A History of Panic Buying. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to Y2K to our current global kerfuffle. Why are People Panic Buying? Twitter: / ordinarytings Patreon: / ordinarythings
Might I ask what you did with the metric f**kton of toilet paper you have in the back throughout the video? Because for all the good information in the video, that sticks out to me like a shore thumb of hypocrisy.
I disagree that there isn’t a reason to do it. The only way it’s safe for an individual not to panic buy is if everyone else didn’t. But that will never hapoen
As everyone knows, proper wars are fought by lining up the poor and having them take pot shots at a second line of poor people from a different nation using muskets. As God intended!
cutting cable, blocking news websites, using duck duck go over google searches, and abolishing social media has improved my life ten fold and really boosted my happiness.
@@Lethal_Spoon I'd rather be unhappy and knowledgeable about what's happening. TV cable shit is bullshit though, so it's not like I think that's good. I just don't think ignorance is bliss either
I also liked how Internet Historian pointed out how toilet paper was mostly produced domestically since it was hard to transport due to being bulky. It goes hand-in-hand with Ordinary Things’ explanation.
@@cattysplat I'm not fat and I still thought it was cheeky. It was funny, but not something I'd wanna hear on a bad day, running late with a car on empty.
It's somewhat surreal how, towards the start of the year, the items you could barely get a hold of were toilet paper, soup, beans, flour etc. Towards the end of the year? GPU's, PlayStation 5's..
No real shortage, it just big oil just decided to inflate the price before the real global inflation began, to one up other industries. After one single year of downward trend (and Ukraine war) oil Giants just decided it was time to recoup losses thousandfold.
Y2K is an interesting case because it's one where the truth is actually very nuanced and few people seem to know how it actually went down. The truth is that computer systems _did_ have problems that could have been caused by the year switching from 99 to 0. Probably not "planes fall out of the sky" or "nuclear plant explodes" bad, but definitely on the level of potentially "entire company needs to stop operating for a few days while figuring out what's wrong and how to fix it". That is, if nothing is done about it in time. While conspiracy nuts were bunkering up in their cellars, computer programmers knew exactly how to fix these systems. It's not exactly a difficult problem to fix if you just know that it needs to be fixed. So during the years leading up to 2000, basically all the computer systems got quickly fixed to handle the new year numbers. Crisis averted , because while it _could_ have had big consequences, fixing it was also pretty simple in the end. And now, 20 years later, you get smug Reddit comments going on about how Y2K was never a problem and everyone who thought it was must have been dumb. I guess it really is unthinkable that humanity could discover an impending threat and manage to deal with it _before_ it explodes in our faces.
Usally its older propritary database systems where you couldn't rebuild the structure of the tables. My grandpa told me that the biggest issue they had was not the back end, but the AS400 terminals didn't have the space to display the lists of data with the extra 2 digits. It was stil sorting find (ie 00 was above 99) but it kept scaring sales agents for some reason. It was so bad he had to call a company wide meating to yell at eveyone to stop bothing him about it as it even if it looks "off"
This is actually untrue. Yes, computer engineers spent years preparing for Y2K, but there were thousands of systems they didn’t have time to fix. And did they have issues when January 1st, 2000 rolled around? Not really. Some had incredibly mild bugs, a few vending machines stopped working. But by and large Y2K bugs were completely benign. This is evidenced by the fact that, opposed to the 2 billion the US spent, Russia and Korea did almost nothin to prepare for Y2K and didn’t experience any significant issues. This left IT companies and politicians with little choice but to harp on about how Y2K was a great achievement in disaster aversion, because admitting they had spent billions of dollars fighting windmills was career suicide. And now 20 years later you get smug RU-vid comments about how Y2K was actually real and how anybody that doesn’t know that is an idiot.
It's really wild going back and watching videos from March when the pandemic was a new thing. The three weeks when there was no toilet paper feels like it was 2 years ago.
@@DMCpawn 2 weeks? Why not 6 months of non-perishibles? If you have a normal sized American house, you should have plenty of space to do so, and stocking up slowly and rotating supplies means you have very little additional costs, no negative impact on the system as a whole, and a large risk reduction in the event of natural disasters or, say, a global pandemic.
@@DMCpawn the secret is to only buy what you would normally use, rotate your stock to avoid waste, and, to repeat myself, only buy things you would normally buy and use. If you follow those simple rules, you will only benefit.
the clip of people rushing into a store is actually people in the Netherlands rushing to get fireworks (yes you heard me, in the Netherlands grocery stores actually produce and sell fireworks)
Supermarkets sell fireworks here in UK too in October/November, we have a celebration called 'bonfire night' on 5th November where people let off fireworks.
I laughed for 5 minutes when you said, "Who needs to hoard butt paper when you can burst your neighbors head into a pink mist and steal theirs". I've been binge watching your videos. Super entertaining and informative.
10:00 "Panic buying is all about getting one-up on the other guy ... It's fueled by hysterical media reporting, and the admittedly human instinct to copy the behavior of crowds. In times of crisis, we should be less worried about *what* other people are doing, and more worried about *how* other people are doing." Outstanding. Automatic thumbs-ups.
