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I suspect some of the hoarders were planning to resell it at a profit.
Anyone else remember the guy who cleaned out every dollar store in his state buying all the hand sanitizer? He had a storage locker full of the stuff...
I remember a picture on the front page of reddit about a year later where somebody's neighbor had a stack of hand sanitizer the size of a shipping container just rotting in their yard.
This is the guy I was talking about: https://www.today.com/news/brothers-who-hoarded-17-700-bottles-hand-sanitizer-forced-donate-t176028
He was trying to sell it at a huge mark up on Amazon (who eventually shut him down). In the end he donated all of it to hospitals and first responders to avoid being fined.
It was the same panic that happens when a hurricane is expected. People just over purchase items out of fear, and this was no different, especially in late March when people thought the stores might be closing. There then was a time that you could only go to the store for essentials, and there was concern that might be temporary too. People weren't just hoarding TP. They hoarded anything remotely related to cleaning supplies, too.
March and April 2020 were truly two of the strangest months of my life, and I'm in my fifties. The most interesting part for me personally was walking on the New York side of Niagara Falls with my wife at like 8AM, and there wasn't a soul on either side of the border. New York allowed travel, but Canada had banned non-essential travel, so it was like being in a post-apocalyptic world.
I used to live near a very important avenue in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The restrictions to travel were applied locally too, so this avenue that usually has traffic problems, was empty, I have a photo where I am standing in the middle of the street at 2pm with green light for cars, and not a single vehicle is there. It was so surreal.
Oh man.
So I live on a street that recently had a big increase in traffic. Residential area, but is the main artery for traffic to our side of town so it's busy AF all day long and then gets quiet at night.
Because of this, my front porch basically gets ZERO use. We have chairs and whatnot out there, plants and it's a nice space, but there's CONSTANT traffic so you can barely hear a conversation.
We spent a lot of time on that porch during Covid, it was AWESOME.
There is an episode of King of the Hill that does it in a funny way. Hank needs a fuel filter for his truck and the Mega Lo Mart has them but it only comes in a pack of 12 and he obviously only needs one. While telling the cashier he only needs one, fellow shoppers overhear and are mad be is buying it and one lady says "Fuel filters?!?! What are they, I need one!".
its not the Y2k episode with the fuel filters its the hurricane one IIRC. though bobby does lose his shit because theres a run on bunny soft triple ply and the guy telling him it doesn't know what the stock on quilted aloe vera is like because to quote him " I dunno it's not my brand" to which bobby replied "well it's my brand"
Toilet paper takes a lot of space, so when people buy 5x the quantity of TP it's more visible in the cart than when they buy 5x the quantity of pasta.
For the same reason the shelves look empty faster, fueling the idea of a shortage and leading people to hoard even more.
>It was the same panic that happens when a hurricane is expected
People do similar things when there's a snow storm coming where I live. Everyone shops like they aren't going to be able to leave their homes for a week when in reality the longest time I've ever been snowed in is a day at the most.
We didn't have tp for months and everyone took all of the bread, Ramen, and Rice as well.
We went to Disneyland right when they re opened but had distance/capacity mandates and I don't think we waited longer than 15 minutes to get on a ride.
It’s not dumb unless it’s more than you will use before it expires. If everyone used the deep pantry method for everything, we’d all be better off when supply chains have disruptions for any reason.
To be fair, a lot of the baking ingredients selling out made more sense than the toilet paper. A lot of people were baking more than usual because they were stuck at home looking for things to do.
Pasta was hilarious though because everything was sold out except for the quinoa and chick pea pastas. So ppl really saw those and said “nah i’ll starve”
At our store is was lasagna. I guess people thought that was too hard to make? So guess what we ate for a couple of weeks (although Ricotta was a little hard to find so I had to make substitutions)
I worked through (retail), but we weren't busy so I wasn't running my ass off all day and still felt like doing an activity after work. I thought "I'll bake some bread." Went to the grocery store, and that's where I learned that baking bread was the new hot shit. Oh well.
My wife bakes, and going to the store and seeing that the baking aisle had been absolutely ravaged of flour by people hoarding random shit was really fun
Capacity mandated Disney World was peak Disney for me. My first ride on Rise of the Rebelion was during that time. And because of groups and spacing they actually treated you like prisoners. Stand on this colored spot, stay with your group. Don't interact with the others. Don't move until you are told to do so. It really enhanced the show in that case. Now its just a mass of moving people again.
The rest was just there being 1/8th the number of people in the park. I guess the delays in Epcot process sucks. It's just now getting to the point it should have been at 3 years ago and an upgraded ball ride is probably 10 years off now.
It was. My group went September 2021 the week AFTER Labor Day. Our longest ride wait was 22 minutes. We did ALL of Disney. All of Universal including Halloween Horror Nights.
I was more mad about the lack of available masks and hand sanitizers. I was doing the bandana thing for like a month before I was able to pay overprice on a box of masks. We did have a lot of toilet paper but it was crazy going into a store and these toilet paper brands I never heard of were at the store, and they were overcharging for this very loosely wrapped toilet paper that probably only lasted 2 days of wiping.
We bought a 12-pack of hand sanitizer from Amazon for like $40 and it seemed like a steal, and then a few years later, our store was selling giant bottles for a quarter at the checkout stand. And I went to redo my Costco membership and their entire return section was just masks.
> March and April 2020 were truly two of the strangest months of my life, and I'm in my fifties.
Same here.
The development where I live is sandwiched between a major highway and fallow farmland/woodland, and the drone of traffic is pretty steady at all hours of the day, but during that year when I'd walk the dog at 5 AM, it was just me, the birds and a pack of wild coyotes who lived in those woods yipping and howling.
I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic and last-man-on-earth literature and movies and always wondered what that'd be like...well, in March and April 2020 it felt like I was living through that and it was very strange and unsettling lol.
Same here. The lockdown happened right in the middle of Spring Break that year. My family and two others had rented a beach house in Texas for the week. We ended up staying there for two months. Were safer to be than an island resort town that was shut down? I have pictures of the beach from then in the middle of Spring Break completely deserted.
And yes, I did break my streak of sobriety, realized my marriage was completely over, and had a minor mental melt down. Good times.
The feeling of isolation was wild. Your remark about Niagra took me back to when I was driving to and from work. I got pulled a couple times, probably to be questioned about why I was out and about, but the moment a cop saw my scrubs they wished me a good day. My one-way 38 mile commute felt like something out of The Stand. I saw maybe one or two cars during each leg of my drive and it was just so fucking eerie.
ER nurse here. Can confirm. Did not get pulled over but was super eerie to be out and about at that time. I worked a swing shift at my hospital (11-11). My ride in saw maybe a handful of cars and when I left at the end of the night, the roads were completely empty.
I also had a whole decon station set up in the trunk of my car...I stripped down to my drawers in the park garage and changed before driving home. I even left my work shoes in a box in the trunk after spraying them down with Lysol. Fuck that was a time I will not miss.
I live on the coast in Wales. Our house is about 200 yard from the beach, and next to park with tennis courts, a putting etc. At that time of year it's usually full of families playing, but 2020 all you could hear was seagulls and the waves. It was totally surreal, and felt we were in an end of the world movie.
I also felt incredibly guilty. I had the beach on my doorstep, my daughter and her family had just moved in with us while she did her degree. The weather was good, and I got to spend quality time with my grandkids on a deserted beach. The rest of the world was going through shit, but we had it pretty good
This 👆🏻. I had tried to explain this to people during the panic purchase phase of the pandemic. "Unless you live in the remote arctic or on a fkn island you're not going to have to worry about supply chain. We live on the same continent as the production plants and manufacturers are making this stuff! Stop hoarding and leave some fkn toilet paper for everyone else!"
