• It’s pretty normal to be critical of your own work; finding small flaws that other
people might never notice. But what if your creation was world famous? And how about if
it became used in a way you never wanted? Here are 15 things people regret creating.
15 – Deadmau5 - W:/2016ALBUM/ • Deadmau5 has risen to the top of the North
American electronic music charts, partly thanks to his music but also from his open and honest
interaction with his fans. However, with his 2016 album called W:/2016ALBUM/, he took this
honesty to a whole new level. • When asked about it, these were his words
on twitter: • “i don't even like it. it was like...
so fucking rushed / slapped together. but i mean... hey, if you like it i wanna like
it too, just dont.” • So why did he make it?
• That’s why
14 – McAfee - antvirus • Many of you will recognise the McAfee
logo and you probably had it hiding in the bottom right corner of your screen at some
point. • It’s creator, John McAfee, came to hate
it so much that he created his own video explaining how to uninstall it. He actually resigned
from the company way back in 1994, so a lot of his hatred came from what they did to the
software while it still bore his name. • When Intel, who now own the software,
dropped his name in 2014, he said he was, quote, “eternally grateful”.
13 - Ethan Zuckerman – pop up ads • Advertising is the driving force behind
a lot of technology online. It’s revenue funds many of the giant tech companies but,
for us the users, it’s always been a source of irritation, even if it does mean we get
a lot of content for free. • The pop up ad has to be the most hated
of all though and their Ethan Zuckerman has sincerely apologised for their existence.
• Some of his clients had complained that their ads appeared next to sexual content
so all he wanted to do was separate the ad from the content. But it’s too late for
apologies Zuckerman, you ruined the internet. 12 - David Fincher – Alien 3
• The first 3 Alien movies each have a different director and it’s quite a list; Ridley Scott,
James Cameron and David Fincher. While the first two had made a film or two before, Alien
3 was Fincher’s debut, having spent the 80s making music videos.
• He took the franchise into a very bleak direction and the end product was unpopular
with fans and critics. But it was unpopular with Fincher too who said studio meddling
ruined the movie and has disowned it, wishing it had burnt up with Ripley in the furnace.
11 - Bob Propst – open office • When Bob Propst designed Action Office,
a series of modern office furniture, he was just trying to improve the lives and productivity
of your average office worker by giving them a flexible space, rather than fixed walls.
This led to the open offices, with people packed into tiny cubicles, which is never
what Bob wanted. He’s described the modern office as “monolithic insanity”.
10 – Robert Pattison – Twilight • Robert Pattison is not alone in hating
the Twilight saga, it’s just a shame that he happens to be in them. When talking about
the original books in an on-camera interview, he said it was like reading a book that wasn’t
meant to be published. • And this was far from a one-off, he’s
regularly criticised his and Bella’s character. To sum it up, he said that the most rewarding
person he worked with for the whole movie were his face packs.
9 – A.A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh • Winnie the Pooh is loved all over the
world but there are three people who were not it’s biggest fans; writer A A Milne,
artist E.H. Shepard and Milne’s real life son; Christopher Robin.
• Milne produced a wide range of writings, from plays to non-fiction and articles in
the classic British satire magazine Punch. But for him and Shepard, Winnie the Pooh may
have been a massive success but it seriously pigeonholed them and they found it impossible
to break away from it. Christopher Robin also resented being associated with a fictional
version of himself for the rest of his life. 8 – Franz Kafka – Metamorphosis
• Franz Kafka had an enormous influence on literature and “Kafkaesque” is commonly
used to describe stories and situations where we are stuck in a nightmare of bureaucracy.
• But the Czech author burnt almost 90% of his work in his lifetime and asked a friend
to do the same to anything left after he died. • Even the work that did escape the flames,
such as The Metamorphosis, was criticised by Kafka afterwards.
7 – Radiohead – Creep • For some bands, no matter how big they
become, no matter how many hits they have, there’s always that one song that follows
them around forever. For British experimental rock band Radiohead, that song was Creep,
their first ever single in 1992. • Despite the fact that they are now one
of the biggest, most influential bands in the world, who blurred genres, inspired a
whole generation of musicians with their mixture of analogue and electronic, it’s still Creep
that people shout for. They stopped playing it entirely from 2009 to 2016.
6 – Monet – Water landscapes • In his lifetime, Claude Monet was not
well thought of in the art world, who thought of his impressionist painting as messy. It
was only 20 years after his death, when people realised his influence.
• Sadly, partly due to the constant criticism and partly due to his failing vison, Monet
destroyed a lot of his own paintings later in life because he was dissatisfied with them.
5 - Einstein – The bomb • Albert Einstein may have shaped our understanding
of the entire universe but he also helped create mankind’s most dangerous weapon;
the atomic bomb. The great man must have known what he was making though, right? Yes, he
did, but his motivation was that he believed that if Nazi Germany created one before the
Allies, it would be a disaster. However, the Nazis were unsuccessful and Einstein later
said that if he’d known they would fail, he never would have lifted a finger to help
the allies with their bomb. 4 – Anna Jarvis – Mother’s Day
• Mother’s day existed in some form in the 19th century but it was about mothers
promoting peace. Anna Jarvis claimed to have created the day that’s now famous around
the world, where kids celebrate their awesome mums.
• However, Anna Jarvis was disgusted with how quickly the day became a commercialised
holiday, with card companies, florists and restaurants all trying to make money off it.
3 - Tony Fadell (ex Vice President of Apple – Screens (for kids)
• Tony Fadell was vice president at Apple and helped create some of its most famous
products. But now, after having left the company, he’s saddened when he sees kids are so hooked
on screen and that they get a kind of withdrawl when you take them away. He wonders if he
didn’t help promote something that might damage children in the long term.
• So, for any kids watching, Tony is very sorry he made you a screen junkie.
2 - Geoff Goodman – Genji’s double jump in Overwatch
• When designing a video game with multiple playable characters, the key is in getting
the balance right. If you’re big and strong, you’re normally slow. If you’re good with
a sniper rifle, you’re probably not going to be much use with a sword.
• In Overwatch, Genji’s double jump gives him a real ninja-like quality but designer
Geoff Goodman said it made him impossible to turn into a balanced character and they
regret giving him the skill. 1 - Arthur Galston – Agent Orange
• When Arthur Galston was experimenting with plant biology in 1940, he found a chemical
that could make soybeans flower more rapidly but, if too much was used, it made the plant
shed all it’s leaves. • This, much to Galston’s disgust, led
to the development of Agent Orange. It was used a lot in the Vietnam war, sprayed from
planes and helicopters so that the leaves would fall off the trees and destroy enemy
cover.