Speaking of flukes, that reminds me of the Foo bird.
In an old farming village there was a giant bird, named the Foo bird, that would fly over from time to time. One day It took a massive shit on a villager. The villager quickly dove in the river to wash all the shit off. Shortly after he became very sick and succumbed to his illness.
About a week later, the giant Foo bird flew over and dropped a massive load on another villager. He also, jumped in the river to wash it off only to die a few days later as well.
Then a month passed and a huge shadow was cast over the land… it was the Foo bird again. It shit ALL OVER a villager, but unlike the previous men, he just kept farming. The next day came, and he was out there plowing his fields still covered in crap.
After a week passed he was miraculously alive. The villagers started asking him:
“Aren’t you gonna finally wash all that shit off?”
His reply:
“If the Foo shits, wear it”.
For more than three centuries, a plague of unshakable lethargy blanketed the American South.
It began with “ground itch,” a prickly tingling in the tender webs between the toes, which was soon followed by a dry cough. Weeks later, victims succumbed to an insatiable exhaustion and an impenetrable haziness of the mind that some called stupidity. Adults neglected their fields and children grew pale and listless. Victims developed grossly distended bellies and “angel wings”—emaciated shoulder blades accentuated by hunching. All gazed out dully from sunken sockets with a telltale “fish-eye” stare.
The culprit behind “the germ of laziness,” as the South’s affliction was sometimes called, was Necator americanus —the American murderer. Better known today as the hookworm, millions of those bloodsucking parasites lived, fed, multiplied, and died within the guts of up to 40% of populations stretching from southeastern Texas to West Virginia. Hookworms stymied development throughout the region and bred stereotypes about lazy, moronic Southerners.
While the South eventually rid itself of hookworms, those parasites cost the region decades of development and bred widespread misconception about the people who lived there. Yet hookworm has not been defeated for good. Today, hundreds of millions of people in dozens of nations around the world suffer from hookworm infection. The South’s experience, measured in both its successes and pitfalls, can provide a rough blueprint of how to seek out and quash this “American murderer”—no matter where it is found around the world.
In the South, tiny enemies seem to be everywhere. Mosquitoes sneak bites, roaches creep into bedrooms, chiggers bore into tender skin around panty lines, and parasitic worms invade vulnerable guts. As a child growing up in Mississippi with a Southern historian mother who had a fondness for hookworms , I became acquainted with those bloodsuckers at an early age. Hookworm was often an unappetizing topic of conversation around the dinner table, and knowledge of those parasites shaped Nuwer household conduct.
While all the neighborhood kids ran barefoot in the summer, for example, my mother did her best to intersect my sister and me as we bee-lined for the door, ready with pair of shoes and a warning: “You’ll get worms!” Our feet were not the only appendages she shielded from infection, however; fingernails underwent weekly clippings and cleanings to eliminate a potential conduit for eggs or larvae….
>chiggers bore into tender skin around the panty lines
When I was young, chiggers had a buffet on my nutsack. It was MISERABLE. You want to scratch it till you bleed, and it’s not the easiest piece of anatomy to get a really good scratch in.
If you’re going out in tall grass with shorts on, bug spray the hell out of your legs and especially around the base of your shorts. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Oh yeah big time. I have loads of chiggers in my yard. If I go out there just for 30 minutes they are around my ankles. I figured out listerine kills them so whenever I come in I was my lower legs with listerine. No bites then. Bleach works but is a bit harsh.
I had to sleep in a camper in a chigger infested yard last year, I had to beg to stay inside instead after a few days because I was getting eaten alive.
Oh Jesus. I won't even sit in my yard for a short time. Don't need chiggers there! When doing yard work they get on my ankles and lower legs and I got time to get in and wash my lower legs before they work up. I would never camp in my yard unless laying in a bath of deet.
Permithrin is the correct answer. By the time you notice a chigger bit they are already gone and you are dealing with the aftermath. There is almost nothing worse than getting chigger bites
Chiggers are like fleas but they live in grass and eat you up like ring bologna. Listerine is like a mint flavored Yuengling but you’re not supposed to swallow it.
Growing up, I spent every summer at my grandparents' fishing camp in the swamps of Louisiana. Ticks, chiggers, fleas, we had the lot of them. Each night, we'd take baths with Pine Sol added to the water, so I can see bleach being an option as well.
seed ticks love warm moist places. belly buttons sure....but from personal experience it can be much, much worse. like...the little space between the glans and the shaft worse.
Am in Alabama and just pulled one off my husband yesterday! We both work office jobs and have no idea where it came from.
Being from the South, I can't help but to think if we had a hookworm infestation right now, everyone I know would kick and scream for the right to choose to *have* hookworms. They'd have hookworm parties where they try to give their kids hookworms and wear t-shirts that proclaim their fondness of them. They'd go on TV and berate the government for trying to rid them of hookworms, complaining about the woke left's hatred of the Southern tradition of having hookworms. They'd claim their grandfather had hookworms and they turned out all right, so having them must not be so bad.
Being on the South is exhausting sometimes.
[That's pretty well what happened](https://resource.rockarch.org/story/public-health-how-the-fight-against-hookworm-helped-build-a-system/)
It was seen in part as the up-themselves northerners having disdain for the south and trying to control them/calling them dirty and there was plenty of kickback.
I like the “but two northerners did care. Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller” bit. Made me check the source instantly and no surprises.
I’m gonna go with “healthy workers are productive workers” was the reasoning and not just good will.
You know I was just here about to agree with you as someone in the Deep South, BUT…what if all these people still have hookworm and that’s why they’re stupid and huge?
If you go camping, do not go barefoot or wear sandals without spraying insect repellent on your ankles and between your toes, from both top and bottom.
There is no misery to match chiggers between your toes.
Many folks start out sensibly wearing heavy socks and shoes - then get up in the middle of the night needing to pee... oopsie!
I grew up in large part in South Africa and went camping around the Cape all the time. Then I lived in the US for a bit.
I expected it to be tamer, but camping in so much of the US is worse. The mosquitos carry diseases, the ticks carry much worse, there are black widows and chiggers and other weird nasties like poison ivy, depending where. It makes that bit of Africa seem as tame as an English meadow by comparison - I’d take a leopard miles away or large baboons and puff adders any day. You can see them and keep them at bay without them fucking up your week/life.
(Other parts of South Africa, esp. the North-East, are more infested with harmful bugs as well - eg, malaria is a thing. Not the Cape though.)
Idk man, I haven’t experienced either thank god but chiggers in my BALL SACK sounds like something that would happen to you in literal hell, that’s literally something the devil would do😭
The first time I went on a hike with friends after I moved away from the South, I looked up from tucking my pant cuffs into my socks to open mouth stares, "wtf are you doing" looks. Saying "I don't want chiggers" did not help help the situation.
Never had chiggers (and don't want them, ever) by scabies was similar. They collect in all the warm, tender bits of your body. Crotch, butt, arm and elbow pits. It was fucking miserable.
