“Um, actually…” 

Whatever follows these words is usually uncalled for. Some people just can’t resist pointing out the mistakes of others, regardless of who it is and how trivial the error is. While they might be meaning well, correcting the wrong person can put them in some uncomfortable situations.

Case in point are these stories, in which know-it-alls fact-checked the not-to-be-messed-with people and completely embarrassed themselves when they got shut down. Scroll down to find them below, and be sure to share similar scenarios you’ve experienced!

#1

When my kindergartener came home from school and asked me to spell “I cup.” .

Image credits: Snuffleupagus03

#2

I’m 33. A 10-year-old mentioned Pikachu in conversation and then backtracked and started trying to explain what Pokemon is.

Image credits: MerylSquirrel

#3

My teenaged kid, in 2005ish, telling us “I just found this cool new band.”

Sweet. Who?

“The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They just put out their first album.”

Boy, you were probably conceived to RHCP.

Image credits: der_innkeeper

#4

My coworker, “Jim,” was delivering products to a company we work with often. The guy at the other company was complaining about the products and insisting Jim had made mistakes. He then pulls out a manual he had and starts walking Jim through it, explaining everything he did wrong. The manual was a step by step guide to the variety of products, compete with drawings and a bunch of pictures of a young man with a working on the parts.

Jim finally stops the guy, points to one of the pictures and says, “Do you see that name tag on this guy? Jim? I am Jim. *I wrote this manual twenty years ago.*”.

Image credits: SitDownShutDown

#5

My kids know I’m a gamer but I trend towards RPGs. A decade ago my oldest was really into this new game he and his friends got for the xbox – Street Fighter V. He had a bunch of friends over and they were doing the usual mid-teens trash talking and competitive one-upmanship when I came home from work.

“Hey Dad, we’re having a tournament! You want to play?”

“What game? Street Fighter? Yeah, I think I’ve heard of it.” As in yeah, I played in SFII arcade tournaments back in the early 90’s on a daily basis. I wasn’t god-like but I could hold my own with said god-like players most times. He and his friends proceed to bet me that if I win, they’ll mow the yard and do yardwork for a week. If I lose, I have to buy them pizza.

“You know what kids, there’s a lot of characters, why don’t you pick one for me. Oh, 6 attack buttons? Nah, I’ll just use one – I’m old and my RSI is acting up – which one do I use? Oh, okay this is the jab? Alright.”

I proceeded to annihilate each and every one them. Didn’t matter which character or which single button I was allowed to use. B*tch, I’ve got that frame data tattooed in my DNA… now go get on my lawn.

It’s been a standing tradition over the years for my kids to introduce their new friends to Dad by seeing if anyone can beat my Street Fighter 1-button blind character pick kung-fu. Still undefeated.

Image credits: AmoebaCowboy

#6

When my 13yr old cousin asked if I even knew what a meme was. Like look here you little f**k I’ve been on the internet since Newgrounds, don’t you dare talk to me about memes.

Image credits: Bonesaw09

#7

Irl there was that job offer asking for ~~10~~ 5 years of experience in some programming language

*one of* the creators of said language was refused the job, because he only had 1.5 years experience in the language, because it was only 1.5 years old.

Image credits: Remmick2326

#8

My youngest child telling me that they don’t know if I should be wearing a d&d tshirt, then I showed them my first edition d&d books….

Image credits: copperfrog42

#9

My kid tried to explain to me that you could make a smiley face by typing “:)”.

Image credits: vonwaffle

#10

I was training a new file clerk at my firm and I was explaining the system we have for checking out physical files and that we have asset tags with scannable barcodes that you have to scan after your ID badge to log who took the file and is ultimately responsible for it. She turns to me and says, “God, whoever came up with this is an a**l retentive nightmare and all you need is a sign out sheet.” I just kinda stood there, because I developed this system after years of having to dig through attorneys offices and hunt down important stuff because they ignored the sign out sheet that was there when I got hired… Sigh.

Image credits: crudeheadgearseller

#11

When my 19 year old colleague started discussing this new film franchise he’d found to me (41F) and explained it used to be a TV show on something called MTV.