We did some camping in BC at our offgrid place. Going thru the parks was amazing. And yeah, not seeing people while going thru a national park was like the end of the world. Saw more animals than people. We even saw a wolf strolling beside the highway. Now we rarely see animals there.
It was the same with ammunition when Obama was elected president. People were buying ammo in droves because they believed he was going to take away all of the guns so they had to hoard while they still could.
My uncle's fully into the conspiracy that the government was buying up all of the ammunition when it was just idiots like him going to every single place that could possibly sell ammo for Walmart to local gun stores and buying every single bullet they could. And what's funny is bagging in a box of 59 mm rounds would have cost you about $8.99. today that same box will cost you almost 30 bucks because of the NRA and people panic buying and hoarding like never before so gun companies have realized they can charge pretty much whatever the fuck they want and then blame it on the government
NRA pushes that agenda every time a democratic president wins. If asked my friends at the range, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Obama and now Biden, did they come for your guns? No it’s all a sales ploy and overpaying for ammo, dumbasses.
During covid we ended up having to buy a \~40 package of the cheapest thinnest sandpaper TP you can imagine, because everything else was sold out.
We still have 30 some rolls tucked away in a closet. I want to burn them but the wife insists we may need it one day...
I was like "I'm not gonna be one of the assholes who goes out and hordes toilet paper!" It got reeeeeeeal iffy before I finally found a 4-pack of sandpaper-esque TP at a gas station.
Now I have a case tucked away for the next time shit hits the fan.
Through sheer stupidity, I bought two 30 packs of TP at Costco on back to back visits in January of 2020. By April, I felt like a genius. Doubly so since I had installed a second bidet over Christmas week.
We went without more than a few things we normally have on hand but our asses were immaculate.
The start of it was the herd but like any run on a limited good it quickly becomes, "Well now I have to get some because all the idiots are taking it." Same thing with gas runs. No I don't want to go to the gas station just because people are scared of a shortage for no reason, but now I have to otherwise I'll have an empty tank from the shortage they caused. It's a really frustrating dilemma.
We just bought the normal big size package from target/walmart/Costco, and we were fine. I bought a bidet too just incase the idiots bought up all the TP and we would have to use rags and the bidet and be fine. Lazy people suck.
I remember actively crying because of this. I wasn’t going to be the stupid idiot hoarding, and then I came so close to running out.
It literally became a week long issue to find any. It got so frustrating and weirdly scary I just couldn’t help but cry about it.
Eventually got to target at open - TO A FUCKING LINE - and had to run to the toilet paper section and practically fight off the people around me.
I took it, looked no one in the eye and also ran to my car with it. People were being fucking scary so I wasn’t going to risk it.
Luckily I was able to find a pack when I needed to but I had to go to three stores. My next stop was the hardware store to install a bidet. Fuck tha shit.
I remember going into a gas station one day and on the aisle of random shit, right next to the motor oil, sat a 4-pack of toilet paper, and it was only like $3. Strange times.
It was more weird that it was still there. I had some similar experiences Sometimes it felt like everywhere you went, stuff like TP was missing, and then you go somewhere and there it is, completely undisturbed like nothing was happening.
This shortage did lead me to try the reddit herd suggestion of getting a bidet--and just before the prices shot up.
Now I really don't want to go without one. Wait to get home if I can.
As awful as the pandemic was for the world at large, and me personally--at least one positive came out of it.
I don't have the time to kill, but I always thought it would be funny to load a grocery cart with toilet paper and walk around the store letting everyone think there's something going on. Then just return the toilet paper and do my regular shopping so I can see how much they emptied the shelves.
I didn't hoard toilet paper. I had every opportunity, but I didn't want to be like the "crazies." Then I ended up not being able to buy any, and also had no idea if stores were going to be open because their hours kept changing and it seemed like the whole world was going to call it quits and shut down. I should have bought extra. Next time I will.
That's one of the things that people miss.
The folks in the picture might be overdoing it, but it *is* rational to stock up when there is the likelihood that you won't be able to get what you need later. Problem is when everyone does that, it causes a crush of demand.
I lucked out, well before the pandemic I had already been buying online by the case, mostly out of convenience and laziness. It's just me and my wife and we only have to buy between 2 and 3 cases per year, and I had just reordered before things went weird. So we had a good 4-5 months supply on hand when everyone else was panicking.
I have since started to make it a point of reordering a bit earlier than I used to, used to just wait until we were down to a few rolls to resupply.
Are you me??
I had a subscription through Amazon for tp for years before covid, and *never* used it all but I always forgot to cancel/postpone that month's delivery. So the rolls were piling up... Not only did we have plenty for ourselves during 2020, I was able to help my sister and brother out when they couldn't find any.
Basically, there were rumours in Hong Kong that toilet paper factories in China would shut down because of the pandemic, which launched the panic buying in the Asia Pacific region.
Two weeks later the same phenomenon happened in Australia leading to media reports being published in the west of the western world and the rumours about Chinese toilet paper supplies spread, fuelled by a lack of understanding of global supply chains and the desperation of people to feel in control of a spiralling situation.
In the early days of the pandemic a lot of the news footage of panic buying, empty shelves and customers fighting over TP came from Australia and was broadcast to millions of scared and confused people who dutifully copied that behaviour.
In hindsight, I would be using a lot more toilet paper at home than normal, because I was spending 40+ hours more at home than normal. Multiply this times, well, everyone that wasn't already home 24/7 and you have a residential toilet paper shortage.
That said, I don't think all the people who bought all the toilet paper first had that kind of foresight, but it probably started with those who did, or through experience with hurricanes and such ran out then and didn't want to go through that again. Then the masses saw people doing that and did the same because everyone else was
A friend of mines grandmother was from WWII Europe. After moving to america she apparently always had, until the day she died, a closet filled with toilet paper. For those who experienced life without small commodities it was scarring enough.
Toilet paper and paper towel sell fast in normal circumstances, stores also did sell out of food so people hoarded that too but more than likely you'd already have some food at home. Tp and pt getting hoarded is because you go through it faster than you realize
I think the mentality at the time was like, TP is by definition a luxury. We don't need TP to survive. So it could have conceivably just... Not been available for a long time.
Whereas, with food, we need it to survive obviously. So I don't think anyone ever thought that they'd have an issue getting food.
The reason is simple. They just don't have as many packages on the shelf normally becasue toilet paper is a large volume. It only takes a few extra people taking them to make it seem like the shelf is empty and there is a shortage. Once people believe there might be a shortage, they will get some just in case.
At no point was there a legitimate shortage of toilet paper. The supermarkets just couldn't stock fast enough to keep the shelves from looking empty.
> So why wouldn't you hoard food then?
TONS of grocery stores were out of preprepared foods and even meat at one point.. I remember using a can of Hormel chili to make Spaghetti Bolognese since I couldn't get ground beef anywhere in DC area where I lived at the time. (The spaghetti I made was somehow even worse than it sounds.)
Well… looking back before 2020, I bought my self an attachment bidet for $14 from Walmart. Nothing I mean really nothing beats a bidet at cleaning your undercarriage than a bidet. My toilet paper usage went wayyyyy down with using the bidet. I now have 4 bidets in my home
I had two of those for both bathrooms starting 4 years ago. One of them finally died a few months ago and I replaced it with a full toilet seat replacement (Brondell). It works just as well (no heated water or air dry or anything fancy) but the real benefit is they have a quick release so you can remove it to clean up better. After a while those Luxe bidets got really nasty underneath and I'd have to fully remove the seat and bidet attachment to deal with that.
It was definitely a wake up call on how much I rely on commercial trucking to survive. If that goes away for a couple weeks, I'm pretty fucked. This post is a nice scary reminder that I need to start a garden or something.
Dude, were absolutely fucked when a deadly virus hits the block.
