Younger Siblings Reveal Lies They Were Told By Their Older Siblings, And They Range From Hilarious To Diabolical
BuzzFeed
13 min read
No matter how silly something sounds, you're more likely to believe what someone tells you when you're a kid, especially if it's coming from an older sibling.
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Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell me the weirdest thing their older sibling told them hook, line, and sinker. Here are a few lies that they definitely believed for way too long.
1."I have a dark brown birthmark on my butt. My sister told me I got poop on me, didn’t wipe it off, and it stained. I believed her for years. She also told me 'Don’t Stop Believin'' was America’s national anthem. I believed her. I was an adult."
2."My older brother convinced me for years as a child that when the Teletubbies would say 'tubby bye-bye,' they actually got shot and new actors would replace them each episode. I used to cry my eyes out whenever they said 'tubby bye-bye' because I genuinely believed that they were all going to be killed."
3."On a rare night out for my parents, my oldest sister held a séance. With the lights out and only candles to see with, a very young me and my even younger brother believed we were visited by the ghosts of George Washington and his dog, just like she said. It took about a year for us to realize that it was our other sister wearing a sheet and our dachshund under a hand towel."
4."I have an older brother and sister. They had a scheme going on for months, convincing me that they were aliens and I was the only human in the family. They told me that they could read each other’s minds and would do little tricks to prove it. At one point, they got my unknowing mother in on it. My mom knew the trick to a magic trick and guessed the answer I was thinking. I was terrified. It all came to a head when my parents bought us a ping pong table for Christmas, and they were trying to sneak it into the basement through the bulkhead. My brother and sister came and got me in a panic saying that mom and dad were bringing in our spaceship and that they were going to leave once I went to bed. I cried and cried, and that’s when they felt bad and came clean. We’re all adults now with kids of our own, and they hate when I bring it up."
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5."I am the youngest of eight children. I grew up in a fairly conservative Catholic household. Growing up, all of my older siblings told me repeatedly that my mother used to dance on tables in college to earn money (nothing wrong with that). Even my mom told me this, and my mom never plays along with little fun lies. Only in the last five to seven years (I'm 33 now) did I learn that this was all a joke and that my siblings cannot believe that I thought it was true."
6."My older sister convinced me that we had a younger brother who we lost in the dryer."
7."My siblings loved to torment and gang up on me as a kid. Out of the three of us, I was the only one who attended a preschool called 'the growing garden.' They convinced me on multiple occasions that I wasn’t born from my mother but rather sprouted from the growing garden and walked through the front door. It was an elaborate way to convince me I was adopted, which is classic…and would make me hysterical. They also hid all the baby photos of me to make it seem real."
8."I'm ashamed to admit it, but when I was a kid, around 6 or so, my sister convinced me that I had a tail when I was born that was removed at birth, and that's why I had a tail bone. I didn't know EVERYONE had a tailbone."
9."My older brother had gotten a part-time job at a local pizza restaurant and tried to convince me they used cheese made from dog's milk."
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10."My older sibling convinced me that if I DIDN’T watch whatever scary thing they had on TV, specifically Poltergeist, it would come out of the TV and get me."
11."My sister and I are 3.5 years apart, and she used to take my quarters, dimes, and nickels from me in exchange for pennies. She would tell me that gold (pennies) is more than silver (the rest), so in exchange, I would be richer. I was dumb."
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12."My brother is seven years older than I am. When I was in fourth grade and he was a junior, he had me convinced we were related to a pirate named Black Beard Spencer. He went into great detail about this pirate ancestor, even telling me that I liked unicorns so much because Black Beard Spencer had a unicorn on the bow of his ship. So, for my school’s history fair, I went all out and did my project on that 'famous ancestor.' Fortunately, before the fair, I proudly showed the project to my parents who laughed and laughed, until they found out my history teacher had already let me present that project to my class. My parents made my brother go to my elementary school and apologize to my teacher and my class for lying to me. It’s been almost 40 years, and he still denies telling me the tales of Black Beard Spencer."
13."I was set to get my orthodontic palate expander out of my mouth the next morning. My older sister convinced me that all my teeth in the bridge would be pulled out along with it. The next day, I'm at the orthodontist and losing my mind about getting it out. My mom was very confused because I had been a model patient and loved the doctor. I told her about it decades later, and I'm pretty sure if my sister wasn't in a different country and time zone, she would have called her up to chew her out."
14."When I was in high school, my brother convinced me the 'bronconator' on my car was broken and that I needed to call the car service shop right away. I freaked out and called. My dad heard me on the phone and asked me what I was talking about. My brother couldn’t stop laughing. I hung up immediately."
15."My older brother had me convinced that if you held in your fart, the smell would somehow leak through your skin and smell even worse. I was 5 and believed it until I was around 12. For seven years, I let out every single fart out of fear that my fart would LEAK out of me."
16."My older sister used to dress up in summer clothes during the winter and wake me up to go to the beach. I was going crazy, so the doctor had to tell my sister to stop."