It's funny because panic buying is exactly what causes the shortages. When covid hit my parents were worrying about me buying essentials and stuff, but I personally just continued on going to grocery normally. Result of that was that that one or two items I wanted were out, but then I just picked something else.
I worked my regular job through covid. One time my regular store ran out of toilet paper. Hoarders. I went to another store the next day and bought some. End of crisis.
Really enjoyed the video as I always do. Especially liked your message at the end before the credits, was nice hearing that instead of all the panic on the news for once
I lived through every single one of the events you discussed and remember them all! You did, however, leave out the fear created in mid 70s that disco would replace rock n roll, which led to panic buying of classis rock records. 😉
As an IT person who worked patching shit for Y2K I found the doom of the time weird. Yeah there was a problem that could cause issues that's why we were screaming a management for years leading up for budgets to fix that shit and we all did. Financial systems were well patched in advanced because they were already dealing with calculations in the future. I was confident enough the world wasn't gonna collapse by spending New Years eve at Disneyland and it was an amazing night. I had so many arguments with preppers and doomers at the time that made me shake my head. It is an example of one of those real problems we had to deal with that once we dealt with it people assumed there wasn't a problem because nothing happened. This is the life of an IT person ... nobody notices when you are doing shit right so assume you are doing nothing.
honestly there would have been a catastrophe had it not been for IT workers and others preparing systems for y2k, so in a sense the irrational fear kind of saved it!
I grew up really poor, so I was taught from a young age to keep a stash whenever I could afford to. We never knew when money gonna seemingly just disappear, or some expense like a house repair or car repair would suck the little we had saved. My mom kept a cupboard dedicated to emergency foods. Things in cans, noodles, freeze dried, and vacuum packed foods. In the basement she always kept a plastic tote with an unopened pack of TP, blankets, some sealed water, and a few other things I can't remember. We never had to use the emergency stash when I was growing up, but I am certain mom was glad to have those things saved now. I know I was sure glad that she taught me those things. She told me she learned those things from her grandma, who grew up in the depression. As an adult I have kept a stash of small things I can afford and find the space for. It's all about using your head and thinking about the future a bit, rather than just the here and now.
Depending on where you live, in some places it's a good idea to have a small stash like that stowed away in a backpack, so if there's an emergency like a wildfire you can grab your bag and run.
Tell you what, homie. I've been watchin' your videos all day and despite my extreme reluctance to ever let people on RU-vid influence my decisions, I have decided to hit the notification bell. Despite my hundreds of subscriptions, you are only the second channel I have done this for. Excellent content.
My dad used to work on a fast food place in the 80s and managed to increase sales by telling people they still had old coke. He just gave them new coke and nobody saw anything wrong.
7:30 Y2K was actually a real and very serious problem. It came from bad programing standards basically, when the internal clocks which it uses in part to do all its processes, would zero out because they hadn't programed for the calendar dates to go past that point and the 999 would roll over into a 000 causing errors and potentially crashing all the systems. Worse yet, we didn't exactly know how each machine would respond. My dad was one of the people scrambling to retool the machines to avoid a disaster. Just because nothing happened doesn't mean the panic (in this case) wasn't justified.
Coca Cola didn't really make a blunder. They wanted to replace sugar with corn syrup and they succeeded as no one noticed the difference when "original" Coke (now with corn syrup) was brought back. The savings from using vastly cheaper fructose instead of expensive sugar was more than enough to offset any losses from new Coke.
I keep hearing that, but Coke was using corn syrup 5 years prior to introducing new Coke. All new Coke did was take the diet coke recipe and use high fructose corn syrup instead of the artificial sweeteners used in diet coke. However coke classic had already made the switch prior, besides those glass bottles made in Mexico
The guys above me has it right. Coke was already using corn syrup when New Coke came out. The reason they changed the formula was because Diet Coke was insanely popular to the point it was outselling regular Coke. The execs assumed people liked the Diet Coke flavor more and thought regular Coke would sell better if it tasted like Diet Coke. Most people don’t even realize that Diet Coke is it’s own unique flavor, and isn’t meant to taste like regular Coke at all.
I've been binge watching your channel and since yesterday the sub count went from 67k to 87k as of now, it seems algorithm senpai has finally noticed you. Your channel deserves way more subs and views and it is getting it!
He probably got a boost in both viewers and algorithm from being featured by Internet Historian - the algorithm started pointing me towards him after I watched the gentleman pirate video, and I'm loving the channel! Great to see him grow
Firearm, ammo, gear and training demand is at wartime levels across the world. Regardless of where you are, people are maxxing out whatever level of protection the government in their country "allows" them to have. Here in Canada, those sales have continued apace at similar levels per capita to the US. One gun store in my province of just under a million people, sold over over 200,000 rounds of one particular brand of .223 ammunition. Trust me, millions of people around the globe see where this is headed
They did that years ago when Obama was president, it took me almost a year to get my new CZ rifle because America was buying everything up before any shipments could be sent to Australia.