When I was 7, I sat down in the grass for no more than two or three minutes while my mom talked to a friend.
From the bottom of my feet to the inside of my crotch, I was so covered in chiggers that my legs were basically pure red in spots.
Not sure what the treatment for them is supposed to be, but my mom just slathered all the patches in clear nail polish. My damn legs felt like they were in a cast.
My mom did clear nail polish too! I was scrolling through to see if anyone else used this remedy. It worked wonders, but it also might have just been so we didn't scratch them.
And if you forget bug spray take a shower within a couple hours and scrub everywhere with hot soapy water. Wash your clothes too. Same works for poison ivy.
If you've been exposed to poison ivy, wash with dish soap (it's an oil) and \*warm\* water. Hot water opens your pores and lets more of the irritant in your skin.
I haven't had them there, but have had clusters around my ankles. I've still got visible scars over 10 years later from scratching the tops off all the bites because the pain of the raw skin is still better than the itching. I cannot imagine having that on my nutsack and remaining sane enough to function.
Next time try one of those tough bristle brushes, sometimes called a boar brush or club brush.
They are excellent for a good sack scratchin. Just don't forget and use it on your beard after.
There was an ask Reddit thread, and the topic was "what phrase/thing will men instantly understand without context". Pinch and roll was the top comment. I'd never, in my 29 years of life (at time) felt more included in a group
Covered in chigger bites right now. I have to use big spray everyday no matter where I go. I didn't 2 days ago and just standing in the dirt painting my house for a few hours was enough to get fully eaten. I react horribly to their bites. Huge gaping wounds that take weeks to heal. Other than the lone star tick it is the worst living thing on planet earth. I cannot wait until I can leave the Midwest forever and go back to the desert.
Pro tip I learned over the years:
Before doing any real outdoorsy activity, bug spray your actual clothes. It seems excessive, and you smell like chemicals, but it helps a lot.
Best bug spray hands down is Bull Frog. And it’s sunscreen. Expensive, but you won’t see a gnat for a fucking mile if you use that.
You can actually treat your clothes with Permethrin as well. The Army did that to our uniforms. One year we were out in the field every other month and I never got chiggers until the treatment started to fade.
My brother hikes a lot and swears by this. There are a ton of ticks in the areas he frequents but he said he hasn’t had one bite him since he started using it.
Same takes weeks to heal those bites. I have all these scars around my ankles from me scratching chigger bites. FYI wash your legs with listerine when you come indoors, kills them before they bite. This is what I do now if not wearing bug repellant. But if you are out for long then it is going to have to be bug repellent as they will bite before you get in to wash and kill them.
Wow I've spent a lot of time outside in a lot of environments and I've never heard of chiggers on your nut sack that sounds so fucking awful I can't even imagine it. I'd rather hug a cactus
> chiggers
never heard of them. Google led me to a map on Wikipedia. Apparently we get them where I live during the summer, but like, I was never informed this was even a thing to worry about. huh.
I was warned about Chiggers as a lineman doing storm restoration work and I ignored the warnings. I got them on my thighs, arms, stomach and without question one of the worst experiences of my fucking life.
If I hear chiggers now, I’m out no questions asked.
It was torture. I itched so bad that I scratched until I bled and scratched through that. The itching was so severe and lasted 36-42 hours straight. Nonstop constant itching that never got satisfied. No way to concentrate, take your mind off it, relax, sleep, etc.
Were you from out of state? We had tons of people from out of state visit my area one time, and most from the North swore chiggers weren't real, and that we were making them up, and laughed at how the word "sounded racist" etc
They got absolutely eaten *alive* with them and very quickly realized what people were warning about.
I didn't know chiggers don't exist in the other areas of the country apparently?
Funny story. We used finger nail polish. Supposedly it would suffocate them. So there was a many of times as a kid that I would have a red, pink, blue, sparkly green nut sack. Haha
The game 'Humankind', for all its flaws and failed ambition as a 'Civilization Killer', has a lot of interesting events.
One of which is a late stage industrial era event roughly going 'The citizens of [City] are often called excessively lazy and ugly. Slouching bellies, deformed backs giving the impression of angel wings and a common disposition to avoid work. As research uncovered now, they are not really lazy but suffer from a parasitic infection.'
A clear nod to this parasite, given away by the telltale 'angel wings'.
>While all the neighborhood kids ran barefoot in the summer, for example, my mother did her best to intersect my sister and me as we bee-lined for the door, ready with pair of shoes and a warning: “You’ll get worms!” Our feet were not the only appendages she shielded from infection, however; fingernails underwent weekly clippings and cleanings to eliminate a potential conduit for eggs or larvae….
I remember my Grandfather warning about this and being weird about dirty fingernails. He grew up in the 1930s on a farm in coastal plains SE Texas which was sort of humid and soggy all the time and they used an outhouse and chamber pots and didn't have electricity.
These days with AC and modern medicine eradicating diseases nobody remembers how gross living in the Gulf Coast region used to be. You have to wonder what would happen to cities like Houston, Tampa, Orlando, etc if there was some prolonged national crisis where electricity was scarce, for example. They wouldn't be inhabitable.
Pretty sure the extreme rural areas are still living that gross life. When hookworm was surging in Alabama in 2017 there were articles describing places that couldn't use or afford septic tanks and so instead were using straight pipes from their toilets to a nearby ditch.
> Yet hookworm has not been defeated for good. Today, hundreds of millions of people in dozens of nations around the world suffer from hookworm infection.
Uhhhh... it's not over for the US south. It's actually returning there because of the lack of building codes, septic system overflows, and neglected municipal treatment plants which overflow and affect surrounding areas.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/04/texas-sanitation-sewage-deadly-parasite
Also strongyloidiasis is appearing in the US, which is spread much the same way as hookworm. Infection is lifelong and it's very difficult to cure, and if the patient's immune system weakens due to steroids or disease, their entire body becomes overloaded with billions of larvae causing something called hyperinfection. Truly nasty shit.
Oh fuck. Don't. I need eye bleach.
Larvae moving visibly under your skin and in your brain. Nonono!
Goodbye US south as a tourist destination for my future me.
Hello Greenland!
Kinda terrified I have some sort of parasite because for years and years as a child I ran barefoot outside. Is there any way to test? And before someone says “if you’re healthy you’re fine,” I’m not—I have severe health problems that developed in my early/late teens and over 25% of people with my current diagnosis cannot hold a job because of how disabling the symptoms are.
Ask for a parasite screening from your doctor. If the disability is ME/CFS or POTS (or anything in that ballpark), the more likely culprit is dysbiosis which you can check via GI Map screening.
Parasites in the South are one thing but the food — and its diversity obliterating effect on the microbiome — are a whole other game. Src: Southerner in recovery from ME/CFS. Thought the same thing as you. It wasn’t parasites, it was dysbiosis and Epstein Barr.
The extreme poverty in much of the US South is just ignored. The UN inspector general found the worst living conditions in the developed world in rural Alabama.