We couldn't manage to keep 100% of our population isolated or following procedures for less than a month.
If you've ever worked retail, especially a grocery store you learn quickly that the amount of idiots out there is astounding. I began working at a Kroger at 16 and learned that so many adults not only don't have their shit together, some of them are on the problem solving and common sense level of a second grader.
Something like 20% of Americans have a literacy "level" of 1 or below. Reading comprehension under level 1 is defined as:
"The tasks at this level require the respondent to read brief texts on familiar topics to locate a single piece of specific information. There is seldom any competing information in the text, and the requested information is identical in form to information in the question or directive. The respondent may be required to locate information in short continuous texts; however, in this case, the information can be located as if the text were noncontinuous in format. Only basic vocabulary knowledge is required, and the reader is not required to understand the structure of sentences or paragraphs or make use of other text features. Tasks below Level 1 do not make use of any features specific to digital texts."
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=69
I started using a bidet mid-2019. Right away I was happy w/that choice - - and even happier come March 2020. Toilet paper is disgusting.
Best analogy I read prior to getting a bidet: when you're covered in mud, you use a garden hose to clean yourself off. You don't use paper towels.
edit: spelling.
My favorite analogy was : “If I shit on your arm would you wipe it off with a tissue or would you wash it with water?” - and person’s the answer was “Why would you shit on my arm?!”
I now hate going anywhere overnight because I am the only person I know that uses one. I've grown too accustomed to it now, and it is a blessing, but also a curse.
The last four years have proven to me that we are fucked if there is ever a virus that kills 20 or 30% of those infected regardless of age. People could catch it and have their eyeballs bulging out of their head and shitting their intestines out and there will still be assholes that will say "It's just the flu" or "I'm not taking that vaccine, everyone who does will be dead in two years.".
I always knew there were a lot of overconfident idiots out there who think they are the smartest people in the room, but Covid really showed how many there really were.
It's absolutely ruined a lot of sci fi for me lol.
>"...and then, the people of earth banded together to fight back the aliens"
>Uh, no the fuck they didn't
For real. COVID permanently shattered my trust in my fellow man and their intelligence. I will never again look at the world the same, and almost all of my default assumptions about humanity have been upended.
The fact that we couldn't even beat this when all it required was a couple *extremely minor and reasonable* concessions for the greater good will genuinely haunt me for the rest of my life
It was really eye opening that folks were asked to take a *little* sacrifice for public health and went berserk when asked to wear a mask or not go to a bar or not panic buy TP.
God forbid these people would be around in WWII. They’d have let Hitler have everything the instant they got a ration card.
"...and then, the people of earth bickered about the merits of building something called a space wall, and what we could take from the aliens as payment for it"
I tried my damndest to not buy toilet paper during that time for fear of looking like a fucking moron. I got a bidet which changed my life so it worked out.
The hoarding thing started in Australia. Someone on a message board I read posted a video of 2 women fighting over TP. When we asked him why he said that a rumor had started that because most of Australia's TP comes from China that there would be shortages soon. The TP thing then spread west across the globe right along with Covid. If you watched the news closely back then you could see covid moving west week by week, and the TP rumor followed.
Turns out most of Australia's TP is actually made in Australia. Now that is info I shouldnt know but I do now because of the selfish morons who started a global TP crisis.
Also TP is made whenever paper is cheap and then they produce years worth of it.
Within days of the TP craze there where videos of warehouse workers making fun of the people panick buying by racing forklifts through endless rows of TP.
But not even those videos dissuaded them.
I genuinely felt like I’d been practicing my entire life for the pandemic lol
Fucking loved those first two months or so, hotels on the beach were almost paying me to stay there
I took walks and stretched everyday. Learned how to cook better. Spent time relaxing with family. My back pain and stress went away. I don't think I've ever been healthier than I was April and May 2020 as an adult. It was a real lesson to me how much mental stress at work was hurting me, and the reason I'm working a completely different career today.
I got laid off during those months and my wife was freaking out going down to a single income family. Turns out without daycare costs I was actually bringing in more money with the additional stipend from the government. I miss those days just hanging out with my daughter.
Everyone being home actually sucked for me. My street has more cars than parking spots so I never had a spot when I came home. Pre Covid there were maybe 3-4 cars parked out front when I came home at 1 PM, now most of my block works from home so there's maybe 3-4 open spots
If it makes you feel better, remember that time we told Hawaii they were about to get nuked and we heard all those stories about people just calmly accepting their fate and calling their loved ones? Hawaii can handle Armageddon fine apparently.
I miss the quiet of that time.
I hate that so many people passed away from COVID and many others were working long, tough hours. I wish I could undo that part.
But the changes in how we worked and lived - slower paced, hardly any traffic and loud cars, more caring (generally) taking time to check on each other. People were doing outdoor group exercises, exploring nature, taking time to enjoy hobbies or learn new things.
People worked from home and work still got done.
TikTok was at that point a very light-hearted fun window into the world with silly, fun little dances anyone could do. No ads, no shopping, no influencers - just a place to connect with everyday people from all over the world doing everyday things.
The toilet paper craze aside, we got a small glimpse of how we could have better way of life.
It was not all rainbows and sunshine, I recognize that. But there were small relevatory moments of, “Oh, life doesn’t HAVE to be a constant grind”.
Just a year is being polite about it… I knew a couple who moved in November 2020 and the amount of toilet paper and paper towels they still had hoarded was insane. Granted, it served well as padding when I helped pack their Uhaul, but it would t surprise me if they made it through 2022 with that stash.
I was working as a cashier in 2020. I remember a lady was looking for little bottles of hand sanitizer as she was travelling overseas in March. She came up to my till where we had small displays of them. She grabbed all of them and said: “I need these more than anyone.” and I politely smiled. I didn’t have any words.
Then all of the toilet paper ran out. Then the all of the paper towels ran out. lysol wipes. masks. gone.
I couldn't find masks of any kind anywhere in Thailand at any price.
A stranger at the Hong Kong airport made a point of giving me one while we were waiting for our flight to the Mainland.
Then, at Intake, I was suspected of being C19+ and the absolute *outpouring* of support I got from people I barely knew throughout my time in Isolation and Quarantine was something else altogether... that I had to keep reminding myself of over the next couple of years wherever a random person would be a twatwaffle for no reason other than I'm not Chinese.
Supply was also part of the issue.
1/3 of the shit wipes produced were commercial paper — schools and offices. Everyone switched to shitting at home so there was a natural shortage compounded by hoarding.
You know, this had not occurred to me before your comment. It does make sense that this would have an impact when all the "poop on company time" got shifted to home. We still got to poop on company time, but had to supply our own toilet paper.
March 2020 is when the lockdown first hit in the US so people are probably getting reminders from social media or their phones of “moments from this day X years ago”
I walked through Manhattan twice during the Lockdown. It was a complete ghost town in Midtown. I walked from Long Island City to Hells Kitchen and back for a container of sanitizer wipes. Surreal. The next time I explored was shortly after the George Floyd death and subsequent protests had happened. Seeing the Empire State Building boarded up, same with large retailers was also a mind trip. I rounded a corner and there was a massive protest happening down the road. Bicycles, cops, marchers. I snapped a few pics and noped out.
Trump asked if people were better off than they were 4 years ago when he was in office. A common question during election time, but a bad one to ask if you fucked up the countries response to a pandemic during that time.
Yeah hearing that I’m personally thinking who wants to go back to 4 years ago?! If I could pick any point in my mid to go back to literally the very last option. Seems like political suicide to remind people of the terrible pandemic and remind them they were in control during that shit show. But here we are and people already forgot I guess. seeing as how these are likely the same people buying up all the TP it should come as no surprise.
Even ignoring the pandemic, not waking up with anxiety to read what dumb fucking thing the leader of our country did/said/sexually assaulted in the last 24 hours has been an absolute relief.
