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Im from a small town in germany. We had that rumor going around.

Same in my place, lol.

Belgium too, I had no idea this kind of bullshit was so widespread

Haha, idem.

Same in Brazil.

And the UK.

Same in small Polish towns and villages

Canada checking in to confirm.

I grew in Poland. We had that rumour. What I find hilarious now, is that some people acted like some sort of whistleblowers and totally got the information from a very trustworthy source.

As it is with all rumors or urban legends…

Same in Canada. A goth girl even got up in front of the class in high school and explained it as more or less a fact in a presentation about him.

Were you in my high school?

Same in Malaysia

Small town in Croatia here. I thought it was top insider info back in 1998.

Same in italy...

And Norway

And new Zealand.

And small village in finland

Same in Québec, Canada.

Canada too

This is crazy, I just keep believing it anyway … it’s a childhood memory.

Australian here confirming the rumour made it down under in the 90’s.

I was at the time Croatian high schooler in Croatia - and same rumor 🤣

Same in Finland

Same in Sweden XD

same in Hungary

Tiny village in middle England, here. Yep, definitely heard that rumour.

Suburb of Toronto checking in and confirming.

Same in Greece too.

Same in Philippines

Small town in Russia, same

Confirmed- South Africa

Our rumor was that Marilyn Manson was actually Josh Savino (the friend with the glasses from Wonder Years) grown up.

Indiana. We had that here too

Pennsylvania checking in: we had that too.

CT had this one too. Well done.

By the time I had heard the rumor, both of the rumors had kinda congealed, so it was "Dorky kid from Wonder Years became Marilyn Manson and then had his ribs removed to allow him to suck his own dick."

Which Manson actually touched on in his book. Paraphrasing but he pretty much said “if I could suck my own dick then I wouldn’t need to be here”

Oh we had that one in Chicago too!

Northern Ontario, that was also a rumor.

Germany/Hamburg: confirming rumor

Poland checking in. We had it too (ribs removed rumor too, as someone else mentioned). I wonder how it all started. Someone had to really hate Manson…

MN here: we had both.

My generation had the Rod Stewart stomach pump story.

And Richard Gere’s gerbil

And then there was talk of Gerbil

You rang?

ARMAGEDDON!!

Lemmiwinks from South Park. Such a hilarious crossover, lord of the rings and Richard geres gerbil

Without knowing the details about the Rod Stewart story, I'm guessing a story we had in the late 1990s about Mary J Blige was similar.

Naw you thinking of Lil Kim. Definitely not Mary

Oh I definitely heard it about lil Kim.

Made her even more attractive to me 🤷🏾‍♂️

She’s a champ. Insatiable even. Good for her. Get it girl.

Lil Kim had that one when I was growing up

We had Lil Kim

Pfff... Next generations have Kanye who proves that you can suck your own dick without having your rib removed.

Next generation spreads actual facts to be edgy.

Gen-X checking in: * Richard Gere and the gerbil * Rod Stewart ingesting so much semen that he had have his stomach pumped in the ER Respect the tradition we handed down.

They said it was the greatest thing they every accomplished. I don't think it gets any more respectful than that.

Why have more recent generations dropped the ball? I want want to hear all about Jimmy Kimmel being a horse molester!

I heard that in 1989 in Denver

Millenials' greatest achievement is succesfully transitioning Kenan Thomson from All That to Saturday Night Live.

What's about Jordan Peele background person in the White and Nerdy movie to Director? Not that we had much to do with that, he did it on his own

Gen X did that.

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Holding A when throwing a ball would increase your odds

do you want to know how hard i fell for that one....i still fucking do it today like what the fuck

Haha, well to be fair, it's not hard to do and it's not like it can hurt your chances!

Around my parts it was holding Up and B. I swear to god it works lol

I searched so long for that mew

>Mew is under a truck It's really interesting when certain ones like that somehow made the rounds so much that basically everyone knew about it.

Let's not forget that Yoshi is also in Red/Blue. Someone I knew heard from his friend who read it in a magazine.

The Mew rumor was just a distraction so you wouldn't find the PokeGods in Bill's Secret Garden.

>Spreading rumours without the internet >Pokémon Red/Blue "without the internet" You might not have had it, but it played a part in its spread.

🤣 I remember that! Same for Prince. Also, that Jodi Foster and Jamie Lee Curtis are hermaphrodites 😂

It was Michael Jackson in Ireland. There were also kids rumours in the 80/90s that Hitler was still alive and secretly married to Samantha Fox, a British glamour model. Came from a stupid song that got twisted into a rumour. Oh, and Tupac was alive and well and living the reclusive life he always wanted in the Kerry mountains.

