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TIL in 2004, Polaroid issued a statement advising people to do not
actually shake your Polaroid pictures because shaking them would ruin
them, shortly after the release of the song 'Hey Ya!' by OutKast and the
song's lyrics "shake it like a Polaroid picture"
https://www.foxnews.com/story/dont-shake-it-like-a-polaroid-picture
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|u/TiRoDo - 5 hours
|
|They say you need to keep the poloraid in a dark place right after you
|take it.   I guess, “Tuck it under your armpit like a Polaroid picture”
|doesn’t have the same ring to it


  |u/Travelingman9229 - 27 minutes
  |
  |It literally says to keep it in like a shoebox for a month before
  |putting them in an album. lol it’s kinda crazy


|u/DaveOJ12 - 6 hours
|
|Well I feel old now.


  |u/SanrioAndMe - 6 hours
  |
  |Fun fact, Hey Ya was the number one song on the day I was born! 😊


    |u/ShinyCaper - 6 hours
    |
    |Shut up


      |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
      |
      |Yeah no, I'm not joking. I'm dead serious. I was born February 5
      |and this was the number one song at the time!   It's so odd
      |thinking I'm about to be 21 soon....


        |u/thewhitebuttboy - 5 hours
        |
        |No, he just doesn’t believe you were born.


          |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
          |
          |What's that even supposed to mean?! 😂


            |u/BrokenEye3 - 5 hours
            |
            |Means you're probably a Synth


              |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
              |
              |A... Synth?   Like, the instrument?


                |u/BrokenEye3 - 5 hours
                |
                |Like a fake human robot manufactured by the Institute to
                |infiltrate Commonwealth and spy on its populace in order
                |to further their sinister agenda.


                  |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
                  |
                  |Oh no! I'm not a fake human, I'm a real one! I
                  |promise!    Although, people have said I'm like a
                  |robot due to being autistic, but that's another
                  |story....


                |u/Airosokoto - 55 minutes
                |
                |That's just what a Synth would say.  Also they're making
                |a reference to the game Fallout 4, and the joke went
                |over your head.


                |u/gastroboi - 4 hours
                |
                |Like the instrument 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 i don't know why i found that
                |hilarious.


                  |u/SanrioAndMe - 4 hours
                  |
                  |I'm sorry, I seriously didn't know what they meant, so
                  |I thought they were referring to the electric
                  |keyboard-like musical instrument, a synthesizer.


        |u/ShinyCaper - 5 hours
        |
        |I’m sorry for being rude. I’m jealous of your youngness. I am
        |old and joyless. You are young and shut up. Again, sorry.


        |u/lolofaf - 5 hours
        |
        |FYI you probably shouldn't comment your birthday so publicly,
        |even on an anonymous account. Bad actors can use that
        |information against you in many different ways. Stay safe out in
        |cyber-land, my young friend!


        |u/That-Television2414 - 5 hours
        |
        |Shut up for real.


          |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
          |
          |Why are you all telling me to shut up?    Was it something I
          |said?  I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset or anger you. I just
          |thought this was an interesting fact. I'm sorry.


            |u/Freshiiiiii - 5 hours
            |
            |They’re not saying it in a serious way, they’re not actually
            |offended, just mock wounded by the reminder that they’re
            |aging and that young people are younger than them, born
            |during times they remember.


              |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
              |
              |Ohhhh..... Yeah I'm Neurodivergent and take things
              |literally, so I felt bad because I thought I
              |unintentionally made them Seriously mad or upset with
              |something that I said.


                |u/Freshiiiiii - 5 hours
                |
                |No worries haha you’re all good


                |u/mlsaint78 - 2 hours
                |
                |Us old heads are just depressed because we were likely
                |21 or older when that song came out.   At least that’s
                |my take.   You’re good, young blood.


            |u/That-Television2414 - 5 hours
            |
            |Ice cold


          |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
          |
          |I actually have heard of him, I just don't listen to his
          |music.    When I wanna listen to the classics, I prefer the
          |greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole,
          |Aretha Franklin, etc..    Just because I'm young doesn't mean
          |I don't know stuff. Thank you, have a good day/night.


|u/BrokenEye3 - 5 hours
|
|So you're telling me that people had been shaking their Polaroid
|pictures in the belief that that helped them develop for *56 years*
|before the company felt the need to say "hey guys, don't do that"?


  |u/stenmarkv - 1 hour
  |
  |From what I can remember I'm pretty sure the cameras manual said that.
  |I remember reading the book otw home when I was a kid.