“North Carolina, which came to be known as ‘Poor Carolina,’ went in a very different direction from its sibling to the south. It failed to shore up it elite planter class. Starting with Albemarle County, it became an imperial renegade territory, a swampy refuge for the poor and landless. Wedged between proud Virginians and upstart South Carolinians, North Carolina was that troublesome ‘sinke of America’ so many early commentators lamented. It was a frontier wasteland resistant (or so it seemed) to the forces of commerce and civilization. Populated by what many dismissed as ‘useless lubbers’ (conjuring the image of sleepy and oafish men lolling around doing nothing), North Carolina forged a lasting legacy as what we might call the first white trash colony. Despite being English, despite having claimed their rights of freeborn Britons, lazy lubbers of Poor Carolina stood out as a dangerous refuge of waste people, and the spawning ground of a degenerate breed of Americans.”
— From “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg (2016)
“those parasites cost the region decades of development”
I mean, the focus on slavery for the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, to the detriment of industrializing, certainly didn’t help development.
Yeah, I was gonna say. I'm sure hookworms were a problem but it feels like the article massively overemphasized them, especially when it comes to why the South stagnated after the Civil War.
I find statements in this interesting “We couldn’t just give them plumbing or running water. We couldn’t just give them all shoes so they weren’t running round barefoot”
Why not? Reminds me of the Victorians who made people who were starving work on follies (building a castle ruin, building a pier into a lake, bridges to nowhere) because they were the “undeserving poor” and needed to work or they’d be lazy
This is also tied into the idea of Southern belles “swooning” and passing out due to stress or big news. They were super anemic and had low blood pressure from having their blood sucked out by hookworms, making them more likely to faint
I always just assumed it was due to corsets and heat, start getting overwhelmed and you’re gunna pass out fast, especially trying to stay poised and put together! But this also makes sense
Honestly it could be all of the above or some combination thereof depending on the individual and circumstance. I can't imagine any one of those things doesn't make another suddenly *easier* for a body to deal with. It's a stacking of problems that share symptoms.
Also just the stereotype of genteel women being weak and out of touch with the brutal realities of life that ‘big strong men’ deal with.
Aristocratic women in relatively temperate, hookworm-free Europe were stereotyped as constantly fainting at the sight of blood or whatever. Especially in novels written by men who, ironically, had probably seen far less blood than any adult woman.
Corsets making it hard to breathe is a Hollywood myth. There was a very brief fad called tight lacing to accentuate the hourglass figure (though most of it was actually achieved through padding and physical photoshopping) in the Victorian era, but for hundreds of years the corset was just a regular undergarment.
Women of all classes including working and peasant women wore them every single day. They rode horses and plowed the field in corsets. On YouTube historical costumers have dozens of videos of them doing all sorts of activities comfortable and freely in historical replica corsets. They were just clothes. Those Hollywood tight laces corsets are what g-strings are to boy shorts.
Both things could have been happening. The corsets, hoops and amount of clothing they wore. Plus the lack of effective cooling systems. Recipe for fainting.
Nah that’s a stereotype of aristocratic women in Europe as well. The idea is ‘Haha, women weak and innocent’.
I’d imagine the clothing and southern US heat were an exacerbating factor too. Not sure we can tie it specifically to hookworms.
Hotter climates also tend to have more laid back attitudes due to the difficulty of working in the heat.Air conditioning caused a big change for productivity in the US South.
Honestly, when I moved out of the South I was amazed at how often I saw people running. After living in a few different areas, I realized that nice weather really does affect energy levels. In the South, the heat and humidity will smother you and expunge any outdoor productivity idea you might have had. Even walking to your car makes you feel sticky and gross.
I went to a wedding in South Carolina in July. It was outdoors during the day. My suit was literally soaked all the way through with sweat. I didn’t think that was possible. Stepping out of the car felt like a wall of oppression hitting you. The humidity makes it insane. I go to southern Italy every year, where the heat regularly hits 110° in the summer. It's dangerous, but the air is dry, with currents coming up from Africa. It's much more tolerable.
My college decided one year to have an outdoor graduation ceremony at noon with all the students wearing black robes. There were people passing out left and right. My dress started to soak until I, like many others, took the robe off. It was a disaster, and I will never give them money because of that particular idiocy. You've got to be careful when you plan outdoor activities in the South...
Hookworks and Malaria. Malaria wasn't [eliminated until the 1950s](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us) and was debilitating for hundreds of thousands of people year after year. And, it still isn't quite gone...
Malaria and Sleeping Sickness have also played into the stereotype of lazy Africans as well.
I've got shit all to base this on, but I think it's also why a load of Americans are extremely weird about bare feet outside.
Hookworms created a cultural reason to assume that the ground is horrible and will make you sick if you walk on it without shoes.
Growing up in a rural area in the 1950s, we were not allowed to play outside barefoot even though other kids we knew could. After reading the article, I think it is the reason for that rule.
Here in NZ it is the opposite.
Growing up, you're practically expected to be running around barefoot. It's still common to see people walking barefoot most days outside of peak winter.
We just never had the "Feet on ground is gross" culture here. Although we also don't have hookworm issues, so that'd be why.
In my area it was slugs. But you can generally avoid stepping on slugs if it's hot and sunny. Then I moved to a different area and found out about puncture vine. Puncture vine made me nostalgic for the slugs.
In Texas it's sandburs (stickers). I've gone around with a propane torch burning not just the sandburs (easier than picking and disposing) but the entire plant to make sure the plant is dead.
If you have a yard without them, don't ever let them get started.
Don't ever go barefoot in the grass in Texas or Oklahoma until you're sure there's no sandburs or you're informed it's fine.
"Laziness" is perhaps a character defect in a small % of cases (as a guess, I don't really know) but I firmly believe that in the majority of cases, there is some underlying illness whether physical or mental. Having no physical energy is no joke, even worse when those around you tut and sigh and call you lazy. Similarly, in the absence of a physical issue, laziness is usually due to a lack of motivation, and the failure to develop that motivation usually has some deep rooted psychological issue like chronic depression at its root. But that doesn't stop many people using the word as an insult to attack them.
There's a recent book on this: *Laziness Does Not Exist* by Devon Price. Haven't had a chance to open it up yet (too lazy, obviously /s), but I've heard good things about it.
I just went to add this book to my TBR and in reading the description I realized I’ve already read it! It was quite good but also kind of depressing. It goes through all of the ways we’ve been taught to assign value to and derive self-esteem from productivity and the puritanical philosophy that started the whole WASPY working ideal that’s still so pervasive today and how it’s become so interwoven with capitalism and labor exploitation.
Our society places almost no value on doing something simply because you like it. We always have to be working towards *something* or bettering ourselves in some way. It’s pretty sad.
I always thought I was lazy. Hated getting up in the morning, liked doing nothing on my days off, family would criticise me for taking a lot of naps, colleagues would poke fun at me for being late so often. I went to the doctor about my low energy once and he basically said there's nothing wrong with me and if I exercise more I'd have more energy. Turns out I had undiagnosed sleep apnea. Looking back probably from when I was a teenager. Now it's managed I have way more energy in my 30s than I ever had in my 20s.