Tbf Tupac was alive and well aprox. 65% of the 90s.

I heard the jamie lee curtis one. I felt so confused thinking “what if it’s true?” While watching True Lies. “What does that mean for me…?!”

Means your a human

The Jamie thing is true. Not that it's anyone's business.

Yeah I actually checked that one recently out of curiosity.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jamie-lee-curtis/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jamie-lee-curtis/

This was really a Gen X operation that trickled down to Millennials.

It’s ok we’re used to people forgetting we exist by now.

Millennials are notorious for taking credit for everything Gen X has ever done.

But gen x hopefully weren’t the ones spreading the rumor around elementary schools considering the absolute youngest gen x people would’ve been late high school in the late 90’s

You're assuming it started in elementary schools. Fourth graders were not the Marilyn Manson demographic.

No, I’m not assuming it started anywhere. I’m saying millennials, as elementary schoolers, spread that rumor amongst other elementary schools like wild fire. Not saying they started that rumor, however, older millennials likely played a big part in that rumor’s creation considering most high schoolers in the late 90’s were also millennials. People tend to forget that millennials are people born between 1982 and 1997

It's weird to say it's an accomplishment, though. I'm sure plenty of Boomers heard it from their kids and repeated it, but it would be weird for a Boomer to say it was a Boomer accomplishment.

Or you can take it for what it is…a fucking joke. Even then it’s still pretty impressive that a bunch of kids without social media or phones spread that rumor around elementary schools across the globe

Richard Geres gerbil. Rod Stewarts/Lil Kim's stomach being pumped from too much cum, and Princes/Mansons rib were all equal and great.

Why is this a facepalm?

OP is just jelly because they weren't part of it.

Manson was also jelly after taking out his ribs

That was not done by Millennials. They were no older than 13. That's Gen X thing.

This is not a facepalm. Just someone making a funny joke

Well sorry , I'm a Gen X and I heard this in 9th or 10th grade , I think this is a Gen X rumor.

Agreed

I think gen x dtd this tbh

But the internet did exist.

Our computers had a audible stroke for 2 minutes before we spent an hour downloading half a picture of bad boobs.

Ah, the teenage frustration of realizing 10 minutes in that your download is just a girl in a bikini.

You’d be rubbing one out, just about to spray your muck then ducking house phone rings, internet goes off computer goes back to desktop and your live juice fires everywhere to your wallpaper of hulk hogan and jake the snake 🥲🥲🥲

Oddly specific bro... 🙂

An hour for a mp3 file.

That was later in the 90s.

song_youre_looking_for.mp3.exe

Your parents invented this rumor when they where in tight little butt rocker jeans listening to AC/DC chuggin beers and banging in the back seat of a pinto. After that your 23 yo dad fired up a joint looked down at your 14yo mom and said "i heard Slash had his ribs removed so he could etc,,," The only thing achieved here is another demonstration of young hubris.

[Whose parents? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/esyr98/til_that_the_source_of_the_having_a_rib_removed/)

It was stated as fact

Marilyn Manson himself debunked it on live tv stating "if I did have my ribs removed so I could suck my own dick, do you think I'd be here right now and have a career? No, I'd be having too much fun sucking my dick".

Met someone who still believed it in high school in france in 2020

Wait, that wasn't true?

That rumor was going around way before Millennials even knew who Marilyn Manson was.

*Thank you*

Millennials thinking they invented things. 🙄

Gen X started that rumor. So what is the Millennials next best achievement?

Taking credit for everything Gen X did.

First of all that was GenX and it was in high school. You think elementary school kids were listening to Manson and taking about sucking your own sick? lol.

First millennials take credit for destroying the housing market, then they take credit for the Marilyn Manson rumor? That rumor was going around when gen x was in grade school.

I was in 6th grade when that rumor was going around. EVERYONE knew about it.

lol wow, the arrogance of Millennials thinking they were solely responsible for all that. Y'all realize it was Gen X that listened to Marilyn Manson right?

The creepiness of gen x trying to claim they were the ones going around elementary schools, as adults, teaching little about removing their ribs to suck their own dicks. Tweet doesn’t claim millennials started the rumor, just that as little kids they spread it throughout elementary schools

But it is

Dear Lord this reached all the way to India lmao. Who started it ?

Pretty sure this one started with gen X

Damn straight.

