Who hasn’t watched a how-to video and been inspired to put their new-found knowledge to use? If you have, you know that watching cooking tutorials, for example, doesn’t transform you into a master chef, and watching UFC won’t turn you into an MMA athlete.
One woman turned to an online community to vent after her unemployed boyfriend, who’s hooked on DIY life hack content, thought it’d be a good idea to “soundproof” her home office. Using superglue and reeking egg cartons hand-collected from questionable sources.
Whether it’s DIY, baking, or magic tricks, just because you’ve watched a few TikTok tutorials doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get it right yourself
Image credits: kues1 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
One woman, who works from home, was being driven up the wall by street noise drowning out her Zoom calls and had been complaining about it for a while
Image credits: linamorens / Freepik (not the actual photo)
One weekend the woman went away, and her boyfriend, who’s unemployed and addicted to DIY social content, decided he’d soundproof her home office as a surprise
Image credits: Frolopiaton Palm / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The woman came home to a stench that first stopped her in her tracks, then led her to her office, where she discovered the walls covered floor to ceiling in dirty egg cartons
Image credits: Boring_Chain_8502
When she had a mini meltdown, her boyfriend accused her of "emasculating" him and locked himself in their room, so she turned to netizens to ask if she overreacted
The original poster (OP), who works from home, had been moaning about street noise wrecking her Zoom calls. Her boyfriend, currently “between jobs” and deep into online life hacks, insists she wastes money whenever she gets something done professionally. According to him, TikTok tutorials beat expertise every time.
After spending a weekend away helping her mom prepare for surgery, OP returned home early, hoping to surprise him. Instead, she was greeted with a smell like expired milk blended with soggy cardboard. And it seemed to be coming from her home office. When she flicked the light on, the walls revealed floor to ceiling chaos.
Her boyfriend had superglued hundreds of used egg cartons to every wall, yolk stains and crust included. Dumpster-dived, neighbor-sourced, bakery-adjacent eggs, now interior decor. He beamed, proudly demonstrating how “muted” the sound felt, while boasting he saved $500 on acoustic panels after 3 days of scavenging and glue fumes.
OP literally wept, tried peeling one of the filthy cartons off, and took drywall with it. Her boyfriend retreated, accusing her of “emasculating” him and valuing aesthetics over his herculean effort. Now her office is ruined, he’s sulking behind a locked door, and she’s asking netizens if she’s insane, or just dating a raccoon.
OP’s boyfriend’s heart might have been in the right place, but his brain was definitely AWOL. Who can blame her for cracking like a rotten egg? Just what got into his head, though? Well, science actually has an answer for that - the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The pros over at Psychology Today say the Dunning-Kruger effect is what happens when someone knows just enough to feel like a genius, but not enough to realize they’re wrong. Think of the guy who watches three cooking videos and suddenly believes he’s Gordon Ramsay, confidently seasoning chaos while the kitchen catches fire behind him.
Here’s the thing: early success creates an illusion of mastery, like a video game tutorial convincing you you’re unbeatable. Then reality shows up. With a flamethrower. Real experts, meanwhile, doubt themselves more, because they’ve seen how complicated things get once you start playing on hard mode.
ScienceDaily says watching TikTok tutorials, Instagram demos, and Facebook how-to’s might make us feel as though we're picking up all sorts of new skills, but it probably won't make us experts. This is according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“The more that people watched others, the more they felt they could perform the same skill, too -- even when their abilities hadn't actually changed for the better,” says study author Michael Kardas of The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Well, we think OP’s boyfriend definitely got ahead of himself, don’t you? Let’s just hope he’s as enthusiastic about undoing his dirty DIY as he was about doing it. And let’s hope OP is OK with taking Zoom calls in her car for a while, too.
What’s your take? Did OP overreact and “emasculate” her boyfriend, or is it time he took a break from TikTok tutorials and got a job? Share your opinion in the comments!
In the comments, readers seemed to agree that the woman was not overreacting and suggested she move out until her hopeless boyfriend pays for repairs
