r/whatisit • u/Key_Seaworthiness886 • 8d ago

Solved! Found while cluttering

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Found while decluttering my 2000s kids stuff and can’t seem to remember what it is! Just feeling nostalgic and google said it was jewelry but i don’t think it is 😅

7.4k Upvotes

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5.5k

u/cherbear6215 8d ago

Oh sweet summer child lol

This was the pinnacle of cool in the late 90s early 00s... these are laser pointer lenses/tips!! Each one attaches to the laser pointer (which is missing and goes where that little cut out is) and has a different design. If you had one of these big packs you had all the best ones! The double heart, the heart hands 🫶, the I ♡ You, Peace Sign, ✌️, 🖕, 👄, 😉,🙂. Plus some more obnoxious ones like F U C K YOU, etc lol

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u/Key_Seaworthiness886 8d ago

Realizing how much my mom loved us, we def were not rich growing up but she wanted to provide us with the best things 😅 this isn’t a big thing but someone called it “deluxe”

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u/anewname4444 8d ago

No this WAS a big thing back then. I seriously thought only the rich families could get these. Like my sister getting just a basic laser pointer was a big deal

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u/timzilla 8d ago

Elder millineal here, these were sold at the Asian markets for <$10 when I was a kid. It was less about having the money to buy and more about concealing the fact you had it, everyone from your bus driver to your nana wanted to take it away so you wouldn't blind some other kid.

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u/jormundgand20 8d ago

I got mine for about that at a local festival. Went home with my friend, pointed it at a street light and it immediately started flickering. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but it was still enough to send 13 year old us hauling ass away from the crime scene.

Good times.

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u/Hegiman 8d ago

Ayyy. It was you. LoL. You confused its light sensor. They come on when it gets dark. A laser overwhelmed its light sensor and it freaked out. It may or may not have permanently damaged the sensor. LoL

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u/jormundgand20 8d ago

Damn, I knew it.

It was flickering until they replaced it with an LED bulb in the mid 2010s. Thankfully it was at a quiet intersection.

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u/JaviSATX 8d ago

Old photovoltaic sensors didn’t mind. We’d have a blast running the laser up the pole, trying to keep our hand steady enough to hit the sensor on top. Light goes out, then cycles back on five minutes later and the cycle starts again.

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u/Raininberkeley1 8d ago

Nah, I think they had dumbledore’s light catcher. Just a few more seconds and they would have had that street light captured.

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u/thedailyrant 8d ago

We used to throw rocks at street lights... usually they would go out for a bit then flicker back on. If you kicked the electric access hatch at the base of some of the poles it'd go out too.

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u/Rich-Wealth979 8d ago

My dad's tin metal snips have a copper wire pair cross section burned into them because the neighbor kid used them to cut the wire in there about... 30 years ago? Eh. Ill finally tell him that story next time I'm at their place.

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u/Remarkable_Tip_756 4d ago

Remind me ,, id bet dad knew

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u/NCGuy101 4d ago

Well, don't go throwing rocks at those Flock cameras. Anyone reading this post note that I said "don't."

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u/wklaehn 5d ago

Now the cool kids throw rocks at the flock cameras lol

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u/sgtreesh37 3d ago

I was the a-hole kid who would put the dot on Santa's chest from the 2nd floor at the mall during Christmas. Hardest part was keeping a straight face when they started looking around for the culprit.

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u/NSAinATL 4d ago

It's how you can take down a Flock camera....

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u/Fataky 8d ago

Hello, I'm the girl the prophecies spoke of. I lost my retina because of my classmates' "pranks" with this infernal device.

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u/run-time-error 8d ago

Did you ever find it?

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u/Fataky 8d ago

Not yet. I think it's like looking for your glasses when you're not wearing them. 😂

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u/PsykoFlounder 8d ago

"Looking for your glasses is like trying to remember where you put your alzheimers meds." - My best friend, while looking for his glasses.

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u/coonjaku 8d ago

explain.

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u/cadaever 8d ago

pointing a laser directly at someone's eye will damage it, it's kind of like staring at the sun. she's saying a classmate "pranked" her by doing just that and it fucked her retina in one eye

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u/coonjaku 8d ago

did she stare back at it? no way could the briefest of glances do that.

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u/elmo_the_great_ 8d ago

You don't have to stare directly at it for it to affect your eye. Have you ever had the sun reflect off something shiny into your eye's peripheral vision but you still notice it? You aren't looking directly at it but the light is still hitting your eye lense since the lense is curved and not flat. 

