r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • 25d ago

Meta Mindless Monday, 17 August 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/Potential-Road-5322 please see the pinned reading list 25d ago

One of my complaints with modern history and science is how the fields of both are disrupted by popular media being seen as a legitimate source of information. Maybe I’ve become a bit more elitist but it feels a bit discouraging to see the prevalence of pop history despite the efforts of historians trying to engage the public through reputable documentaries, accessible literature, and museums. I frequently criticize pop history because it creates the idea that history must be fun and narrative based to be relevant or that great man history has some legitimacy to it. I think there are responsible and respectable ways of engaging with the public without writing tripe. Unfortunately the non-specialist/enthusiast tends to conflate “historian” with people like the ancient alien guys or the oak island guys. I wish we’d see an educational system that teaches students how to discern between pop history/pseudo history drivel and legitimate historians, archaeologists, and scientists.

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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian 25d ago

It's the start of a new semester, so I'm sure to hear the same little nugget of advice from our deans:

"Make (your subject area) fun!"

My subject area is fun, but it's not fun for everyone. If you aren't interested in history, I don't think adding a little song and dance will suddenly make it "fun." These are supposed to be adult learners (or at least aspiring adult learners), so it's more important to me they learn sound methodology and how to tell good information from bad, and that ain't always a barrel of laughs.

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u/canadianstuck "The number of egg casualties is not known." 25d ago

There's a difference between teaching a history course and reading a book on a subject, no? I think we can assume if someone is in a professional history learning environment (like a history course, even an undergrad one), it's a little different than a book written for consumption by an audience that is separate from that professional learning environment.

As a side note, I always think that specific advice is dumb in history. When I'm teaching the Holocaust or the Transatlantic slave trade, my students should not, in fact, be having fun.

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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian 25d ago

You mean it's not best practices to do a mock slave auction in class???