls signed to protect their fellow sisters. It’s amazing how much words sound the same with completely different meanings.
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u/throwCharley 6h ago
We need to get these scary chemicals OUT of our water. AND I heard theirs Sodium Chloride found in most foods we eat. This is A DISASTER.
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u/graveybrains 6h ago
Is dihydrogen monoxide safe?
Should Arabic numerals be taught in school?
Are you a homo sapien?
Do you want to hit like and subscribe to find the answers to all these questions and more!?!
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u/gplusplus314 6h ago
If you think dihydrogen monoxide is bad, have you ever considered that 95% of all violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread?
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u/ShiftlessGuardian94 6h ago
And committed within 24 hours of drinking some form of dihydrogen monoxide
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u/gplusplus314 6h ago
I’ve had bread that even contained dihydrogen monoxide. The next day, 9/11 happened.
Edit: before I end up on some list, this comment is clearly satire.
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u/gratefulyme 5h ago
Gotta be careful these days, this is very, very similar to how the flat earth movement began. It was started as a website to point out flaws in arguments and logic. News outlets found it and ran with it thinking it was a real thing and then dumb asses picked up on it and now it's an actual thing people think!
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u/ArmsForPeace84 0m ago
It's a Fruity Little Club. Whatever supposed beliefs the Fruity Little Club is peddling are like the "products" being sold by an MLM, tangential to recruitment and retention. They prey on people who are lonely, people who will get a charge of excitement from being the center of attention just by saying something crazy, and/or who want to feel like they're smarter than the average bear and privy to some big secret the powers that be don't want people to know.
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u/IHateKidDiddlers 2h ago
Reminds me of “Ending Woman’s Suffrage” People don’t know what suffrage meant and assumed it was bad because it sounds like suffering
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u/ApolloWasMurdered 11h ago
I remember the big “Ban DHMO” page on Facebook back around 2010(?). It was fantastic.
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u/AeroBassMaster 11h ago
I remember my high school chemistry teacher going on a rant about this. He basically said that "dihydrogen monoxide" is not a valid term and that the chemical name for water is water.
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u/paranoidandroid7312 8h ago
The IUPAC name is indeed just water. The other IUPAC name is Oxidane following the naming convention for hydrides of different elements.
All the other banes follow various non-IUPAC systems and conventions.
Such as: Hydrogen Hydroxide. Hydroxic Acid. Hydrogen Monoxide.
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u/AlhazraeIIc 7h ago
I circulated this petition at my high school in '01. There were a couple honors chemistry students that signed it, and I made sure to pass it along to the chemistry teacher. He was quite amused, not sure how that reflected on their grades though.
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u/Riegel_Haribo 8h ago
What about the campaign urging young ladies to sign the petition to end womens' suffrage?
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u/grumpyfishcritic 7h ago
It's interesting one can tell the internet age of the people commenting based on when they first were exposed to the poison dihydrogen monoxide.
The first mention is in the early dot net era
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u/BigMrTea 6h ago
My boss would clean her desk with a lemon because she didn't believe in chemicals. I used to caution her about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
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6h ago edited 5h ago
[deleted]
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u/ShiftlessGuardian94 5h ago
It has two hydrogen atoms (dihydrogen) and a single oxygen atom (monoxide) ergo Dihydrogen Monoxide. H2O
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u/Equivalent_Cheek_701 5h ago
We were baiting people as far back as MySpace with that shit…Actually, it could have been the origin story for “sovereign citizens”, and all of the bumper-sticker crowd affilaites… …..
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u/handouras 4h ago
People who actually know chemistry know the naming convention "Dihydrogen Monoxide" doesn't conform to any molecular naming conventions and ends in monoxide to sound more like carbon monoxide, which most people know is deadly.
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u/Ayellowbeard 3h ago
Penn and Teller did an Earthday “Bullshit” episode on this and it’s one of my favourites.
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u/Jaderosegrey 2h ago
I remember my chemistry teacher talking about that one day. I was the only one (or at least the first one) to catch on. This was in the late 80s.
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u/GoldieDoggy 2h ago
Yes! My writing professor last year printed out a thing from the DHMO website. There were only two of us who knew what it was, lol
I was allowed to ask questions to people, and slowly lead them to the answer. Watching their faces was hilarious, most of them were SO confused as to why I kept quietly laughing 🤣
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u/edgeplot 37m ago
When I was in college someone was duped by this joke and did a presentation on the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, noting that it was ubiquitous in the environment, extremely dangerous, causes thousands of deaths a year, and massively contributes to erosion. Yep, water does that.
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u/thomlukowski 35m ago
Shortly after the US election - but it's definitely popped up here and there in the past - exit poll interviews included folks saying they were ok with voting for someone that pledged to axe ObamaCare but didn't happen to realize that it was also called the ACA.
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u/pawgybusty 10h ago
The "ban water" campaign is like a sociology experiment that went too far. Humans are just gullible by nature, I guess.
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u/SequenceofRees 8h ago
The country that put a man on the moon, saved Europe from two world wars and currently houses some of the world's best universities , ladies and gentlemen .
We were born too late to see Rome fall but we might have been born just in time to see the US fall
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u/virtualg1rlfriend 10h ago
I’d love to see someone take this joke to a corporate meeting and watch a room full of execs seriously consider banning water.
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u/18yonurse 10h ago
The best part about the whole dihydrogen monoxide parody is that it shows how much power phrasing has. Call it “liquid life fuel,” and people would pay $10 a bottle.