The franchise he was talking about was Jacka*s.

Image credits: jennyrob669

#12

When I was in grad school, I wrote a Wikipedia article on a species I was coauthoring a paper on. I also did a class project in genetics on the same species, which wasn’t related to the publication.

I got fine marks on the class paper, but the professor chided me for not describing all the interesting things known about the species for background. He told me I could start by just “reading the Wikipedia article.” .

Image credits: hansn

#13

I hadn’t played Magic: the Gathering for decades and asked a friend’s kid to teach me the new rules (no interrupts now?) including Commander. He gave me a simple control deck.

I looked at my first hand and my old brain creaked awake. This card lets me draw an extra card every turn for one life, and I have forty life? My old brain whispered “card advantage” to me and I proceeded to lock down the table.

I was the head judge for the French national championship in 1994 and judged the semi-final of the first World Championships. I was the first lvl3 judge in Europe and worked for WotC UK from 1993-1998. I was literally there when the deep magic was written.

Image credits: jaredearle

#14

My teenage son turned on Eminem in the car thinking it wasn’t my style and I wouldn’t pay attention and instead, I rapped along to every word of it.

Then I told him if I ever heard him call a woman literally anything Eminem just said in the lyrics of that song, he was grounded until he turned 18.

Image credits: littleirishpixie

#15

I was talking to an old Navy vet. Like closing in on 100, WW2 old. And my lil 13 year old a*s starts nerding out about Iowa-class battleships. He proceeds to get out a box full of manuals, reports, and various memorabilia. Turns out he was ACTUALLY ON the U.S.S. Iowa from her trials until the end of the war.

Image credits: chef-rach-bitch

#16

About 6 years ago, my daughter told me ‘Panic at the Disco we’re the first ones to bring theatricality to rock music’.
You sweet summer child.

Image credits: KolashRye

#17

My nephew, with all the condescension of a 6-year-old: “there’s this movie. You probably haven’t heard of it. It’s called Aladdin…”

Me:”DID YOU WAKE ME UP? DID YOU RUB MY LAMP?”

(I happened to be in the US in fall of ’93, when Aladdin came out on tape).

Image credits: GlitteringAttitude60

#18

Kiddo trying to school me on Mario Kart.  😎.

Image credits: Maleficent_1908

#19

I cited the deep magic.

I was probably about 8 at the time. I had just learned how to play chess. My father was getting a degree in comp-sci and we were visiting his uni- supervisor. There was a chessboard so I “explained” the rules of chess to his supervisor.

His supervisor was some level of grandmaster, and was actively designing a computer program that took on and tied Gary Kasparov iirc. He later “solved” checkers and chess iirc.

He was very good natured about it, and absolutely waxed 8 year old me in chess.

Image credits: Korrin10

#20

My younger coworkers try to talk about anime to me like I wasn’t passing around bad bootleg VHS tapes with my friends in high school to get my hands on more than just Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z.

Image credits: Khabuem

#21

I’ve been having a few of these lately. I’m an international trade attorney. My specialty is trade agreements and tariffs.

Image credits: NetLumpy1818

#22

I have to write employee accomplishment documents to move them forward in their career. They have to go before a HR review board who decides if the document is written properly and justifies the change (a raise and more vaca) for the staff member. I’ve been doing this for years so I can crank out these documents in my sleep. A new HR person joined the company and started kicking back my documents for arbitrary b******t “not enough content”, “too much irrelevant information”, “needs more insight”, etc. After the third time one of my documents got kicked back the reviewer emailed me an example of what she considered a well written employee accomplishment document with the names redacted. I emailed her back “Thanks for sending me this example, it helps a lot. Since I wrote this example three years ago is it okay if I just fill in the current staff’s name?”.

Image credits: stanley_leverlock

#23

People who are surprised that you have an email address with your name and no numbers .

Image credits: Larkspur71

#24

My oldest child (now 17), trying to educate me on the d**n Gorillaz, as if that wasn’t a part of my youth.

