People Are Sharing Life Hacks And Tips They Actually Learned From TV And Movies
by Conshea Brown · BuzzFeedIt's no secret that a well-made movie or TV show can leave you with some of the most amazing life hacks, lessons, and pieces of advice.
So, I asked the members of the BuzzFeed Community, "What's a go-to life hack that you learned from a TV show or movie?" And here's what they had to say:
1. "In an episode of Queer Eye, Antoni sliced a bell pepper down the sides instead of cutting around the stem. He avoided spilling the seeds everywhere, and I've used that method ever since."
2. "I learned about escalation clauses in real estate offers from Egypt Sherrod on HGTV's Property Virgins. When my realtor was making an offer on a house I wanted to buy last year (as a first-time homebuyer), I asked him to put in an escalation clause, and that ended up being what got me the house since my maximum offer on the house was higher than competing offers. It's been a great house so far. Thanks, Egypt!"
—Anonymous
3. "Pulling your finger from your mouth after putting on lipstick to remove excess and prevent staining on the teeth! I learned this from the first Scream film, where the girl in the high school bathroom does this. Still using this trick at 40!"
—Anonymous
4. "I watched a lot of The Simpsons growing up, and watching the Treehouse of Horror specials actually helped me learn the Roman numerals."
5. "Watching the rooms get made up every day on Below Deck, I have picked up spraying Febreze and Downy Wrinkle release on my bed every day. I love going to bed with a fresh linen smell all week instead of just on laundry day. I was already in the habit of making my bed in the morning; the few seconds it takes to spray make such an impact each evening."
—Anonymous
6. "I don't know if this counts as a hack, but I remember an Alvin and the Chipmunks special (it was basically It's a Wonderful Life-chipmunk version), but there was a scene where Dave was helping Simon study for a spelling bee or spelling test."
"Simon was having a hard time keeping 'principle' and 'principal' straight, and Dave said, 'Remember, your principal at school is your pal.' I'm 28 now, and I still think about that when trying to remember which spelling to use."
7. "I have extreme nose bleeds. It usually happens when the weather is changing, and my nose is dry. Before, I would stand over a sink and rinse my nose, just waiting for it to stop so that I could move around without dripping blood everywhere. I sometimes would be stuck over a sink, unable to move or really talk for so long, MINUTES even."
"I watched She's the Man for the first time a few years ago, and the scene where 'Sebastian' says he has tampons because he gets bad nose bleeds, I realized that was genius, and my friend who also has bad nose bleeds got the same idea. I buy tampons just so that when I have nosebleeds, I'm able to move around and not create a huge mess."
8. "There’s a scene early in WarGames where the protagonist’s father is shown buttering some bread, then rolling a cob of corn around on it so as to butter it without having to waste butter when it inevitably melts and falls off after you try to do it the usual way."
—Anonymous
9. "I learned a little trick from the movie The Dark Knight that I use nearly daily. In the courtroom scene, after a mobster tries to shoot DA Harvey Dent, Dent disarms the man, unloads the pistol, and then holds the pistol magazine with the pinky finger of his shooting hand while also holding the weapon with the same hand. My entire time in the Army, I had never learned how to do this with the magazine, despite it being the perfect way to show locked and clear with one hand."
"Fast forward to the present, and I've grown an appreciation for how strong your pinky is and how well you can hold things with it while still doing things with that dominant hand. Now, I'm a nurse, and every shift, I'll hold extra items with my pinky despite using my dominant hand to do things at the same time. If I have a series of IV meds to push with syringes, I always hold the next syringe or the flush with my pinky, as it's so much faster than setting them down just to retrieve them right after."
—Anonymous
10. "I learned to sit on the tail of my blazer to create a stronger line and keep it from bunching from Broadcast News."
11. "This is going to sound silly, but every time I'm at a 4-way stop by myself, I get reminded of the traffic school episode of Reno 911, and I say to myself, 'One, two, NO! Now you can go.'"
12. "Xena taught me about the pressure point on your wrist to alleviate nausea and vomiting when I was a kid. Unsure if it actually works or if it was a placebo effect taking place, but I like to think it helps some, especially during those god awful family road trips up and down the mountains."
And finally, here's a special hack to help with those tough and stressful times:
13. "When I first started therapy, the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt had just come out, and one of the pieces of advice that Kimmy gives to Jane Krakowski’s Jacqueline always stayed with me — working through the bad stuff 10 seconds at a time."
"If you can get through the next 10 seconds, or 10 minutes, or whatever small increment of time, that is enough for now. Just focus on getting through that, and before you know it, you’ve gotten through the tough stuff."
Note: Submissions are edited for length and/or clarity.