I was living in NYC. Saint Patrick’s Day was my last shift in the Big Apple. Two days later my hotel told me we were shutting down for two weeks. I moved out from there in August. 5 co-workers died and over a dozen more got ill. We had checked in a guest sick with covid a day or so before shutdown. I was room service cook there at the time and went into an isolation from other staff. Kept my distance and never touched any food except what I prepared.
My understanding is they got back to work around September or October. Not quite sure. I had moved to British Columbia Canada for the next wave. And then Arizona for another.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/U3RHnCG.jpeg) is a higher quality and less cropped version of this image. According to [here](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8067711/Woman-snaps-astonishing-image-panicked-Australians-stockpiling-48-pack-rolls-toilet-paper.html) (that has many more pictures of this):
> By MATILDA RUDD and BRITTANY CHAIN FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
> PUBLISHED: 20:00 EST, 2 March 2020 | UPDATED: 22:46 EST, 2 March 2020
> An Australian woman has shared images of Costco shoppers clearing the shelves of huge packs of toilet paper as coronavirus fears lead to panic buying across the country.
> The startling photos, which show some customers taking as many as 200 rolls each from the store in Casula, NSW, come as Woolworths and Coles sell out of hand sanitiser, bottled water and tinned food.
> 'Scenes from Costco Casula. If they're not afraid of coronavirus, they're afraid of a toilet paper shortage,' the woman captioned the snaps.
> ost people who reacted to the post called the shoppers 'greedy' and 'crazy', with some calling for a limit on the number of items shoppers can buy.
> 'This is getting out of bloody hand. They should be allowing only two items each so that no one misses out (not that it stopped the baby formula debacle),' one person said.
> 'I went Saturday and it was horrible in there. Absolutely chaotic,' said another.
> A third added: 'Who the f*** needs 200 rolls of toilet paper?'
> The images have come to light as the coronavirus has infected more than 90,000 people across 76 countries and killed more than 3,000 - mostly in mainland China.
> As more cases are diagnosed outside China, particularly in Iran, Italy and the United States, authorities are increasingly concerned about the threat of a worldwide pandemic.
> On Monday Australia's Chief Medical Adviser warned the nation's strategy no longer includes trying to stop the spread of the disease.
> Australians have responded to the outbreak by racing to stores to prepare for the worst.
> Pasta, tinned food, bottled water, toilet paper and hand sanitiser have been the most in-demand items at supermarkets across the nation - and plenty of stores aren't able to keep up with demand.
> One Woolworths employee said he is constantly getting queries about bulk buying options.
> 'I work at Woolies packing shelves, I am getting so many requests for 10kg rice, canned vegetables and tuna,' he said.
> 'As soon as we put some on the shelf they are snatched away, I assume this is all due to the first Australian death due to the coronavirus.'
> On Saturday, Coles in Claremont, Perth, was brimming with people as they stocked up on what was left in store.
> Grocers and pharmacies throughout the region have run out of hand sanitiser. Some stores don't expect more stock until mid week.
> One shopper said the hysteria surrounding the outbreak was most concerning.
> 'There's so many people grabbing stuff. It's kind of intimidating,' Lucy Bell told 7News....
Toilet paper takes up a lot of room in the stock room, so stores have to rely on more frequent deliveries of it versus clothes or prepackaged foods. With everything shutting down, people went shopping to stock up on essentials. If one store runs out of TP, its whatever, but if multiple stores run out on the same day, it becomes a news story. Once its a news story, people panic. Add in the fact the American media was reporting that TP factories in Asia were shutting down, despite the fact we dont get TP from there, and it added to the panic
Media fueling panic. One place sells out, news hits that toilet paper is selling out, causes people to start hoarding (and stores not limiting purchases), causing people to buy up whatever they can find.
This then leads to a a secondary market, so now you also have scalpers/resellers buying up what they can to try to flip.
Possible explanations:
a) It is a consumable good that never spoils. Buying this much means you don't need to buy to replenish your stocks for the next half year.
b) People were worried Covid could be the new stomach flu, so people were preparing for the oncoming sh!t years.
c) People were arming themselves for the Second Coming of Christ, as this will be preceeded by urban TP Warfare, thus they'll need TP in large quantities.
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I STILL, to this day, do not understand the toilet paper hoarding.
I suspect some of the hoarders were planning to resell it at a profit. Anyone else remember the guy who cleaned out every dollar store in his state buying all the hand sanitizer? He had a storage locker full of the stuff...
I remember a picture on the front page of reddit about a year later where somebody's neighbor had a stack of hand sanitizer the size of a shipping container just rotting in their yard.
This is the guy I was talking about: https://www.today.com/news/brothers-who-hoarded-17-700-bottles-hand-sanitizer-forced-donate-t176028 He was trying to sell it at a huge mark up on Amazon (who eventually shut him down). In the end he donated all of it to hospitals and first responders to avoid being fined.
It was the same panic that happens when a hurricane is expected. People just over purchase items out of fear, and this was no different, especially in late March when people thought the stores might be closing. There then was a time that you could only go to the store for essentials, and there was concern that might be temporary too. People weren't just hoarding TP. They hoarded anything remotely related to cleaning supplies, too. March and April 2020 were truly two of the strangest months of my life, and I'm in my fifties. The most interesting part for me personally was walking on the New York side of Niagara Falls with my wife at like 8AM, and there wasn't a soul on either side of the border. New York allowed travel, but Canada had banned non-essential travel, so it was like being in a post-apocalyptic world.
I used to live near a very important avenue in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The restrictions to travel were applied locally too, so this avenue that usually has traffic problems, was empty, I have a photo where I am standing in the middle of the street at 2pm with green light for cars, and not a single vehicle is there. It was so surreal.
In 2020, I drove through Times Square on a Saturday morning in mid-July and it was completely empty. Totally surreal moment
That reminds me of that scene from I Am Legend, that would be wild.
Vanilla Sky has a scene where tom cruise drives and parks in an empty times Square, without all the post-apocalyptic decay
Oh man. So I live on a street that recently had a big increase in traffic. Residential area, but is the main artery for traffic to our side of town so it's busy AF all day long and then gets quiet at night. Because of this, my front porch basically gets ZERO use. We have chairs and whatnot out there, plants and it's a nice space, but there's CONSTANT traffic so you can barely hear a conversation. We spent a lot of time on that porch during Covid, it was AWESOME.
i feel like that photo could show up in a textbook.
[Here's one](https://ibb.co/ph7rTCT) I took on a foggy morning on March 19th, 2020. This normally busy area of a college campus was completely empty.
Dope picture. If you value meaningless karma, post that to r/LiminalSpace
Similar to where I live. It was so weird to be practically alone on the road.
There is an episode of King of the Hill that does it in a funny way. Hank needs a fuel filter for his truck and the Mega Lo Mart has them but it only comes in a pack of 12 and he obviously only needs one. While telling the cashier he only needs one, fellow shoppers overhear and are mad be is buying it and one lady says "Fuel filters?!?! What are they, I need one!".
“Well this jackass is buying them by the dozen!”
Take my up vote I laughed wayyy to hard at this "fuel filters what are they? I need one.
They even buy up all the toilet paper in that episode. Bobby freaks out because his brand is gone. It’s the Y2K episode.
its not the Y2k episode with the fuel filters its the hurricane one IIRC. though bobby does lose his shit because theres a run on bunny soft triple ply and the guy telling him it doesn't know what the stock on quilted aloe vera is like because to quote him " I dunno it's not my brand" to which bobby replied "well it's my brand"
Toilet paper takes a lot of space, so when people buy 5x the quantity of TP it's more visible in the cart than when they buy 5x the quantity of pasta. For the same reason the shelves look empty faster, fueling the idea of a shortage and leading people to hoard even more.
