05 Things That Only Exist to Annoy People

If necessity is the mother of all invention, the concept of discomfort is probably its weird second cousin or something. We say this because an amazingly eclectic array of inventions and contraptions exist today because virtually everyone who came up with the idea wanted to offend someone they didn't like. For example, did you know that...

1. Hans Moleman was added to The Simpsons to spite aggrieved fans

According to the DVD commentary track for an early Simpsons episode, Hans Moleman — everyone's favorite peanut-flavored resident of Springfield — was a character no one in The Simpsons thought of when writing the episode. Actually, I thought Mollyman wasn't given a name at all, and was just a background character referred to in the comics as "the nice old man".

However, that all changed when fans, who objected to Molman's unusual mole-like appearance (a factor that led to his supposed name), complained about the show, and began writing about how ugly the character was. Said letters, in addition to mocking Moleman's design, demanded that the writers remove the character from the show's roster entirely. Something the writers didn't want to do, perhaps because they, like so many others, were all gay to Moleman.

In the aforementioned commentary track, Matt Groening explains that these fans' reluctance backfired on the show's writers, who began adding Mollyman to more episodes.

2. Potato chips were invented to annoy an unruly customer (maybe)

Savory snack connoisseurs note that the potato chip's humble origins have been eroded by the winds of time. As such, it is impossible to say for sure who first thought of frying potato strips so thin they were dipped in salt after reading the newspaper. However, one of the most famous potato chip origin stories is that they were invented by a chef just to annoy a picky customer.

The story goes that potato chips were invented by a New York chef named George Crum in the 1850s after he got into a heated argument with a customer. According to most versions of the story, the customer repeatedly complained about Chrome's fries being cut too thick, with some versions stating that the customer also complained that they were neither cooked nor salted. An angry Chrome is said to have responded by slicing some potatoes as thinly as he could and exiting by roasting the inexhaustible leftovers.

To Karam's surprise, the customer ends up enjoying the "french fries" and the other customers, fascinated by what they are eating, when Harry meets Sally and orders what he is eating. Or so the story goes, as it is claimed instead that potato chips were accidentally invented when someone dropped a batch of potato chips into a deep-fat fryer.

3. “I Am The Walrus” was written by John Lennon to be as obtuse as possible to annoy fans

"I Am The Walrus" is widely considered one of the... shall we say... extraordinary songs the Beatles ever wrote, and fans have spent years trying to figure out what, if anything, the lyrics actually mean. A fact that reportedly pleased John Lennon, who wrote the song only to annoy people who wasted their time picking out Beatles songs.

You see, it was reported that shortly before writing the song, Lennon read an article about how English teachers all over Britain read the Beatles' lyrics. Lenin found the idea funny and planned to write a song with as many nonsense phrases as possible.

Surprisingly, despite Lennon's frank admission that the song was meant to ridicule and frustrate those who analyzed the Beatles' lyrics, the lyrics were a mixture of a Lewis Carroll poem and had come straight out of his anus. Some fans say they have a deeper meaning that no one has yet discovered.

4. There’s a parcel of land in New York the city doesn’t own because it annoyed exactly one guy

In New York's West Village, there is a small triangle-shaped plot of land with a simple and unassuming palette. The purpose of the painting (other than looking good, we think) is that it represents the last piece of New York real estate once owned by a man named David Hayes.

In the early 20th century, New York City used eminent domain forces to demolish a hotel belonging to Hess, among a host of other buildings. However, the town was not as complete as he had thought it to be, and it eventually emerged that a small piece of land that technically belonged to Hesse had been overlooked. Desperate to return to the city, and to the wrath of all who were involved in the destruction of his beloved hotel, Hess flatly refused to sell his last plot of land to the city and sought to seize it through the courts, resisting the effort.

Hayes was so adamant about this that he ordered his estate to continue in possession of the city after his death, and his attorneys spent thousands of dollars trying to maintain control of the land, now colloquially known as the Hess Triangle. Having successfully defended the case in court, the Hesse estate decided to further harass the city by placing a plaque on it:

"Hesse property has not been appropriated for public purposes."

5. Spongebob’s opening theme was written just to annoy parents

The opening of Spongebob Squarepants is a real assault on the senses. It's loud, it's obnoxious, and the words are so catchy that running your fingers over someone with smallpox reveals them in Morse code. It turns out that something was the intention of the show's creators.

Obviously, the idea was to make the opening of Spongebob Squarepants too disturbing for kids to ignore, and everything was specifically designed to make kids want to hop around like a bunch of donkeys. Why? Well, the show originally aired in the morning, and the creators wanted any child watching it to be so busy and excited that they would scream and scream enough to wake their parents.