I was a good student for the first 3 years of high school. My senior year though, I struggled and my grades slipped slightly to a B average, I was late to school a lot, and it was harder to get assignments turned in on time. Because of this, a teacher -- who I had known through out my entire time in high school and who knew what I was capable of -- decided it was appropriate to call me "the poster child of procrastination and laziness" in front of the whole class. Yup. Never asked what was wrong or why things had changed. Just straight to laziness.
Later during my first year in college I was diagnosed with ADHD and severe depression. Got help for those, still struggled, but was still a successful student. Now I'm 30 and I *still* think about that comment and all the snickers from the other students who heard it.
What a piece of shit teacher to try and make an example of you like that, especially when it's one that knows you better.
I was diagnosed at 30 and I also have lots of memories of being shamed like that, and how they only ever made things worse. When I was young enough to not know any better, there was never anyone that expressed concern about how listless I was. Just seen as lazy, I guess.
5 years later with some clarity, I still get angry about it thinking about certain people sometimes. But since getting help, it (usually) dies down quick enough since I know I'm not in the wrong now. Glad you got help, and I hope things are well for you.
I have a close friend who always tells me she’s lazy, but then will randomly tell me some terrible story from her childhood
Like girl you’re not lazy you’re traumatized
Sigh, me to my mom, like, all the time. She’ll beat herself up over not doing enough laundry or cleaning or whatever, and I’m like…you are not bad, you are not lazy, your childhood was insane, please rest.
Totally. It's particularly clear to me with poor people. Like, have you ever been poor? No one is choosing that just because they'd rather not put some effort in.
Lots of other things play into poverty too of course. But "laziness" is not a significant one.
Random fun fact, that miracle horse dewormer that people thought worked during the recent pandemic. Had statistical significance in 3rd world countries where similar parasites to hookworms are very common, meaning someone who is sick with anything and gets rid of that parasite would always be much better off. Which is why there was very little statistical significance in 1st world countries.
Any other fun fact is that the human body produces a unique antibody specifically for worms and similar parasites however they almost never successfully work. Leads to the question of how we even developed that in the first place because it doesn’t really help as all.
Same thing happened in Puerto Rico, the sugar plantation workers couldn’t afford shoes and the owners didn’t want to provide any so the parasite burrowed through their feet, a lot of the workers spent decades with anemia.
It's the heat.
Seriously, that's it. Above all else, it's the motherfucking heat.
Source: living 20 years in Alabama after 20 years in a less hot state. My desire to do literally anything from April to November is zero. Too fucking hot.
Had em when I was like 12. i just ignored it and they went away after a year
is this saying i could still have them and that's why im so tired all the time? I haven't seen em in my poop in 17 years
I mean there’s also 1.) it’s hotter than hell
And 2.) for a while there they reeeeeeeeeally preferred to outsource a lot of the hard labor to… non-consenting immigrants
Oh yeah, you find the same in central and south america. Without AC life in those regions just kinda sucks. It's crazy hot and humid so you take a nap during the afternoon
It’s kind of hilarious how Redditors, who claim to believe in science, read this and say, “Nope. Slaves,” when given a scientific explanation of a problem that persisted for nearly a century after abolition.
In Korea the workers in the rice paddies wear nylon stockings to prevent flukes entering their feet
Weird. That’s the same reason I wear nylon stockings. For a thing.
We should hang out by the quarry and throw *things* down there.
/unexpectedoffice
And if one does get it, it was a fluke.
Don't tell me. You are here all night?
Speaking of flukes, that reminds me of the Foo bird. In an old farming village there was a giant bird, named the Foo bird, that would fly over from time to time. One day It took a massive shit on a villager. The villager quickly dove in the river to wash all the shit off. Shortly after he became very sick and succumbed to his illness. About a week later, the giant Foo bird flew over and dropped a massive load on another villager. He also, jumped in the river to wash it off only to die a few days later as well. Then a month passed and a huge shadow was cast over the land… it was the Foo bird again. It shit ALL OVER a villager, but unlike the previous men, he just kept farming. The next day came, and he was out there plowing his fields still covered in crap. After a week passed he was miraculously alive. The villagers started asking him: “Aren’t you gonna finally wash all that shit off?” His reply: “If the Foo shits, wear it”.
Only one way to protect against a Foo bird … you need to get some Foo Fighters.
For more than three centuries, a plague of unshakable lethargy blanketed the American South. It began with “ground itch,” a prickly tingling in the tender webs between the toes, which was soon followed by a dry cough. Weeks later, victims succumbed to an insatiable exhaustion and an impenetrable haziness of the mind that some called stupidity. Adults neglected their fields and children grew pale and listless. Victims developed grossly distended bellies and “angel wings”—emaciated shoulder blades accentuated by hunching. All gazed out dully from sunken sockets with a telltale “fish-eye” stare. The culprit behind “the germ of laziness,” as the South’s affliction was sometimes called, was Necator americanus —the American murderer. Better known today as the hookworm, millions of those bloodsucking parasites lived, fed, multiplied, and died within the guts of up to 40% of populations stretching from southeastern Texas to West Virginia. Hookworms stymied development throughout the region and bred stereotypes about lazy, moronic Southerners. While the South eventually rid itself of hookworms, those parasites cost the region decades of development and bred widespread misconception about the people who lived there. Yet hookworm has not been defeated for good. Today, hundreds of millions of people in dozens of nations around the world suffer from hookworm infection. The South’s experience, measured in both its successes and pitfalls, can provide a rough blueprint of how to seek out and quash this “American murderer”—no matter where it is found around the world. In the South, tiny enemies seem to be everywhere. Mosquitoes sneak bites, roaches creep into bedrooms, chiggers bore into tender skin around panty lines, and parasitic worms invade vulnerable guts. As a child growing up in Mississippi with a Southern historian mother who had a fondness for hookworms , I became acquainted with those bloodsuckers at an early age. Hookworm was often an unappetizing topic of conversation around the dinner table, and knowledge of those parasites shaped Nuwer household conduct. While all the neighborhood kids ran barefoot in the summer, for example, my mother did her best to intersect my sister and me as we bee-lined for the door, ready with pair of shoes and a warning: “You’ll get worms!” Our feet were not the only appendages she shielded from infection, however; fingernails underwent weekly clippings and cleanings to eliminate a potential conduit for eggs or larvae….
>chiggers bore into tender skin around the panty lines When I was young, chiggers had a buffet on my nutsack. It was MISERABLE. You want to scratch it till you bleed, and it’s not the easiest piece of anatomy to get a really good scratch in. If you’re going out in tall grass with shorts on, bug spray the hell out of your legs and especially around the base of your shorts. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I remember in one of those “swamp people” series they had a guy that used bleach to wash himself, after reading this he was probably on to something
Oh yeah big time. I have loads of chiggers in my yard. If I go out there just for 30 minutes they are around my ankles. I figured out listerine kills them so whenever I come in I was my lower legs with listerine. No bites then. Bleach works but is a bit harsh.