  |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
  |
  |I guess 🤷🏽‍♀️


  |u/MukdenMan - 1 hour
  |
  |It was always common to shake Polaroids even though you weren’t
  |supposed to. Then when OutKast made a song in 2004, Polaroid decided
  |to use the opportunity to put out this warning, keeping their product
  |in the news for a bit longer.


  |u/Gargomon251 - 2 hours
  |
  |I don't know how true it is but I remember hearing that in the early
  |days you had to apply some kind of developing stick to a Polaroid
  |which you would then air dry


|u/thisisnotlien - 5 hours
|
|I guess Polaroid was just trying to save us from our own bad dancing
|moves.


|u/ShakeWeightMyDick - 6 hours
|
|I never understood why people shook polaroids.


  |u/zerocoolforschool - 5 hours
  |
  |Movies also showed people shaking them. OutKast didn’t just make that
  |shit up.


    |u/ShakeWeightMyDick - 4 hours
    |
    |I didn't think OutKast did, I remember people shaking Polaroids well
    |before OutKast existed


  |u/dalgeek - 5 hours
  |
  |Impatience and the perception that shaking it made the developing
  |fluid move faster.


    |u/Technical-Outside408 - 5 hours
    |
    |Shaking makes my fluid move faster.


  |u/kingsbreath - 4 hours
  |
  |Old photography techniques used baths of chemicals. It was common to
  |shake the liquid off. People just never stopped shaking the photo even
  |when it wasn't necessary.


    |u/ShakeWeightMyDick - 4 hours
    |
    |Maybe, but how many Polaroid owners knew anything about photography
    |development?


      |u/kingsbreath - 3 hours
      |
      |Trends of photography have passed down simply with emulation. Why
      |did we say "cheese" for photos?


        |u/IAmASeeker - 3 hours
        |
        |Stand in the mirror, say "cheeeeeeeeeese", and look at your
        |mouth.


          |u/kingsbreath - 2 hours
          |
          |I know why it's said. I'm saying it's something we do because
          |we saw it being done.


            |u/IAmASeeker - 2 hours
            |
            |I disagree with that assessment. I believe that it's
            |something we do because it's a proven strategy that parents
            |can use to get children to show their teeth to the camera.
            |As an adult, I don't say "cheese" to emulate others, I say
            |it to communicate to my niece that everyone is waiting for
            |her to look at the lense.  I shake Polaroids because I
            |thought you had to because I saw everyone else doing it... I
            |just kinda do that because that's the thing that we do but I
            |say "cheese" for a very specific reason. I suspect that
            |there was a specific reason that the first person to shake a
            |Polaroid thought it was useful.


  |u/salizarn - 1 hour
  |
  |Polaroid stated in 2004 that it was *no longer* necessary to shake
  |them, implying the tech changed.  They’d also gone into bankruptcy in
  |2001 and went in again in 2008.


  |u/brettbeatty - 5 hours
  |
  |Same reason I would circle-mash the D-pad while waiting to see if a
  |Pokémon was gonna stay caught—someone got it in their heads it helped,
  |and it spread to a bunch of people who had no evidence it didn’t help.


    |u/ShakeWeightMyDick - 4 hours
    |
    |Yeah, I guess it's basically the same thing as people pressing the
    |crosswalk button more than once.


    |u/Gargomon251 - 2 hours
    |
    |I've heard all sorts of fake tricks to supposedly make pokeballs
    |work more often and never understood why anybody would even think
    |that in the first place


      |u/ShermyTheCat - 1 hour
      |
      |I mean arguably there should be some sort of mechanic there so
      |you're not just staring at it


        |u/Gargomon251 - 1 hour
        |
        |I mean most RPGs are just staring at menus while the characters
        |attack each other


  |u/mr_jurgen - 5 hours
  |
  |Shaking your dick, on the other hand....?


  |u/SanrioAndMe - 6 hours
  |
  |Honestly, yeah, same, neither did I.


    |u/SFDessert - 5 hours
    |
    |Maybe they thought they were "drying" them?


|u/Best_Possible1798 - 1 hour
|
|Just like Q-tips, we all ignored that


|u/fuzzdup - 32 minutes
|
|The earliest Polaroid camera invented by Edwin Land (the “Polaroid Land
|Camera”), used a process which would develop faster if you shook the
|picture. Those photos also had a protective cover which must be peeled
|off before the image could be viewed. Taking the cover off too early
|ruined (overexposed) the picture. Hence people shook the picture to mix
|the chemicals physically so that they could peel the cover asap and see
|their picture.   The later Polaroid pictures from the 1970s onwards used
|a different process which did not require a protective cover, nor did
|shaking help development. You could for the first time watch your
|instant picture develop in real time as there was no cover blocking your
|view. Shaking the picture wasn’t a thing for these photos. 