Image credits: wykkedfaery33

#25

Last year my wife’s boss, who is new, got mad at her for misinterpreting/misapplying a policy that doesn’t come up much, but is very important. After trying to explain it several times and getting nowhere, she finally said, “Look this policy has been in place a lot longer than you’ve been here. I wrote the policy. I trained everyone on it. If you want to change it, fine, but this is what the policy says.”.

Image credits: Fruit_Fly_LikeBanana

#26

Back when I was a high school teacher, my buddy and I put on an extra life event overnight at the library. The kids put Halo CE up on a projector. I walked in and asked to play and they said they’d take it easy on me.

It was Slayer on Hang Em high, and we called it at 25 to 8 between the 3 of them.

Image credits: FHG3826

#27

I’m in my 30s, last Fall my 21 year old coworker asked me if I had seen the “new christian girl fall” outfit inspos on TikTok.

I pulled up my Instagram outfit pics from ~2010. It was so funny to see her face when I showed her that, leggings, knee high boots and circle scarfs are not a “new” thing just because TikTok discovered it recently lol.

Image credits: prospectofwhitby

#28

I work in software. I had a client during a meeting where they were beating up on my company stress with absolute confidence that our software couldn’t do some given thing. I gently let him know that it did do that. He literally shouted that it did not. He knows this software, he’s been using it for the past three years and it has never done the thing.

I immediately hit share on my screen, showed him the setting that turns it on (the setting whose name and description I wrote eight years ago), turned it on, and clicked through all the buttons that I had personally designed in the given release in 2016 or whatever it was, and asked him if he had any questions. He did not unmute his microphone.

Image credits: baltinerdist

#29

I’m a 37 year old millennial but I have some gen z coworkers ages 19-23 who were shocked I knew about memes and I knew what Wojack and Pepe’s are. I’m like dude I literally grew up on 4chan. I am unc.

Image credits: thedrinkmonster

#30

When my younger cousin was in his “I’m 16 and I know everything” era, he kept bragging about some old bands he rediscovered. One of them was the Beatles. Talked about how influential they are, all the music they had that barely anyone knew about, and how he knew so much more about them than anyone in his “uncultured” family.

Unfortunately for his ego, me and the rest of the family he was lecturing had been living in Liverpool for nearly 2 decades by that point.

Image credits: Poisoneraa

#31

Young people trying to explain what “Star Trek” means like I didn’t exist at a time when there was only the original crew.

Image credits: JediSnoopy

#32

A few years ago, my wife and I started a small non-profit that focuses on getting businesses to incentivize beach cleanups. Fill a container with trash from the beach and exchange it for a free ice cream cone, bar if surf wax, coffee, etc. The initial concept took off and it grew a ton! We’re not so involved these days, but we still keep tabs on the team and the initiative.

They were having an event at a brewery and we went to go check it out. While in line for beers the woman in front of me had one of our shirts on. I made a comment about how cool it was that there was a good turnout. She agreed and talked about how she got involved, which turned into her talking about how she connected with the org, which turned into her explaining the origins of the organization to me. She wasn’t patronizing or anything, just kind of on a roll and kept going.

Anyway, she wrapped up and asked how I first came to know about the organization. I told her I probably first came to know about the organization as I sat at my kitchen table creating it. She was like “Wait. What? This is your thing? Really? Did I just tell you your own story?”

She was a little embarrassed, but it was super funny. She handled it well and we couldn’t have done it without passionate volunteers, so no shade at all.

We passed the organization over to the Surfrider Foundation a few years ago, which they took on as one of their flagship environmental stewardship programs – the [Better Beach Alliance](https://ift.tt/bvinguJ).

Image credits: WatchTheBoom

#33

For me, it was happening upon a video game booth at a South Florida flea market about 15 years ago.

Two early teen boys were playing Golden Eye multiplayer. I stopped to watch for a bit before the owner offered up a third controller.

The two kids grinned and stage whispered plans to gang up in me.

What they weren’t ready for was my 006 playing a*s to run literal circles around them, firing the entire time, shooting ammo crates away from their initial start points, and my detailed knowledge of the layout of The Stacks.

After the 10th k**l, they both just gave up and left.

Image credits: MrP00PER

#34

My student: “Do you know Sailor Moon? It’s an anime.”