I had to sleep in a camper in a chigger infested yard last year, I had to beg to stay inside instead after a few days because I was getting eaten alive.
Oh Jesus. I won't even sit in my yard for a short time. Don't need chiggers there! When doing yard work they get on my ankles and lower legs and I got time to get in and wash my lower legs before they work up. I would never camp in my yard unless laying in a bath of deet.
Just thinking about all the people who keep their pets locked outside or tied up. Makes me sick.
Salt water also works too. Spend a day in the ocean at the beach and you’ll kill them.
Then you can contend with sand fleas.
Easy. Running through tall grass kills the sand fleas.
Now you have ticks
Parasites all the way down
Walk through fire, they'll jump off.
Now you're on fire.
70-90% isopropanol comes in spray bottles at the drug store and works well
Permithrin is the correct answer. By the time you notice a chigger bit they are already gone and you are dealing with the aftermath. There is almost nothing worse than getting chigger bites
As someone from PA what the fuck?
Chiggers are like fleas but they live in grass and eat you up like ring bologna. Listerine is like a mint flavored Yuengling but you’re not supposed to swallow it.
Growing up, I spent every summer at my grandparents' fishing camp in the swamps of Louisiana. Ticks, chiggers, fleas, we had the lot of them. Each night, we'd take baths with Pine Sol added to the water, so I can see bleach being an option as well.
My house had fleas once. No joke gave me PTSD. It was a nightmare.
Castration would have crossed my mind if I knew what it was at the time
Then you’d be nutless with a still itchy scrotum!
Phantom scrotum syndrome
A bathtub with a capful or two of bleach was the home remedy in my house plus calamine lotion for a couple of days after. Worked pretty good.
That's what they used on us when we were kids.
When I was kid I got chiggers and the solution was lamp oil (kerosene) on my legs. Supposedly it smothers them.
And seed ticks love belly buttons!
seed ticks love warm moist places. belly buttons sure....but from personal experience it can be much, much worse. like...the little space between the glans and the shaft worse.
What a terrible day to have eyes.
What a terrible day to have a penis.
What a terrible day to have a literate penis.
“What up, my name’s Dick, I’m 19, and I never learned how to fuckin’ read”
“… but god*damn* if I can’t read fuckin’!”
I dont think I've ever audibly gasped and recoiled from a comment as much as I just did. Normally your comment is an exaggeration, but not this time.
I plucked one off the helmet itself last month. I loathe ticks with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.
Tick dick nooooo
Queue matrix bellybutton scene
No, no thank you.
Dude
Am in Alabama and just pulled one off my husband yesterday! We both work office jobs and have no idea where it came from. Being from the South, I can't help but to think if we had a hookworm infestation right now, everyone I know would kick and scream for the right to choose to *have* hookworms. They'd have hookworm parties where they try to give their kids hookworms and wear t-shirts that proclaim their fondness of them. They'd go on TV and berate the government for trying to rid them of hookworms, complaining about the woke left's hatred of the Southern tradition of having hookworms. They'd claim their grandfather had hookworms and they turned out all right, so having them must not be so bad. Being on the South is exhausting sometimes.
[That's pretty well what happened](https://resource.rockarch.org/story/public-health-how-the-fight-against-hookworm-helped-build-a-system/) It was seen in part as the up-themselves northerners having disdain for the south and trying to control them/calling them dirty and there was plenty of kickback.
I like the “but two northerners did care. Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller” bit. Made me check the source instantly and no surprises. I’m gonna go with “healthy workers are productive workers” was the reasoning and not just good will.
I’m so confused, they used bushes cause outhouses were primitive????
I can hear it now: Hoaxworms!
You know I was just here about to agree with you as someone in the Deep South, BUT…what if all these people still have hookworm and that’s why they’re stupid and huge?
Your comment made me laugh, and then really sad. Just like the political climate of the south.
If you go camping, do not go barefoot or wear sandals without spraying insect repellent on your ankles and between your toes, from both top and bottom. There is no misery to match chiggers between your toes. Many folks start out sensibly wearing heavy socks and shoes - then get up in the middle of the night needing to pee... oopsie!
I grew up in large part in South Africa and went camping around the Cape all the time. Then I lived in the US for a bit. I expected it to be tamer, but camping in so much of the US is worse. The mosquitos carry diseases, the ticks carry much worse, there are black widows and chiggers and other weird nasties like poison ivy, depending where. It makes that bit of Africa seem as tame as an English meadow by comparison - I’d take a leopard miles away or large baboons and puff adders any day. You can see them and keep them at bay without them fucking up your week/life. (Other parts of South Africa, esp. the North-East, are more infested with harmful bugs as well - eg, malaria is a thing. Not the Cape though.)
>No misery to match chiggers between your toes I have to respectfully ask, do you have a ballsack?
I have a few in some Tupperware containers in the freezer in my basement. Why?
Idk man, I haven’t experienced either thank god but chiggers in my BALL SACK sounds like something that would happen to you in literal hell, that’s literally something the devil would do😭
The first time I went on a hike with friends after I moved away from the South, I looked up from tucking my pant cuffs into my socks to open mouth stares, "wtf are you doing" looks. Saying "I don't want chiggers" did not help help the situation.
Your friends might be the kind of people picking ticks off their nutsacks. I don't care how I look, I'm tucking everything that can be tucked.
I was always told in Florida not to play with Spanish moss or you’d get chiggers on your dick.
They say the same thing in Texas!
Never had chiggers (and don't want them, ever) by scabies was similar. They collect in all the warm, tender bits of your body. Crotch, butt, arm and elbow pits. It was fucking miserable.
When I was 7, I sat down in the grass for no more than two or three minutes while my mom talked to a friend. From the bottom of my feet to the inside of my crotch, I was so covered in chiggers that my legs were basically pure red in spots. Not sure what the treatment for them is supposed to be, but my mom just slathered all the patches in clear nail polish. My damn legs felt like they were in a cast.
My mom did clear nail polish too! I was scrolling through to see if anyone else used this remedy. It worked wonders, but it also might have just been so we didn't scratch them.
And if you forget bug spray take a shower within a couple hours and scrub everywhere with hot soapy water. Wash your clothes too. Same works for poison ivy.
If you've been exposed to poison ivy, wash with dish soap (it's an oil) and \*warm\* water. Hot water opens your pores and lets more of the irritant in your skin.
My grandma would cover them in clear coat nail polish and it would help a decent bit. I haven’t had one in probably, 15 years now though.
“Don’t mind me grandma, I’m just teabagging your nail polish”
This is what I did when I had a bunch of them try to chew my feet off. It really did help.
Did you pinch and roll or stretch and scrape?