17."I am the youngest of three, and my siblings are much older than me. On a beach vacation when I was quite young and they were both teenagers, they, along with our older cousin, convinced me not only that it was shark week, but that meant that the waters were filthy with sharks because this was their feeding time and their favorite food was little girls. At one point, I had to swim to find a bathroom, and I was so scared and hurt that my dad wouldn’t protect me by bringing me back in my little inflatable raft that I began to cry as I tried to avoid pretend sharks and find the bathroom. Luckily, I never encountered a shark, and I did find that bathroom."
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18."When I was in elementary school, I used to bathe with my sister, who’s two years older than me. We experimented a lot: We mixed shampoos, soaps, shower gels, and even toothpaste just for the fun of it and called them 'potions.' One day, I mixed body scrubs with water, and she told me, 'You can’t put it on your body, you might catch a rhinocrises.' Yep, my sister made up an incurable skin disease called 'rhinocrises,' which she said could make my skin look like a rhinoceros. I believed her for about four years until I was about to enter junior high school."
19."There’s a pop song with the lyrics: 'I don’t like his baggy jeans, but I’ma like what’s underneath 'em.' Me as a freaked-out 9-year-old started with the 'Ew's' and 'What does that mean?' My sister was appalled and yelled at me that she was referring to his heart and personality under the clothes. I believed it for longer than I’m proud of."
20."My mom’s brother is eight years older than her. He convinced her that the word 'spatula' was a swear word."
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21."I'm the youngest of three, and my brother was the oldest. He made me watch one of those old Godzilla movies versus a giant spider when I was maybe 3 or 4. He told me that spiders grew that big. I believed it until the fourth grade."
—JJ
22."My older sister was the middle child. She had our older brother convinced he was adopted, that the mailman brought him, and told me I was a clone! My 5-year-old self didn’t know what a clone was in 1980, but if our parents kept it from me, it couldn’t be good!"
23."We had just gotten Mario Brothers 3. At the end of each level, you jump to hit the block and get either a star, flower, or mushroom. If you get three of the same thing, you get a prize in the game. We could get the mushroom and the stars, but no one ever managed to get three flowers. My older sister told me that the first person to get three flowers would call up Mr. Nintendo and would receive a Super Nintendo, five free games, and, like, $100. Days, weeks, and months passed, but no one ever got three flowers. Then one magical day, it happened! THREE FLOWERS! I FREAKED out. 'Oh my god! You did it!' For, like, five minutes I was running around the house in such joy that we were going to get a Super Nintendo; I couldn't believe it! Finally, my sister asked me what I was doing and why I was acting stupid.
"So I reminded her of all the cool things we were about to receive. She had told me this to get me to stop annoying her and go play Nintendo instead."
24."My oldest brother tormented me. He told me I was adopted, and I started crying and ran to tell my mom what he said. Guess what? I WAS adopted, but that was not the way they wanted to tell me. The same brother told me after I had my tonsils out that they had cut my head off, removed my tonsils, then sewed my head back on. The reason my throat was so sore was from all the stitches it took to reattach my head."
25."When I was little, my sister told me that when I got sick, it meant God forgot I was alive. That was a fun one."
26."My sister had a game that was for ages 8 and up. I wasn’t allowed to play because I wasn’t 8 yet. When I finally turned 8, she used a pen to change the age to 10+. Not sure why I fell for this one, but she convinced me the manufacturer changed their minds about the age requirement."
27."My brothers told me Shredder (TMNT) would get me if I stepped on the sidewalk grates when we were in the city. They avoided them, so I naturally believed them. I know it’s not true, but I still can’t step on them."
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28."My older brother convinced 6-year-old me that there were sharks in one side of our swimming pool. It was an 18-foot round pool, and I never swam on that side. If we were doing a whirlpool, I rushed through it, and if I did venture over there, even as a teen, my heart would start racing."
29."I was around 4 and brushing my teeth myself. I always swallowed my toothpaste after brushing. The more my parents told me not to, the more I did it. So, they recruited my sister who was a couple of years older to help get me to stop. Her solution? She told me there was an OLD LADY WHO LIVED IN MY STOMACH. And it was her job to clean my tummy and sweep the poop out. I was killing her when I swallowed the toothpaste. Would I want someone to kill my grandma? And not be able to poop on top of that? Talk about overkill! I'm not sure how a 6-year-old came up with that, or when I realized it wasn’t true, but I can honestly say I never EVER swallowed toothpaste again."
30."My older brother convinced me that when you flush the toilet, there can be a 'toilet monster' that comes out and eats you. So for a portion of my childhood, I would run out of the bathroom as fast as I could after flushing."
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31."My sister had me CONVINCED from the age of, like, 4 that I was an alien. She had a whole backstory: She and my parents went to the Kennedy Space Center and bought a moon rock, got home, and lo and behold, the moon rock hatched, and out came me! She said my parents felt bad for me, an orphan alien baby, so they raised me as their own. AND I BELIEVED HER FOR YEARS."
32."My brother is two years older than me, and whenever we would take the car, he said that you only were allowed in the passenger seat if you were 12 or older, so he could sit in front, and I had to sit in the back. I believed this until I was studying for the theoretical part of getting my drivers license at 23."
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