Solar eclipse idiots

[Irregularelephant]

The amount of people on my social media feed i have seen using a colander to stare directly at the sun through it rather than casting a shadow with it to view. Or people who have permanently damaged their phones from the glare. Or the knock off glasses from dodgy websites that arent certified.
IABU: they will all be fine
IANBU: They have damaged there eyes and are silly

Stupid is as stupid does! It’s been in the news and social media about how to safely view the eclipse. Some people are just idiots!

There's a thread running about "who peeked?"

Lots of "ooh, silly me, I couldn't stop myself from having a look LOL" and even some "what do you mean I wasn't supposed to look at it?" faux naive (hopefully sarcastic) posts.

Beggars belief.

I had a Specsavers appointment yesterday afternoon and the optician said she, and the local eye injury unit expects to be busy this week.

Your vote doesnt make sense as we have no way of knowing wether their eyesight will be permanantly damaged.

Yeah that's why I didn't vote.

I thought when I saw the colander suggestion on BBC that there are bound to be people who think you just look through the colander - never underestimate how stupid some people are. Some people think it doesn't matter if you ignore advice because they are immune (cf the 'I peeked' thread) some people can't be bothered to read a full article about what to do, just see the word colander and think that is the answer, and some people read the article and fail to understand it.

In the event of a nuclear bomb, they will put the colander on their heads and rush out to take a selfie with the mushroom cloud. It's evolution in action.

Loving this image, loads of dimwits running about with colanders on their heads at the end of civilisation.

We’re on holiday in Scotland and could barely even see the sun through the cloud. We were standing in the park with lots of others, a couple of people had the glasses, but most others were just observing the general dimness rather than looking directly at the sun - partly because of the dangers, but mostly just because there was nothing to see

Not seen anything like this

how do you know these people have knock off glasses?

Also, the "it was so disappointing!" posts from people without glasses. They have the whole universe of information available on their phones and didn't realise that it wouldn't go dark in the UK.

Honestly there is an influencer with nearly 500k followers looking through said colander. Honestly, it screams the sign of our times.
Yes to the mushroom cloud selfie!

In fairness, the BBC articles I saw weren’t very clear and simply advised “do not look at the sun, use special glasses or something like a colander which has lots of small holes.” No mention of using it to project onto paper. Which does give the impression it’s okay to look at the eclipse through a colander.

People were selling cinema glasses and the like on local Facebook pages. Madness

I watched someone in a bar trying to work out what to do with a sheet of paper and card with a tiny hole.

They were taking lots of selfies trying to do it. They tried looking at the sun through the hole in the card at one point.

DH did actually put the colander over his head. I took the piss.

This is the influencer. Jesus wept.

Can you point me at one person who has damaged their phone from the glare? I have hundreds of photos of the sun on my phone, sunsets, sunrises, in the background on sunny days, pictures of blue skies and sun from the beach, sun in landscape shots and not one of them has damaged my phone before now, so I have no idea why the eclipse would be different.

Loving this image, loads of dimwits running about with colanders on their heads at the end of civilisation

At least we'll die laughing.

I overheard my NDN saying that he thought this business of the sun damaging your eyes is shit

A nurse at work told me she and her family “didn’t bother getting special glasses, just wore two pairs of sunglasses”. Jesus wept.

Bear in mind it's estimated that around 40,000,000 people watched the 1999 eclipse in the UK, and only 70 eye injuries were reported. That may have been an under report for minor eye issues, but likely not for more significant ones.

So 70 out of 40,000,000. 42 of those had been staring at it for over minute. 28 for less than minute (but could still have been for a long time).

The vast majority of people who peek at the eclipse will be fine, especially if only a glance. It doesn't mean it's a sensible thing, but we are still taking about a very tiny risk of some damage, not a near certainty.

Unfortunately we are living in a very stupid world where a lot of people actually believe what people with the intelligence of an amoeba say.

Google searches for eye pain went up by 5000% last night compared to the same time last year
https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-16049293/Britain-eye-pain-solar-eclipse.html

no sympathy unless its children with idiot parents

I’m not a dimwit but the very little I saw, I assumed that looking through a colander was how it was done. In the event, I couldn’t be arsed to go and look anyway and I’ll be dead before the next one!

A friend of mine is currently in Spain so had an excellent view of the eclipse last night. She has sent a number of photos and as far as she can tell there has been no damage to her phone.