Stretch and scraped. HARD. I couldn’t pinch and roll it hard enough to satisfy the itch. My scrotum was neon red
I haven't had them there, but have had clusters around my ankles. I've still got visible scars over 10 years later from scratching the tops off all the bites because the pain of the raw skin is still better than the itching. I cannot imagine having that on my nutsack and remaining sane enough to function.
Next time try one of those tough bristle brushes, sometimes called a boar brush or club brush. They are excellent for a good sack scratchin. Just don't forget and use it on your beard after.
There was an ask Reddit thread, and the topic was "what phrase/thing will men instantly understand without context". Pinch and roll was the top comment. I'd never, in my 29 years of life (at time) felt more included in a group
PSA the hard side of some Velcro is an excellent nut scratcher.
Covered in chigger bites right now. I have to use big spray everyday no matter where I go. I didn't 2 days ago and just standing in the dirt painting my house for a few hours was enough to get fully eaten. I react horribly to their bites. Huge gaping wounds that take weeks to heal. Other than the lone star tick it is the worst living thing on planet earth. I cannot wait until I can leave the Midwest forever and go back to the desert.
Pro tip I learned over the years: Before doing any real outdoorsy activity, bug spray your actual clothes. It seems excessive, and you smell like chemicals, but it helps a lot. Best bug spray hands down is Bull Frog. And it’s sunscreen. Expensive, but you won’t see a gnat for a fucking mile if you use that.
You can actually treat your clothes with Permethrin as well. The Army did that to our uniforms. One year we were out in the field every other month and I never got chiggers until the treatment started to fade.
My brother hikes a lot and swears by this. There are a ton of ticks in the areas he frequents but he said he hasn’t had one bite him since he started using it.
Same takes weeks to heal those bites. I have all these scars around my ankles from me scratching chigger bites. FYI wash your legs with listerine when you come indoors, kills them before they bite. This is what I do now if not wearing bug repellant. But if you are out for long then it is going to have to be bug repellent as they will bite before you get in to wash and kill them.
Wow I've spent a lot of time outside in a lot of environments and I've never heard of chiggers on your nut sack that sounds so fucking awful I can't even imagine it. I'd rather hug a cactus
> chiggers never heard of them. Google led me to a map on Wikipedia. Apparently we get them where I live during the summer, but like, I was never informed this was even a thing to worry about. huh.
I was warned about Chiggers as a lineman doing storm restoration work and I ignored the warnings. I got them on my thighs, arms, stomach and without question one of the worst experiences of my fucking life. If I hear chiggers now, I’m out no questions asked. It was torture. I itched so bad that I scratched until I bled and scratched through that. The itching was so severe and lasted 36-42 hours straight. Nonstop constant itching that never got satisfied. No way to concentrate, take your mind off it, relax, sleep, etc.
Were you from out of state? We had tons of people from out of state visit my area one time, and most from the North swore chiggers weren't real, and that we were making them up, and laughed at how the word "sounded racist" etc They got absolutely eaten *alive* with them and very quickly realized what people were warning about. I didn't know chiggers don't exist in the other areas of the country apparently?
The worst thing about that is, he best otc treatment for chiggers is rubbing alcohol.
Man, I haven’t heard the term Chigger for a hot minute. Takes me back to my scout days haha
Grew up in Louisiana… the same thing happened to me. Misery.
“Chiggers had a buffet on my nutsack” was not a sentence I expected to read today.
Funny story. We used finger nail polish. Supposedly it would suffocate them. So there was a many of times as a kid that I would have a red, pink, blue, sparkly green nut sack. Haha
The game 'Humankind', for all its flaws and failed ambition as a 'Civilization Killer', has a lot of interesting events. One of which is a late stage industrial era event roughly going 'The citizens of [City] are often called excessively lazy and ugly. Slouching bellies, deformed backs giving the impression of angel wings and a common disposition to avoid work. As research uncovered now, they are not really lazy but suffer from a parasitic infection.' A clear nod to this parasite, given away by the telltale 'angel wings'.
It’s my go to “I’m bored” game
Wow. That is ...what an incredible story. I had no idea.
>While all the neighborhood kids ran barefoot in the summer, for example, my mother did her best to intersect my sister and me as we bee-lined for the door, ready with pair of shoes and a warning: “You’ll get worms!” Our feet were not the only appendages she shielded from infection, however; fingernails underwent weekly clippings and cleanings to eliminate a potential conduit for eggs or larvae…. I remember my Grandfather warning about this and being weird about dirty fingernails. He grew up in the 1930s on a farm in coastal plains SE Texas which was sort of humid and soggy all the time and they used an outhouse and chamber pots and didn't have electricity. These days with AC and modern medicine eradicating diseases nobody remembers how gross living in the Gulf Coast region used to be. You have to wonder what would happen to cities like Houston, Tampa, Orlando, etc if there was some prolonged national crisis where electricity was scarce, for example. They wouldn't be inhabitable.
Pretty sure the extreme rural areas are still living that gross life. When hookworm was surging in Alabama in 2017 there were articles describing places that couldn't use or afford septic tanks and so instead were using straight pipes from their toilets to a nearby ditch.
> Yet hookworm has not been defeated for good. Today, hundreds of millions of people in dozens of nations around the world suffer from hookworm infection. Uhhhh... it's not over for the US south. It's actually returning there because of the lack of building codes, septic system overflows, and neglected municipal treatment plants which overflow and affect surrounding areas. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/04/texas-sanitation-sewage-deadly-parasite Also strongyloidiasis is appearing in the US, which is spread much the same way as hookworm. Infection is lifelong and it's very difficult to cure, and if the patient's immune system weakens due to steroids or disease, their entire body becomes overloaded with billions of larvae causing something called hyperinfection. Truly nasty shit.
I’m trying my best not to look up what a larval hyperinfection looks like and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out 😬
Do it and report back so I don't have to
Oh fuck. Don't. I need eye bleach. Larvae moving visibly under your skin and in your brain. Nonono! Goodbye US south as a tourist destination for my future me. Hello Greenland!
Kinda terrified I have some sort of parasite because for years and years as a child I ran barefoot outside. Is there any way to test? And before someone says “if you’re healthy you’re fine,” I’m not—I have severe health problems that developed in my early/late teens and over 25% of people with my current diagnosis cannot hold a job because of how disabling the symptoms are.
Ask for a parasite screening from your doctor. If the disability is ME/CFS or POTS (or anything in that ballpark), the more likely culprit is dysbiosis which you can check via GI Map screening. Parasites in the South are one thing but the food — and its diversity obliterating effect on the microbiome — are a whole other game. Src: Southerner in recovery from ME/CFS. Thought the same thing as you. It wasn’t parasites, it was dysbiosis and Epstein Barr.
The extreme poverty in much of the US South is just ignored. The UN inspector general found the worst living conditions in the developed world in rural Alabama.
My mom, who was from the south, always warned me about getting worms. Now I know where it came from.
That's crazy, it's like a zombie infection that instead of turning you into a zombie, it just turned you fat and stupid.
