- [Narrator] We all have something that's been worn down over the years, might be a key chain you've had forever, maybe an old pair of shoes, or a long suffering partner
who's done with your crap. Well, that last one aside, there's something oddly satisfying about seeing the toll that time
has taken on everyday items. From tattoos to trees, it's time to take a
look at even more things that have been changed
through the power of time. (upbeat ambient music) So according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, AKA the CDC, if you use a manual toothbrush
to clean your teeth, you should replace it once
every three to four months. If you don't, you could end up in Reddit
user Hector Dalars situation. That's a one day old toothbrush
versus a one year old one. Hang on, this guy really went a whole year without changing his toothbrush? Ugh, those woefully worn down bristles don't look like they could
clean a shoe, let alone a mouth. Oh God, makes my teeth itch. Is there anywhere more magical on earth than Disney World in Orlando, Florida? A place that has welcomed an average of 58 million visitors per year since it opened way back in 1971. For more than 50 years, eager
kids and adults have lined up along roped walkways to each
new and exciting attraction. And over time, the rope clips
have gradually worn down a few hooks in the resort, like this one. It's been clipped on and
off there so many times, it's worn another groove into the hook. Well, if you change that clips
angle in another 50 years, maybe the hook will be sporting
its own pair of Mickey ears. (swoosh) Waves are hypnotic to watch from the shore of a lake or motion, but as pretty and harmless
as they look, over time, they can have some pretty
powerful effects on the shoreline. Ones that the residents living on the edge of Green Bay in
Wisconsin know all too well. (waves crashing) Whoa, the waves wore the
entire shoreline back and took a huge chunk
out of it right here. This is a process called "shore erosion" where the power of the waves gradually wears down
the land on the shore, posing major risks to many beachfront developments
and infrastructure. Now this footage in particular may look like several years of wear, but shockingly, this time lapse was taken over just one
hour in stormy weather. Man, I hope those Green Bay residents don't have long left on their mortgages. (swoosh)
Now it's not just shorelines that can wear
away unexpectedly quickly, your mom probably told you
that tattoos are permanent. So if you get one, it should
really mean something to you as it's going to be on your body forever. You don't wanna be
embarrassed 10 years from now for sporting a super cliche, dandelion being blown into birds tat, or an X's name so large
it's impossible to cover up. But not all tats last forever. Just take a look at this. So this is the same tat
on the same guy's hand, but how long do you think the
two photos were taken apart? Must be a few years,
maybe even decades, right? Try a mere two and a
half months on for size. You see our hands, especially
the palms and fingers experience a great deal of
friction as we use them a lot, the skin cells here wear down and are replaced quickly,
gradually revealing and fading the ink of the
tattoo that's injected beneath. So palm tattoos don't last forever, which is good news for
people like Ariana Grande who got a Japanese typo tattooed
on her palm back in 2019. Hope that wears off quickly bestie. Thank you, next. You know what won't wear down no matter how much you used them though? Those like and subscribe
buttons down below. All done? Nice. All right, what have we got next? (swoosh)
Now it can take just a few years for a city
skyline to become unrecognizable with older establishments
constantly being knocked down to make room for newer
and bigger buildings. But while the original structures
may have been demolished, some leave their mark on a new landscape, like the buildings that once
lined this street in Montreal. The bricks of the previous buildings meant even their
extensions and developments had been worked into
the adjoining building, leaving a brick filled outline. This isn't something unique
to old Montreal though, over in New York, which went
through a development boom in the early 2000s, the ghosts of older buildings
can be seen across the city. (swoosh)
Have you ever heard of the Shaolin Monastery in Hanan China? It's renowned for its Kung
Fu fighting Shaolin monks who train relentlessly from young ages to achieve amazing feats of
strength, pain endurance, and power. But one area they exercise oddly mercilessly is their fingers to produce large bursts of
strength from a single blow, they train by hitting planks of wood and trees with individual fingers. Over time, their fingers are strengthened to the point where they
can do pushups on them, balance on them and even break
coconuts open with just one. That's a feat that takes
around 200 pounds of force, which is similar to a boxing jab all delivered through a single finger. Over the years, this
strengthens the fingers, but wears down holes in the trees they use until they end up with 100s of holes peppered all over 'em. Well, if they can wear down holes into trees with their fingers, I bet these guys can deliver
some seriously fatal flicks. (swoosh)
If you've got a green thumb, you probably own at
least one weeding knife. And these are heavy duty