They all laughed at me. They all ridiculed me. Every one of 'em. But now... NOW IS THE AGE OF THE NOT-EVERY-DAY-POOPERS! All the people who made fun of me for being a weirdo who makes big poopoos every few days rather than the apparent 14-a-day shitters snatching up all the poo tickets are now going to die from lack of toilet paper while my 3 remaining rolls will last me at least 2 weeks, even if I'm literally smashing my cheeks together to form pancake-shits. For real though, the hoarders are fucking it up. Quit it, you hoarders.
I remember the two times I fell into that trap. Wasn’t panic buying but ran out of gas right as a hurricane… was about to hit on the opposite side of the state. My city emptied all the gas stations. And right as Covid hit, my dad ran out of toilet paper and had me try and find some. The insanity of the panic buying was insane
Man oh man....I was a pizza delivery driver during the time hurricane Katrina had wrecked oil refineries. Simply _doing my job_ was a complete crapshoot for a few weeks there, between panic buying and genuine production disruptions.
Your content, delivery & personality are top notch. I am quite satisfied & more informed after binging your videos. I Hope your channel grows exponentially.
It’s the same principle with all trends. Remember when nobody was eating laundry soup until a couple news channels said everyone was and then what people did
I agree, but that said, it was quite useful to get your TP and non-perishable food buying out of the way early, so that you didn't have to worry about the shelves being empty when the panic set in. Thankfully, I get my news from the internet and thus had several weeks worth of notice ahead of the TV-informed stampede.
As always, a great video! I was just going to go buy a truckload of toilet paper, but now I understand I’ll need two. Guns are illegal where I live, so maybe I should get my hands on a crossbow or something. Thanks for the advice!
In my town, since there was a flash flood 2 days ago, people have started panic buying bread, milk, fruit and vegetables just in case the shops run out. Of course, clearing the shelves made them run out. I'm starting to get sick of people going into apocalypse mode every time something mildly bad happens.
Just discovered this channel and enjoying it immensely! Binge watching like crazy. Ironically it was in the cooking suggestions this channel was recommended because of the cereal photo :D Your humour reminds me of brass eye :D
One thing about buying guns: I think it has a lot more to do with people wanting to protect themselves and families rather than kill other people. American gun culture is centered on liberty and self preservation. If you are threatened and there is no one (police) to back you up, then you need to protect yourself. And the best way to do that is through a firearm. Loved the video
In 2012 in my town a huge blizzard and unseen amounts of snow were announced, and as soon as people saw the forecact they went APESHIT on the panic buying. When blizzard happened, everything was stopped for 2 weeks, and noone could go anywhere because my region isn't used to snow thus they're poorly prepared for it. Regardles, the stores were working and and you could buy just about anything you needed
Oh, I didn't think there would be a shortage on the store shelves, I just thought I might not be able to leave my house for a few weeks. So that worked out pretty well for me.
I hope you take this as a compliment, and I am aging myself a bit here, but thanks for filling that Charlie Brooker commentary sized hole in my heart, friend.
And here I thought this was going to be a history of toilet paper. (Which I'm glad it wasn't, cause two other channels I watch have already done exactly that.)
initially I'd planned to do just that...then I realised the whole episode would literally be toilet humour. And I wasn't quite prepared to write THAT many fart jokes
toilet paper shelf space shortage was something i could witness firsthand in the beginning months of the panic buying, stores absolutely empty but i was working in a warehouse for one at the time and they had thousands of packs in there which we could only send out so much at the time.
Look I'm a hunter. Like I hunt animals it's just something I've been doing my whole life because I enjoy it. I don't want to make a political statement here, but where I live panic buying of firearms has been a huge problem since the end of the summer. People are buying all kinds of guns for all kinds of shit and hoarding them, which creates a problem for someone like me who just wants to buy one decent rifle for a decent price to hunt with (because I don't have one; I have a bow). I'm just gonna have to wait until these idiots quit hoarding. Like yeah I get it you want to be safe but you really need 17 different guns and 7k rounds of ammunition to be safe?
Same, wanted a basic Cz boltie to help deal with the wild dogs on the property but had to wait almost a year because everything coming out of the factory was immediately bought up and sent to America before any shipments could be sent to Australia, same with the ammunition. This was during the panic buying when Obama became president i believe. I could have easily bought another rifle instead that was already in stock but this particular one was one of the only .223s i could find with actual iron sights.
most people aren't buying 7k rounds of ammo to be safe, they're buying 7k rounds so they'll be able to go to the range for a while without having to worry about whether or not they'll be able to restock. Most people i know are wishing they would've stocked up, me included :(
@@travyboy5947 I have done it that way for years. And have never had to buy anything during the panic buying. Pluse I shot a lot of competitions and pest control shooting on some farms. So I keept supplies. My dad just bought 1 box of ammo at the start of hunting season. Back then it worked fine. I don't think we will see that again for awhile. Anyway good luck.
I loved the video. It might not be the "ordinary thing" then again once in a while does't hurt and who cares. What's important is the vibe is the same with that dry British sense of humor that's not laugh out loud but still enjoyable.
Ammo shortage? I remember that. Bought my first rifle in 2012, a Savage Model 64F in .22lr. Had to spend $80 just for 500 rounds. It was horseshit. Another ammo shortage happening right now too