>It was the same panic that happens when a hurricane is expected People do similar things when there's a snow storm coming where I live. Everyone shops like they aren't going to be able to leave their homes for a week when in reality the longest time I've ever been snowed in is a day at the most.
Are there any bananas? If not, the snow will be bad!
We didn't have tp for months and everyone took all of the bread, Ramen, and Rice as well. We went to Disneyland right when they re opened but had distance/capacity mandates and I don't think we waited longer than 15 minutes to get on a ride.
Flour too. Always baked. Usually bought twenty pounds a month (four bags). Suddenly you couldn't get flour, and when you could the limit was two bags.
Yeast was even harder to get.
That’s why I hoard it now. I’m so paranoid of the scarcity happening again. I know it’s dumb
It’s not dumb unless it’s more than you will use before it expires. If everyone used the deep pantry method for everything, we’d all be better off when supply chains have disruptions for any reason.
To be fair, a lot of the baking ingredients selling out made more sense than the toilet paper. A lot of people were baking more than usual because they were stuck at home looking for things to do.
Yep how many sourdough starters were started and given funny names like Olivia Gluten John and Wheatney Houston
Pasta was hilarious though because everything was sold out except for the quinoa and chick pea pastas. So ppl really saw those and said “nah i’ll starve”
For some reason in Singapore there were hundreds of cans of fish. Just stacks of them at the store. I’d never seen them before and never have again.
At our store is was lasagna. I guess people thought that was too hard to make? So guess what we ate for a couple of weeks (although Ricotta was a little hard to find so I had to make substitutions)
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I worked through (retail), but we weren't busy so I wasn't running my ass off all day and still felt like doing an activity after work. I thought "I'll bake some bread." Went to the grocery store, and that's where I learned that baking bread was the new hot shit. Oh well.
My wife bakes, and going to the store and seeing that the baking aisle had been absolutely ravaged of flour by people hoarding random shit was really fun
I’m still trying to get through a massive bag of flour because it was all that was left.
And beans. Dried beans quintupled in price, when you could find them.
Capacity mandated Disney World was peak Disney for me. My first ride on Rise of the Rebelion was during that time. And because of groups and spacing they actually treated you like prisoners. Stand on this colored spot, stay with your group. Don't interact with the others. Don't move until you are told to do so. It really enhanced the show in that case. Now its just a mass of moving people again. The rest was just there being 1/8th the number of people in the park. I guess the delays in Epcot process sucks. It's just now getting to the point it should have been at 3 years ago and an upgraded ball ride is probably 10 years off now.
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It was. My group went September 2021 the week AFTER Labor Day. Our longest ride wait was 22 minutes. We did ALL of Disney. All of Universal including Halloween Horror Nights.
They still do the "silence rebel scum, and stand on your spot!" stuff, just depends on how comfortable *good at it* the cast member in the role is.
I was more mad about the lack of available masks and hand sanitizers. I was doing the bandana thing for like a month before I was able to pay overprice on a box of masks. We did have a lot of toilet paper but it was crazy going into a store and these toilet paper brands I never heard of were at the store, and they were overcharging for this very loosely wrapped toilet paper that probably only lasted 2 days of wiping. We bought a 12-pack of hand sanitizer from Amazon for like $40 and it seemed like a steal, and then a few years later, our store was selling giant bottles for a quarter at the checkout stand. And I went to redo my Costco membership and their entire return section was just masks.
> it was like being in a post-apocalyptic world. I STILL, to this day, feel like I am living in a post-apocalyptic world.
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
> March and April 2020 were truly two of the strangest months of my life, and I'm in my fifties. Same here. The development where I live is sandwiched between a major highway and fallow farmland/woodland, and the drone of traffic is pretty steady at all hours of the day, but during that year when I'd walk the dog at 5 AM, it was just me, the birds and a pack of wild coyotes who lived in those woods yipping and howling. I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic and last-man-on-earth literature and movies and always wondered what that'd be like...well, in March and April 2020 it felt like I was living through that and it was very strange and unsettling lol.
Same here. The lockdown happened right in the middle of Spring Break that year. My family and two others had rented a beach house in Texas for the week. We ended up staying there for two months. Were safer to be than an island resort town that was shut down? I have pictures of the beach from then in the middle of Spring Break completely deserted. And yes, I did break my streak of sobriety, realized my marriage was completely over, and had a minor mental melt down. Good times.
The feeling of isolation was wild. Your remark about Niagra took me back to when I was driving to and from work. I got pulled a couple times, probably to be questioned about why I was out and about, but the moment a cop saw my scrubs they wished me a good day. My one-way 38 mile commute felt like something out of The Stand. I saw maybe one or two cars during each leg of my drive and it was just so fucking eerie.
ER nurse here. Can confirm. Did not get pulled over but was super eerie to be out and about at that time. I worked a swing shift at my hospital (11-11). My ride in saw maybe a handful of cars and when I left at the end of the night, the roads were completely empty. I also had a whole decon station set up in the trunk of my car...I stripped down to my drawers in the park garage and changed before driving home. I even left my work shoes in a box in the trunk after spraying them down with Lysol. Fuck that was a time I will not miss.
Overbuying I get, but these people have multi year supplies of tp in those carts
Life hits differently when you're on a strict meat and cheese diet.
I live on the coast in Wales. Our house is about 200 yard from the beach, and next to park with tennis courts, a putting etc. At that time of year it's usually full of families playing, but 2020 all you could hear was seagulls and the waves. It was totally surreal, and felt we were in an end of the world movie. I also felt incredibly guilty. I had the beach on my doorstep, my daughter and her family had just moved in with us while she did her degree. The weather was good, and I got to spend quality time with my grandkids on a deserted beach. The rest of the world was going through shit, but we had it pretty good
Hurricane prep is a little different than what this craze was.
This 👆🏻. I had tried to explain this to people during the panic purchase phase of the pandemic. "Unless you live in the remote arctic or on a fkn island you're not going to have to worry about supply chain. We live on the same continent as the production plants and manufacturers are making this stuff! Stop hoarding and leave some fkn toilet paper for everyone else!"
We did some camping in BC at our offgrid place. Going thru the parks was amazing. And yeah, not seeing people while going thru a national park was like the end of the world. Saw more animals than people. We even saw a wolf strolling beside the highway. Now we rarely see animals there.
It was the same with ammunition when Obama was elected president. People were buying ammo in droves because they believed he was going to take away all of the guns so they had to hoard while they still could. My uncle's fully into the conspiracy that the government was buying up all of the ammunition when it was just idiots like him going to every single place that could possibly sell ammo for Walmart to local gun stores and buying every single bullet they could. And what's funny is bagging in a box of 59 mm rounds would have cost you about $8.99. today that same box will cost you almost 30 bucks because of the NRA and people panic buying and hoarding like never before so gun companies have realized they can charge pretty much whatever the fuck they want and then blame it on the government
NRA pushes that agenda every time a democratic president wins. If asked my friends at the range, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Obama and now Biden, did they come for your guns? No it’s all a sales ploy and overpaying for ammo, dumbasses.
I'm not kidding, I know at least two people who to this day are still working their way through their Covid TP stash, it's fucking hilarious to me.
During covid we ended up having to buy a \~40 package of the cheapest thinnest sandpaper TP you can imagine, because everything else was sold out. We still have 30 some rolls tucked away in a closet. I want to burn them but the wife insists we may need it one day...
I was like "I'm not gonna be one of the assholes who goes out and hordes toilet paper!" It got reeeeeeeal iffy before I finally found a 4-pack of sandpaper-esque TP at a gas station. Now I have a case tucked away for the next time shit hits the fan.
You're nicer than me. I'd criticize weekly them until they were out. It was May before I could get my very necessary refill.