Another reason to enjoy an icy cold winter's day
And that is why I live where the air hurts my face
“North Carolina, which came to be known as ‘Poor Carolina,’ went in a very different direction from its sibling to the south. It failed to shore up it elite planter class. Starting with Albemarle County, it became an imperial renegade territory, a swampy refuge for the poor and landless. Wedged between proud Virginians and upstart South Carolinians, North Carolina was that troublesome ‘sinke of America’ so many early commentators lamented. It was a frontier wasteland resistant (or so it seemed) to the forces of commerce and civilization. Populated by what many dismissed as ‘useless lubbers’ (conjuring the image of sleepy and oafish men lolling around doing nothing), North Carolina forged a lasting legacy as what we might call the first white trash colony. Despite being English, despite having claimed their rights of freeborn Britons, lazy lubbers of Poor Carolina stood out as a dangerous refuge of waste people, and the spawning ground of a degenerate breed of Americans.” — From “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg (2016)
“those parasites cost the region decades of development” I mean, the focus on slavery for the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, to the detriment of industrializing, certainly didn’t help development.
Yeah, I was gonna say. I'm sure hookworms were a problem but it feels like the article massively overemphasized them, especially when it comes to why the South stagnated after the Civil War.
I find statements in this interesting “We couldn’t just give them plumbing or running water. We couldn’t just give them all shoes so they weren’t running round barefoot” Why not? Reminds me of the Victorians who made people who were starving work on follies (building a castle ruin, building a pier into a lake, bridges to nowhere) because they were the “undeserving poor” and needed to work or they’d be lazy
That was an uncharacteristically interesting and well-sourced link/topic. Well done OP, almost made me forget I was on Reddit.
The rare literal "Today I Learned."
TIL why we were never allowed to run around barefoot outside when the other kids could.
That's PBS for you
Thanks for reminding me I have months of PBS Eons to watch!
PBS holds itself to a high standard. They do so much, and so well.
Thanks. I clicked the link only because of your recommendation. I wasn't disappointed.
This is also tied into the idea of Southern belles “swooning” and passing out due to stress or big news. They were super anemic and had low blood pressure from having their blood sucked out by hookworms, making them more likely to faint
That's also a symptom of malaria, which was endemic for hundreds of years.
I always just assumed it was due to corsets and heat, start getting overwhelmed and you’re gunna pass out fast, especially trying to stay poised and put together! But this also makes sense
Honestly it could be all of the above or some combination thereof depending on the individual and circumstance. I can't imagine any one of those things doesn't make another suddenly *easier* for a body to deal with. It's a stacking of problems that share symptoms.
Also just the stereotype of genteel women being weak and out of touch with the brutal realities of life that ‘big strong men’ deal with. Aristocratic women in relatively temperate, hookworm-free Europe were stereotyped as constantly fainting at the sight of blood or whatever. Especially in novels written by men who, ironically, had probably seen far less blood than any adult woman.
tuberculosis
Motherfuckers were speed running fainting by stacking stat effects
Corsets making it hard to breathe is a Hollywood myth. There was a very brief fad called tight lacing to accentuate the hourglass figure (though most of it was actually achieved through padding and physical photoshopping) in the Victorian era, but for hundreds of years the corset was just a regular undergarment. Women of all classes including working and peasant women wore them every single day. They rode horses and plowed the field in corsets. On YouTube historical costumers have dozens of videos of them doing all sorts of activities comfortable and freely in historical replica corsets. They were just clothes. Those Hollywood tight laces corsets are what g-strings are to boy shorts.
So they were just a bra before bras became common place?
There’s actually a picture from the late 1800s I saw in a Bernadette Banner video of a woman rock climbing in a dress (with a corset) and boots
https://youtu.be/rExJskBZcW0?si=-LSL49WnzYD2qdbP That's Bernadette's very fascinating video on corsets for anyone who wants to watch it.
Sort of. Think shapewear combined with a back brace. I have one and when fitted properly they're remarkably comfortable.
Exactly
Corsets were mostly fine to wear actually
Yeah I wear corsets sometimes and if they're well fitting they are very comfy to me
Both things could have been happening. The corsets, hoops and amount of clothing they wore. Plus the lack of effective cooling systems. Recipe for fainting.
Nah that’s a stereotype of aristocratic women in Europe as well. The idea is ‘Haha, women weak and innocent’. I’d imagine the clothing and southern US heat were an exacerbating factor too. Not sure we can tie it specifically to hookworms.
Well, TB probably contributed it too. Wasn't there a period of time people thought the appearance of a TB patient attractive?
Tuberculosis chic
Hotter climates also tend to have more laid back attitudes due to the difficulty of working in the heat.Air conditioning caused a big change for productivity in the US South.
Personally I'm just lazy
That's just your hookworm talking.
Recently moved from one apartment to another in the South. Even just working an hour carrying boxes up and down stairs made me beg for mercy.
I think at some point the heat and humidity just makes it too damn hard to work for long, you just want and need to sit and cool off before you drop
Honestly, when I moved out of the South I was amazed at how often I saw people running. After living in a few different areas, I realized that nice weather really does affect energy levels. In the South, the heat and humidity will smother you and expunge any outdoor productivity idea you might have had. Even walking to your car makes you feel sticky and gross.
I went to a wedding in South Carolina in July. It was outdoors during the day. My suit was literally soaked all the way through with sweat. I didn’t think that was possible. Stepping out of the car felt like a wall of oppression hitting you. The humidity makes it insane. I go to southern Italy every year, where the heat regularly hits 110° in the summer. It's dangerous, but the air is dry, with currents coming up from Africa. It's much more tolerable.
My college decided one year to have an outdoor graduation ceremony at noon with all the students wearing black robes. There were people passing out left and right. My dress started to soak until I, like many others, took the robe off. It was a disaster, and I will never give them money because of that particular idiocy. You've got to be careful when you plan outdoor activities in the South...
I have literally been in deserts I enjoyed more then the wet stanky humidity of visiting Georgia in summer.
Hookworks and Malaria. Malaria wasn't [eliminated until the 1950s](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us) and was debilitating for hundreds of thousands of people year after year. And, it still isn't quite gone... Malaria and Sleeping Sickness have also played into the stereotype of lazy Africans as well.
Also pellagra
My uncle called it lumbago.
I've got terminal lumbago, John.
Arthur?
That's lower back pain, specifically in the lumbar region.
It’s a fatal condition
I didn't have hookworm but Strongyloidiasis. No idea how I got them but I wear shoes outside now.
What were your symptoms?
I didn't have any. I was diagnosed based on blood testing by the infectious disease team in Leeds UK. They treated me with two doses of ivermectin.
If you didn’t have any symptoms, what made them test your blood in the first place?
My Granny, born 1903 in Arkansas would see me with a bandaid on my finger and ask, “Stick your finger up your butt and a hookworm bit ya?"
So specific. So many questions for granny
I've got shit all to base this on, but I think it's also why a load of Americans are extremely weird about bare feet outside. Hookworms created a cultural reason to assume that the ground is horrible and will make you sick if you walk on it without shoes.
