this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] the_trash_man@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Every generation alive has microplastics in them

[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

and probably will for at least a few generations unless we can do some major filtering of all mediums

[–] psoul@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (4 children)

Can someone tell me what microplastics do to the body? I’m almost too afraid to ask at this point.

[–] maximumbird@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Veritasium has a video about it on YouTube.

It’s very informative and may just give you the fix you’re looking for

https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That's the neat thing: nobody can. It's incredibly hard to devise a study that can show anything about it. There is no way to get a human without microplastics in them to get a control group, and by this point as far as I know there is no plausible theory to get a specific study.
Everyone kinda suspects that it can't be good for you, simultaneously there is zero actual evidence that something is ever happening. We don't know, and that's very frustrating.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 points 17 hours ago

It seems like they'd be fairly inert. Although that's certainly no guarantee that they're not really bad for you. Much like inert gas, the danger could well be them replacing or getting in the way of something else.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 18 hours ago

IIRC the one thing we are sure of is that they don't break down, nor do they get out. So you better hope they don't do anything bad on top of that

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[–] MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

Bah. I dont care about lead, microplastics or even covid.

Chernobyl and mad cow-disease are my jam.

[–] Aetherion@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

Don't forget the nanoplastics! These are even more hazardous!

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Except that microplastics have been a major problematic thing since basically plastic become a popular thing, we just didn't know it yet back then. It's not like millenials invented plastic or popularized its use.

[–] bollybing@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The amount of it in our environment has been ever increasing though. There's more of it in the oceans, the soil, the rivers, the plants. The whole food chain and ecosystems are contaminated more than ever before.

[–] Patches@ttrpg.network 2 points 17 hours ago

At what point does it become macroplastic? kiloplastic for the Europeans.

[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Boomers had/have microplastics and lead poisoning. This is not a conspiracy, it is just a fact.

Did someone say it was a conspiracy?

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Bold of you to think that the microplastic is going to go away after one generation...

[–] pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Who said that? Lead poisoning is still rampant in some communities.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

I think the question is, why are you bringing up millennials when the issue of microplastics did not start with them, nor will it end with them.

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[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The pipes in the US still contain plenty of lead. Also, Covid brain damage. Tons of it.

[–] blujan@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 day ago

Most lead intoxication in boomers comes from leaded gasoline, lead in other presentations is less bio-available

[–] morto@piefed.social 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Everyone has microplastics, even newborn babies, and we have no sign of decrease in its use.

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[–] KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Luckily, for the younger generations, we'll probably just get cancer instead of becoming massive malleable assholes

[–] bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 87 points 2 days ago (21 children)

Yeah and also for Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. We all still alive and everybody gets microplastic in their balls and brains. Its for all ages

[–] b3an@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Right? Haha 😂 Oh did we suddenly clean up the entire Earth from free roaming microplastics?

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[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 0 points 16 hours ago

I still licked lead pain in the craddle, ate too many food preservatives and artificial colorants, ate too much red meat, too much fat, got micro plastics poisoning...

And all I have to tell is bad breath, flatulence that could strip paint off the walls and a stupid sense of humour.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 119 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Millennials? More like GenX. We’ve been eating out of microwaved tupperware since the sixties.

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[–] SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Boomers also have them, or do you think they intentionally target millennials?

[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 75 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Honestly I don't think we're socially responsible enough to end something like lead poisoning these days.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 points 17 hours ago

You'd have people saying they like the lead and deliberately putting more of it in. Pussy-ass liberals trying to take their god given lead away...

[–] etherphon@midwest.social 56 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Imagine trying to stop the hole in the ozone today. We'd have people spraying CFCs in the air just to spite the effort.

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

As someone just old enough to remember, we did have that with CFCs. Might not have been super mainstream, and nobody who would have done it out of spite really had the disposable income to actually do it.

I grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian "cult" and I remember the adults around me "joking" about it all the time. I remember a Missionary to northern Canada visiting our church (in rural America) to try to raise support talking about the temperatures and joking that it's so cold that he wanted to stand outside with an aerosol can in each hand to try to bring on some global warming, and that getting a laugh from the congregation. You might think that maybe it was a "harmless" joke that maybe as a child I didn't pick up on the sarcasm, but there were absolutely adults there who fully believed that there was nothing humans could do to damage the earth, because God takes care of it. "And how dare the government and these evolutionists try to tell us how to live."

[–] rem26_art@fedia.io 41 points 2 days ago (3 children)

for the past few months ive started to think we're like a couple years away from putting lead back in the gasoline

[–] bigfondue@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Leaded gas is still used in small airplanes with internal combustion engines. If you live near a General Aviation airport you are being showered in lead so some rich guy can play pilot.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 22 points 1 day ago

Trump deregulating gas and paint to put lead back in both would be so unsurprising it won't even garner a reaction from me.

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[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My dad's car ran on 4 star right up until the mid 90s. I was exposed to plenty lead in my formative years as well as micro plastics.

[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

The ol twofer

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Don't forget about PFAS!

[–] RonnieB@lemmy.world 66 points 2 days ago

Nah, because every future generation will have it too.

[–] Iceman@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I wonder what our neurosises will be.

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Depression, I would say. Same as how boomers are labeled as uncaring and sociopathic because of lead.

The depression is a natural byproduct of civilization. We're not supposed to sit in concrete boxes and do meaningless tasks for survival. It makes us sad.

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