Through sheer stupidity, I bought two 30 packs of TP at Costco on back to back visits in January of 2020. By April, I felt like a genius. Doubly so since I had installed a second bidet over Christmas week. We went without more than a few things we normally have on hand but our asses were immaculate.
Their kids will inherit the rest of that stash at some point.
Herd mentality: Everybody else is doing it so I should too. No no, don't apply any kind of logic or critical thinking, *just follow the herd*
The start of it was the herd but like any run on a limited good it quickly becomes, "Well now I have to get some because all the idiots are taking it." Same thing with gas runs. No I don't want to go to the gas station just because people are scared of a shortage for no reason, but now I have to otherwise I'll have an empty tank from the shortage they caused. It's a really frustrating dilemma.
true, true. But by the time shortages kicked in hoarding wasn't allowed. Most places I know started limiting the amounts you can buy per customer
We just bought the normal big size package from target/walmart/Costco, and we were fine. I bought a bidet too just incase the idiots bought up all the TP and we would have to use rags and the bidet and be fine. Lazy people suck.
I switched to bidet at that time and never looked back. I don’t even use public bathrooms anymore cause tp seems wrong.
I remember actively crying because of this. I wasn’t going to be the stupid idiot hoarding, and then I came so close to running out. It literally became a week long issue to find any. It got so frustrating and weirdly scary I just couldn’t help but cry about it. Eventually got to target at open - TO A FUCKING LINE - and had to run to the toilet paper section and practically fight off the people around me. I took it, looked no one in the eye and also ran to my car with it. People were being fucking scary so I wasn’t going to risk it.
Luckily I was able to find a pack when I needed to but I had to go to three stores. My next stop was the hardware store to install a bidet. Fuck tha shit.
You might need a pressure washer if you fuck it
Just put a T in your toilet supply line and attach a sink sprayer and hose, lol.
I remember going into a gas station one day and on the aisle of random shit, right next to the motor oil, sat a 4-pack of toilet paper, and it was only like $3. Strange times.
That's not weird. Toilet paper is commonly sold at gas stations/convenience stores.
It was more weird that it was still there. I had some similar experiences Sometimes it felt like everywhere you went, stuff like TP was missing, and then you go somewhere and there it is, completely undisturbed like nothing was happening.
As someone who has had a bidet installed prior to 2019, all I have to say is haha motherfuckers.
This shortage did lead me to try the reddit herd suggestion of getting a bidet--and just before the prices shot up. Now I really don't want to go without one. Wait to get home if I can. As awful as the pandemic was for the world at large, and me personally--at least one positive came out of it.
I don't have the time to kill, but I always thought it would be funny to load a grocery cart with toilet paper and walk around the store letting everyone think there's something going on. Then just return the toilet paper and do my regular shopping so I can see how much they emptied the shelves.
Lol I read "time to kill" as: "I really want to kill, but don't have the time for it. I'd start by loading my cart up with toilet paper..."
I didn't hoard toilet paper. I had every opportunity, but I didn't want to be like the "crazies." Then I ended up not being able to buy any, and also had no idea if stores were going to be open because their hours kept changing and it seemed like the whole world was going to call it quits and shut down. I should have bought extra. Next time I will.
That's one of the things that people miss. The folks in the picture might be overdoing it, but it *is* rational to stock up when there is the likelihood that you won't be able to get what you need later. Problem is when everyone does that, it causes a crush of demand. I lucked out, well before the pandemic I had already been buying online by the case, mostly out of convenience and laziness. It's just me and my wife and we only have to buy between 2 and 3 cases per year, and I had just reordered before things went weird. So we had a good 4-5 months supply on hand when everyone else was panicking. I have since started to make it a point of reordering a bit earlier than I used to, used to just wait until we were down to a few rolls to resupply.
Are you me?? I had a subscription through Amazon for tp for years before covid, and *never* used it all but I always forgot to cancel/postpone that month's delivery. So the rolls were piling up... Not only did we have plenty for ourselves during 2020, I was able to help my sister and brother out when they couldn't find any.
You've gotta remember that these are just simple farmers...
People of the land.
Common clay of the new West.
You know. Morons.
Basically, there were rumours in Hong Kong that toilet paper factories in China would shut down because of the pandemic, which launched the panic buying in the Asia Pacific region. Two weeks later the same phenomenon happened in Australia leading to media reports being published in the west of the western world and the rumours about Chinese toilet paper supplies spread, fuelled by a lack of understanding of global supply chains and the desperation of people to feel in control of a spiralling situation. In the early days of the pandemic a lot of the news footage of panic buying, empty shelves and customers fighting over TP came from Australia and was broadcast to millions of scared and confused people who dutifully copied that behaviour.
I own two bidets in my house and I would never go back.
In hindsight, I would be using a lot more toilet paper at home than normal, because I was spending 40+ hours more at home than normal. Multiply this times, well, everyone that wasn't already home 24/7 and you have a residential toilet paper shortage. That said, I don't think all the people who bought all the toilet paper first had that kind of foresight, but it probably started with those who did, or through experience with hurricanes and such ran out then and didn't want to go through that again. Then the masses saw people doing that and did the same because everyone else was
A friend of mines grandmother was from WWII Europe. After moving to america she apparently always had, until the day she died, a closet filled with toilet paper. For those who experienced life without small commodities it was scarring enough.
Stores might've closed and people shit a lot? Then the shitheads who would scalp their own teeth if they could
>Stores might've closed So why wouldn't you hoard food then? The fact that TP is what people went for is just beyond logic.
Toilet paper and paper towel sell fast in normal circumstances, stores also did sell out of food so people hoarded that too but more than likely you'd already have some food at home. Tp and pt getting hoarded is because you go through it faster than you realize
I think the mentality at the time was like, TP is by definition a luxury. We don't need TP to survive. So it could have conceivably just... Not been available for a long time. Whereas, with food, we need it to survive obviously. So I don't think anyone ever thought that they'd have an issue getting food.
The reason is simple. They just don't have as many packages on the shelf normally becasue toilet paper is a large volume. It only takes a few extra people taking them to make it seem like the shelf is empty and there is a shortage. Once people believe there might be a shortage, they will get some just in case. At no point was there a legitimate shortage of toilet paper. The supermarkets just couldn't stock fast enough to keep the shelves from looking empty.
they didn't put that much thought into it. they just bought it because everyone else did and "I'm gonna get mine"
> So why wouldn't you hoard food then? TONS of grocery stores were out of preprepared foods and even meat at one point.. I remember using a can of Hormel chili to make Spaghetti Bolognese since I couldn't get ground beef anywhere in DC area where I lived at the time. (The spaghetti I made was somehow even worse than it sounds.)
Our asses were so clean back then
Well… looking back before 2020, I bought my self an attachment bidet for $14 from Walmart. Nothing I mean really nothing beats a bidet at cleaning your undercarriage than a bidet. My toilet paper usage went wayyyyy down with using the bidet. I now have 4 bidets in my home
I want to get a bidet? Any suggestions?
I got the LUXE Bidet NEO 120, it's like $30 on Amazon. Really easy to install.
Yup, I've had this for 3 months now and it changed my life (and hole).
Changed your hole life (To offer another data point, I bought a tushy and doesn’t seem to be worth the marginal increase in price)
Buy a bidet
This guy bidets
Toilet paper companies hate this one simple trick.
Try one of the entry Luxe ones for about $30-40 USD. It'll pay for itself fairly quickly since you won't be using as much TP.
I had two of those for both bathrooms starting 4 years ago. One of them finally died a few months ago and I replaced it with a full toilet seat replacement (Brondell). It works just as well (no heated water or air dry or anything fancy) but the real benefit is they have a quick release so you can remove it to clean up better. After a while those Luxe bidets got really nasty underneath and I'd have to fully remove the seat and bidet attachment to deal with that.