Growing up in a rural area in the 1950s, we were not allowed to play outside barefoot even though other kids we knew could. After reading the article, I think it is the reason for that rule.
Here in NZ it is the opposite. Growing up, you're practically expected to be running around barefoot. It's still common to see people walking barefoot most days outside of peak winter. We just never had the "Feet on ground is gross" culture here. Although we also don't have hookworm issues, so that'd be why.
Of course, it's Hobbit country
In my area it's broken glass and used needles that drive that mindset.... Ah, memories.
In my area it was slugs. But you can generally avoid stepping on slugs if it's hot and sunny. Then I moved to a different area and found out about puncture vine. Puncture vine made me nostalgic for the slugs.
In Texas it's sandburs (stickers). I've gone around with a propane torch burning not just the sandburs (easier than picking and disposing) but the entire plant to make sure the plant is dead. If you have a yard without them, don't ever let them get started. Don't ever go barefoot in the grass in Texas or Oklahoma until you're sure there's no sandburs or you're informed it's fine.
Even if the yard is immaculate...St. Augustine is about as pleasant to walk on barefoot as astroturf.
All it took for me was to accidentally stand in dog poop barefoot once. Shoes or sandals from them on when outside.
But… it literally did make people sick.
It being stupidly hot and humid several months out of the year doesn't help. When it's 95 with 90% humidity, I don't feel like doing anything.
Compound that & it’s over
"Laziness" is perhaps a character defect in a small % of cases (as a guess, I don't really know) but I firmly believe that in the majority of cases, there is some underlying illness whether physical or mental. Having no physical energy is no joke, even worse when those around you tut and sigh and call you lazy. Similarly, in the absence of a physical issue, laziness is usually due to a lack of motivation, and the failure to develop that motivation usually has some deep rooted psychological issue like chronic depression at its root. But that doesn't stop many people using the word as an insult to attack them.
There's a recent book on this: *Laziness Does Not Exist* by Devon Price. Haven't had a chance to open it up yet (too lazy, obviously /s), but I've heard good things about it.
I just went to add this book to my TBR and in reading the description I realized I’ve already read it! It was quite good but also kind of depressing. It goes through all of the ways we’ve been taught to assign value to and derive self-esteem from productivity and the puritanical philosophy that started the whole WASPY working ideal that’s still so pervasive today and how it’s become so interwoven with capitalism and labor exploitation. Our society places almost no value on doing something simply because you like it. We always have to be working towards *something* or bettering ourselves in some way. It’s pretty sad.
I always thought I was lazy. Hated getting up in the morning, liked doing nothing on my days off, family would criticise me for taking a lot of naps, colleagues would poke fun at me for being late so often. I went to the doctor about my low energy once and he basically said there's nothing wrong with me and if I exercise more I'd have more energy. Turns out I had undiagnosed sleep apnea. Looking back probably from when I was a teenager. Now it's managed I have way more energy in my 30s than I ever had in my 20s.
I was a good student for the first 3 years of high school. My senior year though, I struggled and my grades slipped slightly to a B average, I was late to school a lot, and it was harder to get assignments turned in on time. Because of this, a teacher -- who I had known through out my entire time in high school and who knew what I was capable of -- decided it was appropriate to call me "the poster child of procrastination and laziness" in front of the whole class. Yup. Never asked what was wrong or why things had changed. Just straight to laziness. Later during my first year in college I was diagnosed with ADHD and severe depression. Got help for those, still struggled, but was still a successful student. Now I'm 30 and I *still* think about that comment and all the snickers from the other students who heard it.
I was always lowkey proud of it. If this dumbass, lazy procrastinator is still outperforming you, what does that make you?
What a piece of shit teacher to try and make an example of you like that, especially when it's one that knows you better. I was diagnosed at 30 and I also have lots of memories of being shamed like that, and how they only ever made things worse. When I was young enough to not know any better, there was never anyone that expressed concern about how listless I was. Just seen as lazy, I guess. 5 years later with some clarity, I still get angry about it thinking about certain people sometimes. But since getting help, it (usually) dies down quick enough since I know I'm not in the wrong now. Glad you got help, and I hope things are well for you.
I have a close friend who always tells me she’s lazy, but then will randomly tell me some terrible story from her childhood Like girl you’re not lazy you’re traumatized
Sigh, me to my mom, like, all the time. She’ll beat herself up over not doing enough laundry or cleaning or whatever, and I’m like…you are not bad, you are not lazy, your childhood was insane, please rest.
Totally. It's particularly clear to me with poor people. Like, have you ever been poor? No one is choosing that just because they'd rather not put some effort in. Lots of other things play into poverty too of course. But "laziness" is not a significant one.
Yup ADHD depression and anxiety plus a bunch of other potential things like fatigue all look lazy from the outside
Random fun fact, that miracle horse dewormer that people thought worked during the recent pandemic. Had statistical significance in 3rd world countries where similar parasites to hookworms are very common, meaning someone who is sick with anything and gets rid of that parasite would always be much better off. Which is why there was very little statistical significance in 1st world countries. Any other fun fact is that the human body produces a unique antibody specifically for worms and similar parasites however they almost never successfully work. Leads to the question of how we even developed that in the first place because it doesn’t really help as all.
Same thing happened in Puerto Rico, the sugar plantation workers couldn’t afford shoes and the owners didn’t want to provide any so the parasite burrowed through their feet, a lot of the workers spent decades with anemia.
Fun fact this illness CAN be treated with horse dewormer.
Fun fact: the best treatment for chiggers is fingernail polish remover. But it burns like a mf
Someone else in the thread suggested listerine mouthwash. Might be less harsh than nail polish remover
Acetone
I should call him
It's the heat. Seriously, that's it. Above all else, it's the motherfucking heat. Source: living 20 years in Alabama after 20 years in a less hot state. My desire to do literally anything from April to November is zero. Too fucking hot.
Well TI did Learn. I live in the Atlanta area and yall…it’s hot. Figured that was the long short tall of it. Hot. Sticky.
Had em when I was like 12. i just ignored it and they went away after a year is this saying i could still have them and that's why im so tired all the time? I haven't seen em in my poop in 17 years
The one guy who should have taken the ivermectin
There must be some way to diagnose them other than poop?
People in the South move slower because it’s sooo damn hot here. And the air is thicker. And gravity is denser.
I mean there’s also 1.) it’s hotter than hell And 2.) for a while there they reeeeeeeeeally preferred to outsource a lot of the hard labor to… non-consenting immigrants
> it’s hotter than hell I'm sure this is related, because in Europe there is the exact same stereotype about people from the southern countries.
Oh yeah, you find the same in central and south america. Without AC life in those regions just kinda sucks. It's crazy hot and humid so you take a nap during the afternoon
It’s kind of hilarious how Redditors, who claim to believe in science, read this and say, “Nope. Slaves,” when given a scientific explanation of a problem that persisted for nearly a century after abolition.