Everyday habits that were invented for illogical reasons
The 10,000 daily steps goal promoted by fitness trackers and health apps as the gold standard for physical activity didn’t emerge from rigorous scientific research on optimal human movement, but rather from a 1960s Japanese marketing campaign for a pedometer. The device was named “Manpo-kei,” literally translating to “10,000 steps meter,” with the number selected primarily because the Japanese character for 10,000 resembles a person walking. This arbitrary marketing decision became a global health standard, despite having no initial scientific foundation to support that specific number over any other daily step count.
Many ingrained daily habits, traditions, and standard practices exist not because of brilliant design or sound logic, but because of historical accidents, superstitions, marketing stunts, or simple foolishness that became normalized through repetition. The origins of these practices reveal how easily arbitrary decisions, commercial interests, and irrational beliefs can calcify into unquestioned social norms. Understanding these origins exposes the often absurd foundations beneath behaviors we perform automatically without considering their actual utility or validity.
This examination of the silly, strange, and sometimes tragic beginnings of everyday habits reveals how tradition, marketing, and superstition shape behavior more powerfully than logic or evidence.
Image Credit: Deposit Photos.
Throwing salt over your shoulder
The practice of throwing salt over your left shoulder after spilling it stems from ancient beliefs that spilled salt represented bad omens because salt was once an extremely valuable commodity used for food preservation and trade. The superstition held that the Devil lurked over people’s left shoulders, and spilled salt invited his malevolent attention or represented wasted wealth that angered protective spirits—the salt toss aimed to ward off or blind these evil spirits through a desperate defensive gesture.
The ritual persists despite its complete disconnection from any real consequences of spilled salt, demonstrating how superstitious practices can survive centuries after the beliefs that gave rise to them have been abandoned. Modern people who throw salt over their shoulders often do so automatically or jokingly without believing in a literal demonic presence, yet the gesture persists as a cultural reflex. The behavior represents pure superstition codified into habit through generational transmission of irrational fears.
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Knocking on wood
The phrase “knock on wood” or “touch wood” and the accompanying physical gesture likely originated from ancient pagan beliefs that spirits, both benevolent and malevolent, were believed to reside in trees. Knocking on wood supposedly allowed people to appeal to protective tree spirits or prevent evil ones from hearing boastful statements and cursing the person making them. The practice may also relate to touching wooden crucifixes as part of Christian prayer rituals, although the pagan origins seem more probable, given the gesture’s widespread cross-cultural presence.
The ritual persists as a reflexive response to statements about good fortune or health, with people automatically seeking wooden surfaces to knock on after tempting fate through optimistic declarations. The gesture serves no practical purpose beyond providing psychological comfort through the performance of a familiar ritual. The continuation of this obviously superstitious practice demonstrates how deeply ingrained irrational behaviors can become when they offer emotional reassurance, even in the absence of any logical basis.
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Walking under ladders
The superstition that walking under ladders brings bad luck has Christian origins in the symbolism of a ladder leaning against a wall forming a triangular shape. This triangle represented the Holy Trinity in Christian iconography, and walking through it was interpreted as “breaking” the Trinity, which constituted sacrilege that would invite divine punishment. The superstition served to reinforce religious authority by attaching supernatural consequences to violating symbolic representations of doctrine.
The practical wisdom of avoiding walking under ladders for safety reasons emerged after the superstition, rather than inspiring it, meaning the habit originated from religious symbolism rather than rational risk assessment. Modern people who avoid passing under ladders often justify it through safety concerns about falling objects or workers, but this represents a post-hoc rationalization of behavior rooted in medieval religious symbolism. The persistence of superstition despite secularization demonstrates how religious taboos can survive as cultural habits long after their theological foundations have lost authority.
Image Credit: Jelena Stanojkovic/istockphoto.
The 10,000 steps target
The scientific validity of the 10,000 steps goal, which dominates fitness tracking and health recommendations, emerged after its adoption rather than before, as researchers only later studied whether this specific target provided health benefits compared to other activity levels. Initial studies found that sedentary individuals experienced health improvements from increased walking, regardless of reaching 10,000 steps, with benefits appearing at much lower thresholds, around 4,000-7,000 steps. The marketing appeal of the round number, rather than physiological optimization, drove its selection and subsequent cultural dominance.
Recent research suggests that the optimal step count varies significantly based on age, fitness level, and health status, with some populations showing maximum benefits at lower thresholds around 7,500 steps. The fixation on 10,000 as a universal target overlooks individual variation. It creates arbitrary standards that may discourage people who struggle to reach that number, despite deriving significant health benefits from more modest increases. The goal’s origin in marketing rather than medicine reveals how commercial considerations can establish health standards that become unquestioned despite their arbitrary foundations.
