Scientists Confirm That Thing Everyone Already Knew Was Bad Is, In Fact, Bad

A landmark study published this week in the journal Nature, But Make It Expensive has conclusively confirmed that the thing — the specific thing that has been widely understood to be bad for decades, the thing your mother warned you about, the thing that common sense, basic observation, and seventeen previous studies all strongly suggested was bad — is, in fact, bad. Possibly very bad. The researchers are calling for more research.

"This is a significant moment for science," said lead researcher Dr. Harold Belatedly of the Institute For Confirming The Obvious At Great Expense, speaking from a podium at a press conference that cost more to organize than most people earn in a year. "We now have data. Rigorous, peer-reviewed, statistically significant data, confirming what anecdotal evidence, lived experience, and your grandmother's specific face when you did the thing have suggested for generations."

Dr. Belatedly's grandmother, reached for comment, said "I told him." She then returned to her garden, where she has been correct about things since 1974.

The study, which involved 12,000 participants across 14 countries, 3 years of data collection, a control group, a placebo group, a group that was told they were in the placebo group but weren't, and one group that was simply observed doing the thing while researchers watched with increasing concern, found with 99.7% confidence that the thing produces outcomes that are, by every measurable metric, bad.

"We controlled for everything," said co-author Dr. Priya Redundantly, who joined the project in year two after her previous study — confirming that a different bad thing was also bad — was published to widespread agreement and mild applause. "Age, gender, socioeconomic status, geographic location, whether participants had been previously warned about the thing, and whether they had nodded when warned or done that thing where you nod but you're clearly not going to stop doing the thing."

The nodders, the study found, were fine. They did the thing anyway.

Industry representatives for the thing responded swiftly, releasing a statement calling the study "preliminary," "narrow in scope," and "part of an ongoing conversation that requires further nuance before any conclusions can responsibly be drawn," which is the same statement they released in response to the 2019 study, the 2021 study, the 2022 meta-analysis, and a 2023 documentary that won a small award at a festival no one attended.

"We take the health and wellbeing of our customers very seriously," the statement continued, before pivoting to a paragraph about the company's commitment to sustainability, a photograph of a tree, and an invitation to follow them on social media, where they post recipes. The recipes do not contain the thing. This was not acknowledged.

Public reaction was swift and divided. On social media, the hashtag #ThingIsBad trended for approximately four hours before being overtaken by a video of a dog doing something charming and a minor controversy about a celebrity's haircut. Several users posted that they had "literally been saying this for years," which is true, and which did not require $4.7 million to establish, but which also did not come with a DOI number, peer review, or a tote bag, so.

A vocal minority pushed back, arguing that the study was funded by people who don't like the thing, that their uncle does the thing every day and is fine, and that science has been wrong before, citing three examples, two of which were misremembered and one of which was a hoax debunked in 2018 but which continues to circulate in a family group chat somewhere in Ohio.

Congress has been briefed. A subcommittee has been formed. The subcommittee's first meeting is scheduled for a date that has not yet been determined, pending the formation of a scheduling committee, which will meet once its members have been confirmed, which requires a vote, which requires a quorum, which requires several members to return from recess.

In the meantime, the thing remains available, affordable, and heavily advertised during sporting events.

A follow-up study is already underway, examining whether the bad outcomes of the thing are, in fact, as bad as the bad outcomes suggest, or whether there is a sense in which they are worse. Funding has been secured. Results are expected in 2029. Your grandmother already knows what they'll find.