Me: *deep inhale* Child —.

Image credits: DramaticHumor5363

#35

Kid who was probably about 19-20 explaining to me that the Star Wars prequels were universally beloved when they were first released and people only realized they were cringey when they started getting memed in the 2010s.

I saw all of those movies multiple times in the theater. I participated in SO MUCH bashing of Jar Jar and Padme hanging out brushing her hair and Anakin’s terrible line deliveries. It was all over pop culture at the time too. Nothing I said would convince this kid, he just kept saying no, everyone loved them when they were first released.

Image credits: SharMarali

#36

The guy that tried to mansplain a scientific paper to the woman that wrote it.

Image credits: N-y-s-s-a

#37

My son’s friends (18/19) tried to explain to me (46) who sang the Sweater Song. I dusted off my CD collection, and their eyes lit up like Indiana Jones finding the Holy Grail!

Image credits: YayAdamYay

#38

My little cousin showing me how to play Minecraft (I just went with it lol).

Image credits: protro123

#39

Paul McCartney’s grandkids playing Guitar Hero with him.

Image credits: PineappleOtter608

#40

I had a work meeting regarding a specific internet based phone system, I was on the pilot team that tested it when it rolled out. When I got to the meeting I introduced myself as a system expert to the guy next to me. He just kind of grinned but didn’t say anything to that. I asked him what his role was for the meeting. “Oh I was the lead designer for the system” was his response. We both took it well and laughed about it.

Image credits: anonstarcity

#41

Let’s just say I’m an IT professional who got his first computer at the turn of the 80s.  Son gets a new gaming computer and wigs out because he can’t get Minecraft Java edition to work. I suggested he needed to install the java runtime environment only to get snottily told that java is write once run anywhere and that wasn’t the problem. He ended up having a meltdown.

When he eventually calmed down I put the jre on and it ran. .

Image credits: CJBill

#42

I honestly don’t know if this fits the question perfectly….

Years ago I was in the “mall” in Elizabeth City, NC, in one of the corner stores and the Eurythmics song “Sweet Dreams” was being piped over the stores sound system. I overheard a couple teenagers near me loudly saying, “What the f**k, man? They stole this from Marylin!”.

Image credits: Jesus_le_Crisco

#43

A few years back my step daughter was super excited to show her Mom and I this awesome new song she had “found.” Song in question: Black Hole f*****g Sun. She was shocked we knew it.

Image credits: Dish_Boggett

#44

Someone tried to argue the plot of movie with me that I worked on and was in most of the devlopent/creative meetings for.

Image credits: Main-Yogurtcloset-82

#45

I had a young molecular biologist say to me once, “Can you imagine what it was like doing this stuff before PCR was invented?” I had to break it to him that I not only remembered that time, I spent a very long day as the escort for the a*****e who invented it.

The kid looked at me as if I told him I remembered when the wheel was invented.

Image credits: feliciates

#46

Had a service running at work. Someone said something like ‘We don’t want to mess with that service, it was written before any of us got here, and no one knows how it works’

::raises hand::

“Uhh, I wrote that. I still have the code. It’s probably due for a rewrite anyway.”.

Image credits: User1539

#47

One of the QA guys at the factory I work at was out sick, so I got sent in to help out for the day. The remaining QA person insisted on “training me” and took something like 5 minutes explaining what inspection points to look at before he took a breath, just enough time for me to say “you know I’m the one who wrote the QA book, right?”.

Image credits: Hapiro

#48

A personal one. I use data that you have to buy from a specific agency, that is essential to my industry.

Had a guy come in from that agency trying to tell me I was using it wrong. I’ve been using that data longer than he’s been alive. Turns out, I wasn’t using it wrong.

#49

When I was in college in the late 90s, I took a class in astrophysics for fun. The professor was extremely arrogant and often talked, over the top, about his educational background and experiences. One of my fellow students (can’t recall his name), was an older, retired gentleman, who was taking the class for fun as part of a program where seniors, over the age of 65, could audit classes that interested them at no charge.

at the time NASA had a program where they would loan collections of items related to space exploration, memorabilia, and moon rocks, to universities. One of our lessons was on the items and we spoke heavily about the moon landings, specifically Aldrin.