gardening implements designed to cut straight
through the earth, including the tough roots of
weeds plaguing your petunias. But depending on how avidly
you tend your garden, the roots can take their
toll on these knives. As Reddit user Aid Le Sultan discovered, a good fifth of his old
knife had been worn away to the point where that rated edge is more of a bumpy suggestion. Compared to the new one, the old knife doesn't look like
it could cut through butter, let alone roots. (swoosh)
While I was searching for more impressive examples
of the power of time, I stumbled across a cool looking image, uploaded to Reddit some seven years ago, it shows a nail that's been slowly dragged
down through a wall by that heavy stone Mayan
calendar it's holding up. At first, I just thought
it was a cool picture, but the comment section beneath was full of keyboard warriors debating the truth of its origins. They argued this didn't show
the passage of time at all, because the nail would've bent, not been dragged through the wall. Others suggested the poster had carved a fake line into
the wood above the nail and posted the fake
photo for Reddit clout. While others, I kid you not mocked up simulations
of exactly how the nail could have dragged through
the wall without bending. Man, Reddit nerds are
something else, aren't they? Think it might be time to go outside and touch some grass my dudes. While the original poster never revealed anything more
about the nail in question, I'm inclined to believe that
the nail was hammered in at an upward angle and has
been dragged down over time. Otherwise this might be the weirdest thing anyone on the internet
has ever lied about. (swoosh)
Man, I love a game of pool. I mean, I'm terrible at it, but so are most people
who claim to love pool. And while you gotta keep
your eyes on the balls, I think if I was playing
a game in this bar, I'd have a problem tearing
my eyes away from this wall. Over the years, plenty of avid players have placed the cues back and
scraped them against the wall, leaving a set of telltale chalk stained oval prints worn into it. Well, even though I couldn't
hit a ball on the table, it's nice to know I wouldn't have much of a
problem hitting this wall. (swoosh)
When you wash your hands, do you instinctively reach for the hot or the cold handle? Me, I go cold, but apparently I'm not
like the majority of people who all reach for the hot tap. If this basin from Santa Fe, New Mexico is anything to judge by, the bras handle on the left
has been touched so regularly that it's worn the oxidized
top layer of grime off in contrast to the handle on the right. Now considering there's no
clear hot and cold labels, maybe it's just a force of
habit to go for the left handle, in which case the Santa Fe population might just be made up of an
oddly high number of lefties. (swoosh)
Is there any greater pain in the world than having a bike pedal
hit you in the shin? Nuh, gets you right in
the sole every time. With that said, I think we can
all take a look at this scene and be thankful it's not our shins in
place of this lamppost. Years and years of cyclists leaning their bikes up against it has left 1000s of pedals
scratch marks in the paint. None of which go above this point, giving it a clearly scratched divide. It's a really cool visual effect or would be if I could stop
imagining my shin in its place. Ouch. (swoosh)
Most of us know at least one person who lives in a house that doesn't have locks
built into the doors, instead they rely on
old hook and eye locks. The hooks of which swing around freely 360 degrees against the door. Even for those people who know what I'm talking
about all too well, the wear a hook can do to a door and even a door frame like
this is pretty cool to see. This is the bathroom from a rice mill that's been in business since 1880, and since it was installed, 1000s of visitors have
flipped the hook around gradually wearing a near perfect circle
into the wood of the door. I can't be the only one who finds this weirdly satisfying, right? If this image scratches an
itch you didn't know you had, let me know down in the comments below. (swoosh)
Now I have a big butt and I cannot lie. I've split pants, broken
chairs, you name it, my butt's done it. In fact, it looks like I
might have used this chair at some point in my life. Either this cheeky set of grooves was caused by one very,
very avid chair wiggler, or it's an old sturdy chair that's had those two grooves worn into it by 100s of butts over the years. I'm tempted by the latter explanation because you can also see the slight wear of the thighs as well. I mean, I hope it's thighs,
unless there's someone out there with a part of their undercarriage just as big as their butt. (swoosh)
Well, many people like me are blessed with slightly
bigger parts genetically, some of our other body parts
can get bigger with age and before all the creeps start bombarding the comment section, no, it's not your wiener. If you've paid attention to any of the previous
parts of the series, you'll know that I'm
talking about your hands. Over the years, they can slowly get larger thanks to the onset of
age associated conditions, like arthritis, or plain
and simple, weight gain. And that becomes all too real when you try to remove something you've been wearing on