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Two-minute tooth brushing
The universal two-minute toothbrushing recommendation represents a reasonable guideline, but it emerged partly from toothpaste and electric toothbrush marketing campaigns rather than purely from dental health research. Electric toothbrush manufacturers built two-minute timers into their products, creating a standard that implied shorter brushing times were inadequate, regardless of individual dental health or technique quality. The specific duration lacks a strong biological necessity for everyone, as brushing effectiveness depends more on technique, coverage, and consistency than exact duration.
Dental professionals generally support the two-minute guideline as a practical minimum that ensures reasonably thorough cleaning, but this represents a simplified standard for public health messaging rather than a hard-and-fast requirement based on individual dental needs. Some people with excellent technique and healthy teeth may achieve adequate cleaning in less time, while others with specific issues may need longer. The rigid two-minute standard’s commercial origins demonstrate how marketing can establish health practices that become codified through professional recommendations despite their arbitrary specificity.
Lysol
Lysol as a feminine hygiene product
Lysol disinfectant was aggressively marketed to women in the early 20th century as a vaginal douche for “feminine hygiene,” which served as euphemistic marketing for contraception during an era when birth control information was restricted by law. The advertisements preyed on women’s fears about marital satisfaction and feminine adequacy, suggesting that failure to use Lysol would lead to husbands’ infidelity and marital breakdown. The product was promoted despite being a toxic, corrosive substance that caused chemical burns, infections, and even deaths among women who used it as directed.
The campaign represented a catastrophic failure of both medical ethics and regulatory oversight, as manufacturers knowingly marketed a dangerous household cleaning product for internal use in women’s bodies without adequate safety testing. The practice continued for decades because legal restrictions on contraception information created a market for products marketed through innuendo rather than explicit claims that would trigger regulatory action. This horrifying chapter in marketing history demonstrates how commercial interests can promote genuinely dangerous practices when regulatory protections are inadequate and when societal taboos prevent open discussion of health issues.
DepositPhotos
Diamond engagement rings
The tradition of diamond engagement rings as essential symbols of commitment emerged primarily from a sustained De Beers marketing campaign beginning in the 1930s, which successfully associated diamonds with eternal love and established spending expectations based on a month’s salary. Before this campaign, engagement rings featured various gemstones, and diamonds were not considered particularly special or necessary for engagement customs. The company’s “A Diamond is Forever” slogan and strategic celebrity partnerships created artificial demand for diamonds by making them seem essential to proper engagement protocol.
The suggestion that men should spend two or three months’ salary on engagement rings has no cultural, religious, or practical basis beyond marketing recommendations aimed at maximizing diamond sales. This arbitrary spending standard has caused significant financial strain for couples and created expectations that equate love’s value with monetary expenditure on a commodity whose price is artificially inflated due to supply restrictions. The success of this marketing campaign in establishing a “tradition” that didn’t exist before the 20th century demonstrates how commercial interests can manufacture cultural practices that people come to view as timeless customs.
Image Credit: yacobchuk / istockphoto.
Conclusion
Simple errors, superstitions, and marketing campaigns can calcify into permanent cultural fixtures because habits, even illogical ones, offer psychological comfort, social connection, and a sense of order that makes them highly resistant to change, regardless of their invalid foundations. The performance of familiar rituals provides emotional reassurance even when people intellectually recognize their lack of efficacy. Social conformity pressures maintain practices because deviating from established norms requires justification and risks social judgment.
Traditional behaviors persist partly because questioning them feels like attacking cultural identity or rejecting ancestral wisdom, even when those traditions originated from commercial manipulation or irrational fears. The sunk cost fallacy applies to artistic practices, as societies continue to invest in habits simply because they’ve already invested significant time and resources in maintaining them. The psychological and social functions that irrational habits serve often outweigh their logical deficiencies, making evidence-based arguments for abandoning them ineffective against emotional and cultural attachments.
Examining your own daily routines reveals how many are based on arbitrary standards, commercial messaging, or historical accidents rather than sound reasoning or personal preference. The question worth asking is whether habits serve genuine purposes or simply persist through unthinking repetition of culturally transmitted behaviors. Explore our other cultural analysis articles here at MediaFeed to discover additional insights into how traditions, marketing, and historical events shape contemporary behavior in ways we rarely question or examine critically.
Related:
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- Home security myths debunked: what doesn’t actually deter burglars
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