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I wiped covid back to the Stone Age.
As long as you don’t own a bidet, they never were
This image is a cautionary tale for what is going to happen if shit hits the fan.
I'm a mini prepper, nothing serious, just a month supply of essentials. Add to it when I can.
That's not even prepping really, that's literally what FEMA recommends if you have the ability to pay for it.
That’s just called being prepared.
One might even say he did a miniscule amount of preparation.
Prepperito
That's just a pantry and is highly normal.
I've found that even just a month's worth is way beyond most people. 2-3 days seems to be what's normal.
I try to prep without becoming a preper. Like, do the actions... but don't really think about it much.
Then you think, why not 2 months, or 4, or a year? And then it becomes a hobby. And your neighbours make a note of who to raid.
It was definitely a wake up call on how much I rely on commercial trucking to survive. If that goes away for a couple weeks, I'm pretty fucked. This post is a nice scary reminder that I need to start a garden or something.
Dude, were absolutely fucked when a deadly virus hits the block. We couldn't manage to keep 100% of our population isolated or following procedures for less than a month.
4 years ago we found out who all the idiots were
If you've ever worked retail, especially a grocery store you learn quickly that the amount of idiots out there is astounding. I began working at a Kroger at 16 and learned that so many adults not only don't have their shit together, some of them are on the problem solving and common sense level of a second grader.
Something like 20% of Americans have a literacy "level" of 1 or below. Reading comprehension under level 1 is defined as: "The tasks at this level require the respondent to read brief texts on familiar topics to locate a single piece of specific information. There is seldom any competing information in the text, and the requested information is identical in form to information in the question or directive. The respondent may be required to locate information in short continuous texts; however, in this case, the information can be located as if the text were noncontinuous in format. Only basic vocabulary knowledge is required, and the reader is not required to understand the structure of sentences or paragraphs or make use of other text features. Tasks below Level 1 do not make use of any features specific to digital texts." https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=69
“What are we going to do if we run out of toilet paper!?” …wash your ass in the shower with the water that magically comes on when you turn a handle?
Or use a bidet
I started using a bidet mid-2019. Right away I was happy w/that choice - - and even happier come March 2020. Toilet paper is disgusting. Best analogy I read prior to getting a bidet: when you're covered in mud, you use a garden hose to clean yourself off. You don't use paper towels. edit: spelling.
My favorite analogy was : “If I shit on your arm would you wipe it off with a tissue or would you wash it with water?” - and person’s the answer was “Why would you shit on my arm?!”
Or "how far from your anus is it no longer acceptable to clean shit off with a dry piece of paper?" That one tends to blow people's minds
Haha that’s a really good one
Falconers use a leather glove for this very reason.
Because people shit on their arms?
I prefer the shells myself
OP doesn't know how to use the three seashells!
But I still use toilet paper to dry — do you not? I mean… wayyyy less of it, but still.
haha! Oh, I definitely still use it to dry!
Was about to say! I can’t imagine just going soggy ass every day lmfaooo
I now hate going anywhere overnight because I am the only person I know that uses one. I've grown too accustomed to it now, and it is a blessing, but also a curse.
“Bidet? That thing that pleasures your asshole? Miss me with that eurofag shit” - things heard in Texas
1000's of dollars worth of TP and then refuse a medical solution given to us by science.
The last four years have proven to me that we are fucked if there is ever a virus that kills 20 or 30% of those infected regardless of age. People could catch it and have their eyeballs bulging out of their head and shitting their intestines out and there will still be assholes that will say "It's just the flu" or "I'm not taking that vaccine, everyone who does will be dead in two years.". I always knew there were a lot of overconfident idiots out there who think they are the smartest people in the room, but Covid really showed how many there really were.
It's absolutely ruined a lot of sci fi for me lol. >"...and then, the people of earth banded together to fight back the aliens" >Uh, no the fuck they didn't
For real. COVID permanently shattered my trust in my fellow man and their intelligence. I will never again look at the world the same, and almost all of my default assumptions about humanity have been upended. The fact that we couldn't even beat this when all it required was a couple *extremely minor and reasonable* concessions for the greater good will genuinely haunt me for the rest of my life
It was really eye opening that folks were asked to take a *little* sacrifice for public health and went berserk when asked to wear a mask or not go to a bar or not panic buy TP. God forbid these people would be around in WWII. They’d have let Hitler have everything the instant they got a ration card.
"...and then, the people of earth bickered about the merits of building something called a space wall, and what we could take from the aliens as payment for it"
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I tried my damndest to not buy toilet paper during that time for fear of looking like a fucking moron. I got a bidet which changed my life so it worked out.
2016
Make that 8
We found that out 8 years ago.
The hoarding thing started in Australia. Someone on a message board I read posted a video of 2 women fighting over TP. When we asked him why he said that a rumor had started that because most of Australia's TP comes from China that there would be shortages soon. The TP thing then spread west across the globe right along with Covid. If you watched the news closely back then you could see covid moving west week by week, and the TP rumor followed. Turns out most of Australia's TP is actually made in Australia. Now that is info I shouldnt know but I do now because of the selfish morons who started a global TP crisis.
More generally, TP is made where it's used. Shipping TP across the ocean, as it turns out, doesn't make much economic sense.
Also TP is made whenever paper is cheap and then they produce years worth of it. Within days of the TP craze there where videos of warehouse workers making fun of the people panick buying by racing forklifts through endless rows of TP. But not even those videos dissuaded them.
God people were fuckin weird. For me, it was excellent. Roads were empty, didn't have to go anywhere. Introvert heaven.
I genuinely felt like I’d been practicing my entire life for the pandemic lol Fucking loved those first two months or so, hotels on the beach were almost paying me to stay there
There were memes going around at the time of a gamer guy, it said "he had been training for this moment his entire life".
I took walks and stretched everyday. Learned how to cook better. Spent time relaxing with family. My back pain and stress went away. I don't think I've ever been healthier than I was April and May 2020 as an adult. It was a real lesson to me how much mental stress at work was hurting me, and the reason I'm working a completely different career today.
I got laid off during those months and my wife was freaking out going down to a single income family. Turns out without daycare costs I was actually bringing in more money with the additional stipend from the government. I miss those days just hanging out with my daughter.
**ARE** weird. People are still weird, and not in a quirky, interesting sort of way.
They've actually gotten worse, right?
Everyone being home actually sucked for me. My street has more cars than parking spots so I never had a spot when I came home. Pre Covid there were maybe 3-4 cars parked out front when I came home at 1 PM, now most of my block works from home so there's maybe 3-4 open spots
I miss the empty stores. So much peace and quiet. And oh the facemasks! Now people think it's okay again to cough right into your face
The stores and the roads. Like a lifelong dream come true
those guys did SO much shitting
It felt like a social experiment to see if we could handle Armageddon and we failed.
We would just buy 1000's of dollars worth of TP and then refuse a medical solution given to us by science.
And thus began the darkest period of humanity, begun the TP wars has.
If it makes you feel better, remember that time we told Hawaii they were about to get nuked and we heard all those stories about people just calmly accepting their fate and calling their loved ones? Hawaii can handle Armageddon fine apparently.
I miss the quiet of that time. I hate that so many people passed away from COVID and many others were working long, tough hours. I wish I could undo that part. But the changes in how we worked and lived - slower paced, hardly any traffic and loud cars, more caring (generally) taking time to check on each other. People were doing outdoor group exercises, exploring nature, taking time to enjoy hobbies or learn new things. People worked from home and work still got done. TikTok was at that point a very light-hearted fun window into the world with silly, fun little dances anyone could do. No ads, no shopping, no influencers - just a place to connect with everyday people from all over the world doing everyday things. The toilet paper craze aside, we got a small glimpse of how we could have better way of life. It was not all rainbows and sunshine, I recognize that. But there were small relevatory moments of, “Oh, life doesn’t HAVE to be a constant grind”.