your hands for years, like a wedding band. Reddit user IsleCook found this out when they tried to remove the band they'd been wearing
for more than 40 years. It was stuck so well that no amount of
lubrication would remove it. So they eventually had to
resort to cutting it off. It was so tight and with the skin having lost
elasticity naturally over time, it left a perfect imprint
pinched around the finger. I guess you could say this marriage made a long lasting impression. (swoosh)
They say the foundations of a long and happy marriage
are love, work and compromise, but cake is also an important cornerstone. If these two pictures of Reddit user Maxx Hock's grandparents
or anything to go by, recreating the iconic
wedding day photo on the left more than 60 years later, you can tell this marriage
was full of years of fun. Can't you? That and plenty of cake I imagine. (swoosh)
A lot can change in 10 years, clothes, technology, even people
can become unrecognizable, but there are some things
that stay the same, like the love between a man and his dog. Even though 10 years had passed and his dog had gotten a whole lot bigger, Reddit user Gordondel was able
to recreate this old photo down to the clothes he was wearing. Same background, same sweater, same dog. And look, both of them have even
gotten hairier with time too. What a shot. (swoosh)
Watching wax drip down the side of a
candle has such a calming, nostalgic feel to it, doesn't it? Plus there's something
satisfying about touching the wax and then peeling it off
your hand once it sets. Although I don't imagine
it'd be half as satisfying as cracking the wax off the base of this very well used candle holder. 100s of candles have been
placed in the top of it, gradually burning and
melting for hour after hour, producing a slowly growing
mound of wax strips that's left it looking like a
pile of forbidden spaghetti. (swoosh)
Snails are a notoriously slow species, but while many of them start out small from the eggs day hatch from, they can grow at a surprisingly fast rate. And there's no better snail
species that demonstrates this quite like the African giant snail. In just one year, these
snails grow in weight from a few grams to a
gargantuan 500 grams on average. Although they can get much bigger with the record for the
heaviest African giant snail coming in at a hefty 900 grams. As land snails like these grow, the aperture of their
shell gradually accumulates more and more calcium carbonate, which the snail secretes
from glands on its body. So as its main body grows, the shell gets larger to accommodate it, twisting around in that
super cool spiral pattern. In this time, their shells
get larger and larger just like this guys did, growing from just one and a half inches to a huge six and a half
inches in only a year. I guess these guys only
move at a snails pace. (swoosh)
If you live or work in an apartment building, you'll know the pain of having
to climb up and down stairs. Now I, not being a total masochist take the elevator whenever I can, but even in buildings with elevators, a lot of people who clearly
love fitness and pain take the stairs as evidenced by this incredible
example of wear and tear. Out of all that landing space, just two tiny patches of
floor have been worn down showing the exact spot where 100s of people have
repeatedly pivoted round. Wait, could this be the
floor of the stairwell from that friends episode? You know the one I'm talking about. - Pivot!
(crowd laughing) Pivot!
(crowd laughing) - [Narrator] Pivot! Gets me every time. There's an old American saying that goes, "put your best foot forward" which I always thought was
just a nice old proverb, but it turns out, people do
put their best foot forward, and it's usually their right foot if this shop floor in
Ireland is anything to go by. Years of customers standing
at the counter being served has disproportionately worn
this spot in the floor through with the two most stood on
points being eroded right down. And speaking of spots on the floor that have worn straight through, I think we can all tell that this photo was
taken in the men's room. Either that or when
women do their business, they sit with their feet
much farther forward than I ever thought. (swoosh)
I hate the gym. There, I said it. I hate the music, the
lights, but most of all, I hate seeing people lifting weights. They all seem to be doing
so much better than me. However, maybe if I saw
more of the wear and tear that's on this weight machine, I wouldn't feel so self-conscious. Over time, everyone's had a pop at
the lighter set of weights and really gone to town
on the 50 pound set, but few rarely make it past 130 pounds. Man, that 200 pound bar
looks tragically underused. And suddenly I feel much better about my own weak workout motivation. (swoosh)
Do you keep mementos? You know, little trinkets to
remember something special by? Well, Reddit user BDWatson1965's
grandfather certainly did. In 1945, he and his wife moved
from Texas to California, stopping at Las Vegas to
gamble for a few hours. They kept two silver
dollars from the trip. BD Watson's grandmother
kept hers in her purse, but his grandfather
kept his in his pocket. Eventually both coins
were handed down to him, but their states couldn't
have been more different. 63 years of being rubbed and touched in his grandfather's pocket had left one of the dollars