The professor spoke on things about the mission, the rocket, the lander, etc. And my fellow student began to say to him that some of the things that he was saying was not accurate. They argued back-and-forth for several minutes on different topics mainly involving the technical aspects of the mission until finally, the professor asked why my fellow student was so adamant about these things and his response was. “ because I’m the one that designed it.”, or something along those lines.

we all just looked at him and the professor, not really sure about what was going to be said next. And before the professor could even say anything, my fellow student pulled out the textbook and opened to a page that had a picture of Aldrin and a series of the engineers and ground crew from Johnson space Center. Sure enough, standing right there was the guy from my class.

He had been an engineer for NASA for years. He was retired at that point and decided just to take the class to see what was new. It was great.

#50

“I bet grandma never took your phone away.”

I was born in ’74. I didn’t see my first mobile phone until my late teens and it was a 20lb brick with a shoulder strap. .

#51

Had a undergrad try to tell me how a system I designed and implemented worked.

#52

Don’t tell me that your computer takes forever to boot up or that your internet connection is slow.

I grew up with a computer that took 5-7 minutes to boot up and screamed at you while it was doing so.

And if someone needed the phone you had no internet because they were connected to the same thing.

#53

I went to Shakey’s pizza where a local, very large and social BBS wood meat every Saturday. There was a kid there with a “Battle Tech II: the Crescent Hawk’s Revenge” manual. It was a really thick booklet because it had the stats of all the mechs. Him and his friends were flipping through the pages discussing the various stats when I walked up and asked what they were doing.

This kid never liked me.

He gave me some dismissive answer as I took the book from his hands and flipped through the pages. I stopped on a page in the very back, pointed to one of the people on the development team, and said something like, “who’s that idiot?”

It was a picture of me.

#54

I went into a meeting at work about some kind of problem our software development team was having and a somewhat new young cocky developer started explaining what the problem was, how things are supposed to work, etc. I’m the most senior person in the room, but not a software developer per se as I’m more of a people and project manager at that point.

He starts describing the system our software interfaces with, and says something not quite right about it. I tried to very gently correct him, going out of my way to avoid saying ‘you’re wrong’ and keep the story/explanation coming. He responds kind of dismissively and briskly explains why I’m wrong.

I now start to see his misunderstanding is important to the issue he’s having. I say a little more strongly that “I’m pretty sure that system behaves like ‘this’ and expects you to do ‘that’ and… he cuts me off. This time he’s a little more condescending and brushes off my input as he confidently pulls out a big document about that system. I guess to show me he’s done his homework. I recognize this document. I’m very familiar with it (though most in the room are probably not.)

I respond by saying “I think if you look at this part of that document, you’ll see…” He cuts me off, tells me he knows what it says and how it is supposed to work. Then I ask him if he knows who wrote that manual. He does not.

Someone else in the room (that knew me better) asks if I wrote it. I say yes. In fact, I didn’t just create that document. I also designed the whole system and wrote all the software that was the subject of that manual. This was done 5-7 years earlier, when I was in a completely different party of the company.

We continued on with the meeting and it gradually became clear to him and everyone that his misunderstanding of my old system (and how his software was supposed to work with it) was the core part of the problem he was having, and it ended up being a productive meeting.

If something has been in place that long, and it’s called from a thousand different places, maybe don’t assume it is the problem. I think he gained a little respect and humbleness toward us all that day.

#55

I run a small business. I was struggling and lost a key employee… made a call for help and brought my dad in on the business. We shall call him Steve.

Steve is still part of the team now, about 2 years later. He has 3 people reporting to him and he runs a tight ship. One of his team members came to me the other day.

“I don’t know if you know this, but working for Steve can be hard. He is very demanding and sets extremely high expectations.”

… you sweet summer child, would you like to go back in time and meet my 15 year old self?

#56

Lol drinking with some young locals at a bar in Dublin (I’m an older American) last year. The band played I’m Gonna Be 500 Miles and I sang every word. They told me I was the GOAT and asked how I knew that song.