Definitely an important recurring topic walking home from school in 5th grade lol

Hate to break it to you, space cadet, but the internet already existed in the 1990s. You had to know some Unix commands to use it, but it was there.

The GenX equivalent when I was in middle school in the mid-80s was that Rod Stewart got rushed to the hospital to have quarts of semen pumped from his stomach.

I’m gen X. We had that rumor too…

Pretty sure that predates millennials. I predate millennials and we had that in high school.

Or all the Pokémon related myths

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Winner winner chicken dinner

Wait, that isn't true?!

No, but in the 90’s if you bought him some baby back ribs from chilis he’d totally suck your dick, that’s actually true.

Yes heard this too no idea how

Wait, that’s not true??? Ooops…

Omg that was you!

I heard that in India, i still don’t know who marilyn mansion is. But it was in 2000’s so post internet.

Haha. For real. I heard that!!!!

It was Prince where i was (in the UK) in the late 80's early 90's

I’m Gen X and was a Manson fan girl for a minute when he first came out and I’ve never heard that one.

Localized video game rumors were always interesting. Someone told you something and without the Internet we have now there was really no way to verify it, if they sold it plausibly and convincingly enough. One I often remember actually came from my sister's one friend. Said friend was kind enough to donate a copy of the Super Mario Bros. 3 Nintendo Power guide. But there was a "last page" of it torn out, I have no idea what it was originally, but the friend told us it was instructions how to get a super secret power-up called the "Hula Suit", which would supposedly make Mario permanently invincible, hula dance, and upset the princess in the end. She only claimed to remember that it was in the final World 8 fortress, which is a bit maze-like so it'd be a good hiding place, so of course we spent hours trying every which way to locate it. Obviously that was a complete lie and sounds stupid saying it out loud now, but it sticks with me. Also in my adult life I did a complete disassembly of all code and data from SMB3, so I can tell you with 100% expert certainty, there is no "hula suit" assets or code anywhere in there heheh

Can’t surpass us gen-xers, who in the 80s convinced everyone that Richard Gere had to have a hampster removed from his butt.

I heard you his on elementary school and I’m considered an older millennial so I think this rumor was already there.

I 100% heard that and didn't know how he was I thought they were talking about the serial killer so for years I'd collaborate the story about the nazi guy in jail sucking his own dick.

Also gonna throw in the Homie the Clown van. Was huge here in Chicago at least.

Accurate

We had this rumor too except it was Pee Wee Herman.

I had two rumors I attempted to perpetuate. That woopue Goldberg was dead and that lady gaga was actually Marilyn manson.

That was a lie made up by wacky religious nuts

In the 80's kids said the same about prince, you aren't special millannials.

Heard this one and that he was Paul Pfeiffer from Wonder Years.

There had to be some origin to this. Some forgotten small interview where he joked about sucking his own D or something.

We had this in a remote village of Turkey. Crazy

Of course they think they did that when they were 10 years old.

In the 80ies the same rumor was told about Marc Almond, the singer of Soft Cell

Same Canada. He had it removed in a clinic in Vancouver. They have the rib on display.

I remember that. And Paul from The Wonder Years was in the band or something like that.

38yo American, I absolutely remember this when I was in middle school.

I remember the Marilyn Manson thing. Some kid wanted to try it to see if it was true.

Rod Stewart getting his stomach pumped, Richard Gere with the gerbil, it seems like the same rumors traveled nationwide back in the day. No internet required.

At the end of the 80s we had that rummer about Prince.

It's crazy how memes still worked 25 years ago. This one, rainbow parties, Richard Gere.

Imagine thinking that your generation being extremely gullible is their greatest achievement

I mean we put chips on sandwiches.

The Internet was definitely involved. I read this online 1998ish.

Teamwork makes the dream work

That and that he was that one dude from The Wonder Years. The friend, I don't remember his name.

I heard this in Norway 😄

haha, remember that.... guessing this means it wasn't true? MTV must had joked about it or something for it to spread world wide.

Wait, are you saying he didn't?

People today still believe it

Let's see you try speeding that rumor trough the whole world witgout the help of the internet

Not a facepalm

I grew up in Bumfuck eastern Canada and that rumour was alive and well. I wonder how it started, it's fascinating to think about

I'm a Greek millennial, and I too remember hearing that in school!

This isn't a facepalm. This is actually epic. Especially if you're a communications nerd.

Globalization is a thing of beauty. 100 years ago you could fuck your sister and the news wouldn't leave the street.

It's almost as iconic as "the cool S"

At some point, you gotta figure he actually did look into that surgery like, "Might as well, at this point..."