12 Common Items That Are So Widely Misused You Might Not Even Know Their Original Purpose

Did you know that frisbees were originally just pie containers? Or that Play-Doh was intended to be a wallpaper cleaner? Sometimes, customers find a better use for products than what they were originally marketed as so companies decide to pivot. But there are also plenty of cases of companies being in denial about what their products are used for, regardless of how many people purchase them for different reasons.

Redditors have recently been discussing some of the most commonly misused items people buy, so we’ve gathered their thoughts down below. Enjoy scrolling through, and be sure to upvote the products you’re guilty of using for different purposes too!

12 PHOTOS

#1

Back in the days before digital cameras, 35mm film came in plastic bottles that everyone used to store their weed in.

#2

Treadmills. Intended for exercise, but is globally recognized as the best clothes racks you never knew you needed.

#3

Former GF gave me a model Death Star. Looks like pewter but I'm not sure. A bit smaller than a tennis ball. It looked pretty cool, but she was so excited when she explained "Look! It opens up! It's a grinder for dried spices when you cook!"
Didn't want to hurt her feelings by explaining that she had given me a weed grinder. I was dying inside holding in the laughter.

To find out more about how this conversation started in the first place, we reached out to Reddit user EVERYTHING_WAS_TAKEN who posed the question, "What is an item that everyone misuses but the makers pretend they don't know?"

She shared that Q-tips/cotton swabs inspired her to ask this question. "I was looking at the pack in my bathroom and started wondering if there was other stuff out there like it," the OP told Icolic. "Everyone puts them in the ear, and the manufacturers know that. I think I've learned a whole new world of how deep exactly some people put them from this Reddit post, though. Don't damage your ears, kids! Swab responsibly."

#4

Ozempic for weight loss which leads to shortages for people with diabetes.

#5

Flathead screwdriver - scraper, pry bar. chisel, weapon, stake, etc...

#6

The 'Terms and Conditions' booklet. It's the world's most popular unread bestseller.

"I'm an artist, so I frequently misuse objects and repurpose them," the OP continued. "But this post was meant to find out about physical things that are misused in the same way by the majority of users, and is common knowledge."

And as far as why companies pretend that they don't know people are misusing their products, EVERYTHING_WAS_TAKEN supposes that it's for several reasons. "They would have to redesign something that already works properly for its intended purpose, so that just means extra cost on their side when they're not technically liable for misuse," she noted.

#7

The drawer beneath your oven. It's for keeping baked goods warm, not for storing pans.

#8

Kitchen scales. I bought one on Amazon that had poor reviews because you couldn’t measure out portions of a gram. My stupid a*s asked my husband why the hell someone would care if the measurement of their flour was 1/10 of a gram off.

He just stared at me until I got it lol.

#9

I'll start: QTips/cotton swabs. Everyone puts them in the canal, but the boxes always pretend like they're made for the outside of the ear.

"Also, tons of people would complain, so customer dissatisfaction," the OP shared. "And people misusing the item would find something else to buy, so customer loss."

"In some cases, you actually can't 'fix' the product to stop a specific misuse because it's being used technically properly but for a different goal," she explained. "So there's nothing they can do. And honestly, some of these misuses are so bizarre it would just be weird for a company to try to address it," she added with a laugh.

#10

Back in the days of Prohibition, a lot of grape juice was sold with extremely explicit instructions of all the things you'd need to do to ferment it but with the disclaimer of "here's what's illegal to do".

#11

Think Johnny Appleseed was planting apple trees for the health benefits of apples? Nope, it was to make cider.

Going way back, farming advances and the cultivation of grains were primarily to make beer, going way back to Mesopotamia.

#12

I caught a friend of mine rubbing one of the antibacterial hand wipes from KFC all over his friend's chicken. The little packet said 'a hint of lemon' on it, and he thought that he was meant to flavor the chicken with it...

EVERYTHING_WAS_TAKEN went on to share that most of the responses to her post were unexpected. "I was thinking cotton swabs, Reddit was thinking drugs and other questionable activities," she said with a laugh. "Yeah, it was interesting how many people answered the same things - I guess the question worked!"

"The funny ones to me were the people who hadn't seen my comment proposing the cotton swab, and started their comments with, 'There's no way this post isn't talking about Q-Tips...'" she added.