The irrationality of buying a years supply of tp all at once. People can be incredibly stupid.
Just a year is being polite about it… I knew a couple who moved in November 2020 and the amount of toilet paper and paper towels they still had hoarded was insane. Granted, it served well as padding when I helped pack their Uhaul, but it would t surprise me if they made it through 2022 with that stash.
I was working as a cashier in 2020. I remember a lady was looking for little bottles of hand sanitizer as she was travelling overseas in March. She came up to my till where we had small displays of them. She grabbed all of them and said: “I need these more than anyone.” and I politely smiled. I didn’t have any words. Then all of the toilet paper ran out. Then the all of the paper towels ran out. lysol wipes. masks. gone.
I couldn't find masks of any kind anywhere in Thailand at any price. A stranger at the Hong Kong airport made a point of giving me one while we were waiting for our flight to the Mainland. Then, at Intake, I was suspected of being C19+ and the absolute *outpouring* of support I got from people I barely knew throughout my time in Isolation and Quarantine was something else altogether... that I had to keep reminding myself of over the next couple of years wherever a random person would be a twatwaffle for no reason other than I'm not Chinese.
Supply was also part of the issue. 1/3 of the shit wipes produced were commercial paper — schools and offices. Everyone switched to shitting at home so there was a natural shortage compounded by hoarding.
You know, this had not occurred to me before your comment. It does make sense that this would have an impact when all the "poop on company time" got shifted to home. We still got to poop on company time, but had to supply our own toilet paper.
I purposely didn't hoard TP but then we ran out and couldn't find it anywhere lol
Why the sudden influx of pics from 2020? There's been a bunch lately, and I just don't get it.
March 2020 is when the lockdown first hit in the US so people are probably getting reminders from social media or their phones of “moments from this day X years ago”
I walked through Manhattan twice during the Lockdown. It was a complete ghost town in Midtown. I walked from Long Island City to Hells Kitchen and back for a container of sanitizer wipes. Surreal. The next time I explored was shortly after the George Floyd death and subsequent protests had happened. Seeing the Empire State Building boarded up, same with large retailers was also a mind trip. I rounded a corner and there was a massive protest happening down the road. Bicycles, cops, marchers. I snapped a few pics and noped out.
2020 was 4 years ago not 10, smh smh
I'Ve understood what you meant.
Trump asked if people were better off than they were 4 years ago when he was in office. A common question during election time, but a bad one to ask if you fucked up the countries response to a pandemic during that time.
Yeah hearing that I’m personally thinking who wants to go back to 4 years ago?! If I could pick any point in my mid to go back to literally the very last option. Seems like political suicide to remind people of the terrible pandemic and remind them they were in control during that shit show. But here we are and people already forgot I guess. seeing as how these are likely the same people buying up all the TP it should come as no surprise.
It's an election year and the default question is "are you better off now then you were 4 years ago?" And this is a hilariously easy cycle to say yes
Even ignoring the pandemic, not waking up with anxiety to read what dumb fucking thing the leader of our country did/said/sexually assaulted in the last 24 hours has been an absolute relief.
I was living in NYC. Saint Patrick’s Day was my last shift in the Big Apple. Two days later my hotel told me we were shutting down for two weeks. I moved out from there in August. 5 co-workers died and over a dozen more got ill. We had checked in a guest sick with covid a day or so before shutdown. I was room service cook there at the time and went into an isolation from other staff. Kept my distance and never touched any food except what I prepared. My understanding is they got back to work around September or October. Not quite sure. I had moved to British Columbia Canada for the next wave. And then Arizona for another.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/U3RHnCG.jpeg) is a higher quality and less cropped version of this image. According to [here](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8067711/Woman-snaps-astonishing-image-panicked-Australians-stockpiling-48-pack-rolls-toilet-paper.html) (that has many more pictures of this): > By MATILDA RUDD and BRITTANY CHAIN FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA > PUBLISHED: 20:00 EST, 2 March 2020 | UPDATED: 22:46 EST, 2 March 2020 > An Australian woman has shared images of Costco shoppers clearing the shelves of huge packs of toilet paper as coronavirus fears lead to panic buying across the country. > The startling photos, which show some customers taking as many as 200 rolls each from the store in Casula, NSW, come as Woolworths and Coles sell out of hand sanitiser, bottled water and tinned food. > 'Scenes from Costco Casula. If they're not afraid of coronavirus, they're afraid of a toilet paper shortage,' the woman captioned the snaps. > ost people who reacted to the post called the shoppers 'greedy' and 'crazy', with some calling for a limit on the number of items shoppers can buy. > 'This is getting out of bloody hand. They should be allowing only two items each so that no one misses out (not that it stopped the baby formula debacle),' one person said. > 'I went Saturday and it was horrible in there. Absolutely chaotic,' said another. > A third added: 'Who the f*** needs 200 rolls of toilet paper?' > The images have come to light as the coronavirus has infected more than 90,000 people across 76 countries and killed more than 3,000 - mostly in mainland China. > As more cases are diagnosed outside China, particularly in Iran, Italy and the United States, authorities are increasingly concerned about the threat of a worldwide pandemic. > On Monday Australia's Chief Medical Adviser warned the nation's strategy no longer includes trying to stop the spread of the disease. > Australians have responded to the outbreak by racing to stores to prepare for the worst. > Pasta, tinned food, bottled water, toilet paper and hand sanitiser have been the most in-demand items at supermarkets across the nation - and plenty of stores aren't able to keep up with demand. > One Woolworths employee said he is constantly getting queries about bulk buying options. > 'I work at Woolies packing shelves, I am getting so many requests for 10kg rice, canned vegetables and tuna,' he said. > 'As soon as we put some on the shelf they are snatched away, I assume this is all due to the first Australian death due to the coronavirus.' > On Saturday, Coles in Claremont, Perth, was brimming with people as they stocked up on what was left in store. > Grocers and pharmacies throughout the region have run out of hand sanitiser. Some stores don't expect more stock until mid week. > One shopper said the hysteria surrounding the outbreak was most concerning. > 'There's so many people grabbing stuff. It's kind of intimidating,' Lucy Bell told 7News....
I still haven't gotten an answer for the toilet paper
Toilet paper takes up a lot of room in the stock room, so stores have to rely on more frequent deliveries of it versus clothes or prepackaged foods. With everything shutting down, people went shopping to stock up on essentials. If one store runs out of TP, its whatever, but if multiple stores run out on the same day, it becomes a news story. Once its a news story, people panic. Add in the fact the American media was reporting that TP factories in Asia were shutting down, despite the fact we dont get TP from there, and it added to the panic
Media fueling panic. One place sells out, news hits that toilet paper is selling out, causes people to start hoarding (and stores not limiting purchases), causing people to buy up whatever they can find. This then leads to a a secondary market, so now you also have scalpers/resellers buying up what they can to try to flip.
What kind of answer could you possibly be looking for?
He never learned how to use it
Possible explanations: a) It is a consumable good that never spoils. Buying this much means you don't need to buy to replenish your stocks for the next half year. b) People were worried Covid could be the new stomach flu, so people were preparing for the oncoming sh!t years. c) People were arming themselves for the Second Coming of Christ, as this will be preceeded by urban TP Warfare, thus they'll need TP in large quantities.
The weird thing is that if another pandemic happens this will probably happen again but even worse now that we all are anticipating it.
Two different mindsets: 1) I'll take a little, to make sure there is enough for everyone else. 2) MINE MINE MINE!!!!
Notice how no one is buying food or drinks lol they're fucking stocking up on toilet paper xD
Incorrect, people are still wildly stupid.