The 80s were my formative music years my good dudes.

(Edit I was in Dublin last year for the FLA/GA college football game).

#57

My teenager cousin (i am 8 years older) starting to go out at 17-18 telling me i should drink lightly and be careful with shots cause i can’t handle how they drink.

I have the “good guy” reputation in my family.

#58

My newly moved out 24 year-old telling me groceries are expensive.

#59

My best friend’s 10 year old daughter who always seemed a little afraid of me approached me a while back and said in the shyest of voices “My dad said you like WWE”.

She’s now my wrestling buddy, we’ve been to three live shows and are going to a Raw/SmackDown dual show next month.

#60

I’m a lobbyist – I, and an elderly colleague were in a meeting with Congressional committee staff. We were having a spirited discussion about what a provision of a decades old law actually meant. I was doing most of the arguing on our side.

Eventually, I directly informed the staffer that this was not a debate and that we were correct. When she asked me how I could possibly have that level of certainty, I turned the conversation over to my colleague. I got to watch as he informed her, as I already knew, that he was sure about the provision because **he wrote it.** When he was a staffer for that very committee. In 1962.

Delicious.

#61

My dad explaining how to peel a hard boiled egg to my mother. Both were in their 70s at the time. Mom had been cooking since she was 14 years old. Neither of them had dementia.

She about c*****d that egg on his head for that EPIC instance of mansplaining.

#62

When my cousin showed me this great song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Or when people wax on about 2010 internet.

I was there for the BBS and Stile Project.

#63

Friend’s teen telling were old, uncool etc as we pull up old music videos on YouTube.

Whines for a chance to pick a video.

Chooses video with clickbait title “You won’t believe what happens during this solo!!”.

Gets all smarmy, crowing about how we might have thought we were cool, but even way back then THESE were the cool guys.

I says, “Omg -teens mom- that’s you!”

Mom pulls out photo album of polaroids.

Sure enough, different angle of 16 yo mom t**s out crowd surfing on a boogeyboard being pissed on by Green Day.

Oh ya, your dad took that pic, that’s how they met. Hunted the f****r down to get the photo.

Kid died a little inside. Actually went outside to avoid the cackling.

#64

A Young man born in 2004 tried to explain some 9/11 conspiracies to me, oh sweet summer child.

#65

My nephew, in the midst of a heated philosophical debate with me, blurts out “Asphinctersayswhat?”.

#66

Was hanging out with kids at a county fair. Told a kid I could make his hand smell like strawberries by scratching it. When he put it up to his face to smell, I slapped his own hand (gently) into his face. For the next 30 minutes he pulled the prank on others and it spread like wildfire. Eventually a little girl comes up to me and says ” I can make your hand smell like strawberries!” So of course I went along with it. Instead of bringing my hand in front of my face to “smell”, I held it under my chin and sniffed before saying “Wow! It worked!” The little girl was confused and pulled my hand to her face to smell…. which is when I slapped it with my other hand. She never saw it coming lol.

#67

My teenage son came home from work as a lifeguard at a pool and said “Mom, you know, some parents don’t parent “

Yes, I know, son. I know.

#68

A student, 18 in 2022, telling me I’m wrong about how dialup worked.
Later in the year they’d also tell me I mispronounced Myspace. 
[Mice Pace, like a computer mouse at speed. This student hadn’t read the material or seen MySpace written. They often leaped to how great their idea is].

#69

A friend of mine is from a less privileged part of Dublin, and went on to study Theatre and Russian in the very prestigious (especially if you ask them) Trinity College.

In one of her theatre classes she put forward an opinion on Chekov, and a posh student promptly disagreed, and pretty heavily implied that someone from that part of Dublin probably didn’t know much about theatre.

So my friend cheerfully quoted the original text in perfect Russian.

#70

My daughter told me that I didn’t know anything about anime because I didn’t know anything about One Piece or Attack On Titan.

I started telling her about Fist of the North Star and Maison Ikkoku and Legend of the Galactic Heroes. And then I literally told her not to cite the deep magic to me….

#71

My 12 year old nephew not wanting to play rap music around me because the lyrics are to explicit.

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