|u/tvieno - 5 hours
|
|["Hey Ya!" by Outkast](https://youtu.be/PWgvGjAhvIw) : the video


  |u/Unusualus - 5 hours
  |
  |Oh! You got me on that one... Here is the real video everyone: [https:
  |//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&pp=ygUJcmljayByb2xs](https://www
  |.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&pp=ygUJcmljayByb2xs)


    |u/gastroboi - 4 hours
    |
    |As soon as i see dQw4 i fucking know exactly what it is lol.


      |u/ARoundForEveryone - 2 hours
      |
      |Quick, someone upload a new copy of the video so we can keep this
      |old dead meme's legacy close to our hearts


        |u/gastroboi - 2 hours
        |
        |God fucking dammit.


      |u/Gargomon251 - 2 hours
      |
      |What is it, a rick roll?


        |u/Protean_Protein - 1 hour
        |
        |No it’s a Polaroid.


|u/yIdontunderstand - 3 hours
|
|Gently waft it like a Polaroid picture isn't as catchy...


  |u/Gargomon251 - 2 hours
  |
  |Set it down like a Polaroid picture


    |u/BadNameThinkerOfer - 2 hours
    |
    |"It's giving me a double polaroid"


|u/Gargomon251 - 2 hours
|
|It's baffling that people still to this day think you have to shake
|them. And it doesn't help that they keep doing it in TV and movies


|u/geekolojust - 2 hours
|
|The smells were amazing then.


|u/NightOwl_82 - 2 hours
|
|I used to think it said shake it like a polar bear bea ninja 🤣


|u/this-guy- - 1 hour
|
|You don't know what to dooo-ooo,      You don't know what to dooo-o-oo,
|You don't know what to dooo-ooo-oo,        Etc.


|u/hopeless_case46 - 1 hour
|
|I knew it!


|u/PikesPique - 5 hours
|
|TIL people were still taking Polaroid pictures in the early 00s despite
|the existence of digital cameras.


  |u/dalgeek - 5 hours
  |
  |Polaroids are still around today.


    |u/llliilliliillliillil - 1 hour
    |
    |They’re also a lot more fun to take than a pic with your phone


  |u/goteamnick - 5 hours
  |
  |Digital cameras were pretty new in 2003.


    |u/Actual-Money7868 - 5 hours
    |
    |And pretty shit


      |u/Protean_Protein - 1 hour
      |
      |You can pry my 1.3 MP camera from my cold, dead… uh… obsolete
      |electronics box in my garage!


  |u/ParticleTek - 5 hours
  |
  |I mean... Yes technically, but no, not really.   Polaroid financially
  |peaked in 1991 (arguably the real peak was in the 70s when it was most
  |culturally relevant) and then began a downhill slope in value until
  |declaring bankruptcy in 2001, completely selling off its brand and
  |assets. That didn't happen in spite of mass Polaroid popularity, but
  |because it had become so obsolete and rarely purchased.   By 2008, the
  |owner of the brand decided to completely cease production.   In 2012,
  |a documentary covering the rise and fall and potential grassroots
  |interest in reviving Polaroid came out. And a bit later, a company
  |that had been keeping instant film barely afloat finally acquired the
  |Polaroid brand and relaunched it just in time for nostalgic
  |millennials to gravitate towards it as a hip, vintage novelty.
  |Although, it's still nowhere near its previous popularity. And it's
  |not even the same company, the brand having been traded to multiple
  |buyers since the company became defunct in 2002.  March 2020 marked
  |the first instant camera to have the Polaroid branding in decades.
  |Since I think the i-Zone in 2000ish.  So yes, people have been taking
  |Polaroids all this time. But it was an intentionally dated reference
  |even in 2003's Hey ya. Because the reality is that instant film
  |effectively died once digital cameras became mainstream. They overtook
  |all film cameras in sales by 2004 and by 2006 people were carrying
  |digital cameras everywhere in the form of cell phones. Notably, the
  |iPhone came out in 2007.


  |u/SanrioAndMe - 5 hours
  |
  |Polaroids are still being used to this day! In fact, Polaroid has
  |partnered with Sanrio to make special Hello Kitty cameras in honor of
  |the beloved character's 50th anniversary


  |u/BadNameThinkerOfer - 2 hours
  |
  |Yeah, digital cameras were shit back then, they gave everybody red
  |eyes.