smooth and worn down. His grandmothers on the other hand was an almost pristine condition. Carrying on the tradition, BD Watson apparently keeps
the worn dollar in his pocket and will one day pass it on to his son. By that point, I reckon that dollar might
be worn down to a dime. (swoosh)
On the topic of family heirlooms, Reddit user Alta1971 claimed they were given a
fourth generation mixing spoon once used by their great grandparents, except this thing looks like
it's been used to mix acid. where the heck is the rest of it? Well, rumor has it, Altas
grandmother's specialty was meringues and whipped cream. And so Alta assumed that millions of trips around the mixing bowl
is what worn it down. Now, whipping cream with
a hand mixer is hard, but with a spoon, even more so. that said, I'm not sure I
believe it's been worn down from whipping cream, especially since it resembles
the shape of a Roux spoon. These are specially designed to get right into the edges of the pan to stop the flour and oil
used in making a Roux burn. Still, I like the idea
of someone whipping cream so often and aggressively, they wear down their metal spoon. Looks like the secret ingredient
here was elbow grease. (swoosh)
The way most companies produce furniture
is pretty straightforward. Grow trees for between 40 to 150 years, chop them down, cutting 'em
into pieces, make a chair. When you think about it, and that's a lot of
steps just to sit down. But back in 2007, Alice and
Gavin Munroe began thinking, what if they could grow chairs instead. Trees start out as
small flexible saplings, which can be bent and manipulated into different shapes to
fit their environment. So what if they encouraged
their trees into chair shapes? It was such a unique idea,
they just had to try it. And so they planted a few Willow saplings over a small plot of land and
began training their shape using a series of wire frames. Using four saplings as the
legs, which wound up the frame, they predicted their method
would take less than five years to literally grow a chair. By 2010, the saplings had finally started to take chair shape, and in 2011, their first
prototype was ready. Since then their operation has expanded and now they use specialized plastic molds to train a single tree into shape. Instead of four saplings, which proved tough to grow
into one cohesive object, by 2016, the first chairs grown from a single sapling were ready, and all it took was
almost 10 years of time. Still, that's a fraction of the time it takes to grow one regular tree. (swoosh)
But Alice and Gavin aren't the only people
looking to harness the power of this tree chair growing method. Back in 1987, Peter Cook and Becky Northey became inspired to train plants into strange and different
shapes for the purposes of art, using their own homegrown
method called "pooktre". Using wire frames, similar
to Alice and Gavin, over the years, they trained trees into incredibly intricate
shapes like people, peace signs, and furniture. And obviously, they also tried their
hand at training a tree into a living chair. The chair alone took seven
years to grow and form, but ended up so sturdy and stable that Peter can happily hang out in it. What a seat. I mean, feat. (swoosh)
Have you ever been on holiday and gone to buy a souvenir from one of those weird little gift chops? You know, the ones that smell like soap and candles that sell t-shirts that have weird phrases on them, and that all have floors like this. Whoa, so many tourists have
visited this souvenir shop in Hilton Head Island over the years that you can see exactly which aisles most of them have stepped foot in. Looks like a lot of people
don't make it to the far end, or they see those weird
bikini bottle openers and decide to turn around and leave. I wouldn't blame 'em, but it's not just souvenir shops that have telltale worn down floors, over in one of the changing rooms of clothing store chain Forever 21, you can tell exactly where
most customers stand and pose to get the best view of
themselves in the mirror. Seeing how many people
use those cubicles daily, I'm surprised they don't use a longer lasting flooring solution over a thin layer of paint
on some bare floorboards. Well, my guess it's on brand for their floors to wear out
as quickly as their clothes. (swoosh)
We all have that one pair of shoes that looks like they've been worn to hell and back, you know the ones I'm talking about, with the heel worn
down, holes in the sole, probably a completely different color than when you bought 'em. Right. But what about a different
size than when you bought 'em, like these old and new doc
Martin boots apparently are? Yeah, the boot on the left is new, but the one on the right has been worn for more
than four and a half years. Not only has the tread
been completely worn away, but if these are the same model of shoe, as Reddit user prone2wand3r
claims they are, they also appear to have
dropped like three sizes. Now, feet don't usually shrink with age, so what's happened here? It's more than likely that this photo was just
taken at an odd angle. Ooh, for a second there,
I thought that my feet might not be the only thing
that shrinks as I get older. (upbeat ambient music)
Do you have any footage or photos of worn down items that you own that you want to share? If you send 'em over to
me at storiesbeamazed.com, you might make it into the
next part of this series. Until then, thanks for watching.