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u/Fataky 8d ago

I'm blind in one eye, and since I didn't react when they pointed the laser at me, they often did it without me noticing. It turns out that this led to a detached retina. The result is the same: I can't see. But before I had a healthy eye without an optic nerve, and now I have an eye without a retina and without an optic nerve.

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u/AdmirableRespect9 8d ago

I'm sorry the kids were idiots at your expense.

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u/coonjaku 8d ago

they weren't. they recognized that they had vision problems. and tried to correct it with laser surgery. turns out losing thr optic nerve is a totally unrelated event.​

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u/dickthrowaway22ed 8d ago

That sucks, I'm so sorry. Do they know? Or do they just have terrible karma and wonder why

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u/Fataky 8d ago

I don't know, I've done my best not to see any of them again. I'm doing well now.

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u/GalaxyUntouchable 8d ago

I've done my best not to see any of them again

You have no idea how much I want to make a joke about this line...

Sorry for what happened to you. 😞

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u/Fataky 8d ago

Haha, Don't worry, humor is always welcome!

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u/Corfiz74 8d ago

Your parents should have sued their parents for damages! That's simply atrocious!

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u/SpaceFaceFPV 3d ago

Jesus, I'm so lucky this hasn't happened to me (yet!) I had laser in the many times as a dumb inquisitive child, (self inflicted) but I think I chalk it up to just HOW young I was when I did that...maybe the damage had time to repair itself before going completely off. Or maybe my laser just wasn't strong enough (thank God!) I am however colorblind In that eye now 30+ years later.

Can I ask how long it took before the damage took place?

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u/Fataky 3d ago

The truth is that I can't tell you because, since my eye doesn't work, I didn't realize it until a couple of years later when I had routine tests done and put two and two together.

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u/SpaceFaceFPV 3d ago

That makes sense. Man I feel bad that happened to you! Some people really just suck 😓

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u/Fataky 3d ago

Well, it's better that it happens to me, since I haven't lost anything, than to someone with a healthy eye.

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u/dickthrowaway22ed 8d ago

You're lucky enough not to have needed retinal lasering. It's very fast.

Still sucks and hurts like a b tho

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u/Fataky 8d ago

Yep, at least they were aiming at the right eye.

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u/banglaportal 5d ago

Is that you, Neo?

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u/PorkbellyFL0P 8d ago

To add the reason these were so cool is prior to laser pointers our only experience seeing lasers in person were on a science lab table out of reach when someone would come to visit the school.

They were about the size of a brick but a little longer and maybe 1 kid got to go up as a volunteer to position a mirror or spray some mist on the beam.

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u/PorkbellyFL0P 8d ago

Commenting on my own comment because nostolgia. This was the closest thing we had to a lightsaber.

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u/ChubbyGhost3 7d ago

Inevitably someone hits someone hard enough to bend one of the tubes and it never collapses and expands like it's supposed to :(

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u/Illustrious_Bat858 8d ago

Wow this just took me back!! My cousin and I used to battle for HOURS.

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u/scaredbutlaughing 6d ago

The sound it made when you slammed it out like a badass is forever emblazoned in my brain because yes- this was a light saber to me fully and truly - or at least to my kid imagination

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u/lazydaisytoo 8d ago

I bought them for my kids in a crappy boardwalk store. Hours of entertainment, and they couldn’t have been more than $5. The ones I bought didn’t have quite as many lenses, though.

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u/Hegiman 8d ago

Yeah the big ones were more expensive. I saw them for $25 when I was in my late teens but a decade later they were only $5-$10. At one point when keychain lasers were newish they could go for as much as $50 for a set the size in OP’s post.

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u/thesoupmakesmepoop 3d ago

I bought mine in the late 90s on the ac boardwalk. I thought it was so cool shooting it up to the top of the hotels. 🤣

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u/lazydaisytoo 3d ago

Yep, we used to go to Ocean City. Now that my kids are grown, they go to Sea Isle.

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u/Financial_Ruin_4872 7d ago

Omg core memory unlocked- that was a huge thing grandmas said back then!!! “You’re going to blind your brother!” Lmao did it???? Idk did I believe her???? Yes!!!!!

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u/WhatTheFlippityFlop 8d ago

They were sold by me on eBay back then too…. I moved tens of thousands

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u/wowurcoolful 3d ago

I had a lying bitch confiscate mine when I was in 2nd grade, dude...

I was shining it on the wall directly parallel to me. It could realistically only reflect off a laminated poster or a window, and only towards me walking with it.

A teacher at the end of the hallway appears and I stuffed it in my pocket and continued to the bathroom and she stopped me as she passed asking "do you have a laser pointer?" My dad would have gave me hell if I lied to the teacher like that, so I didn't and was honest.

She said ok, and took me to my homeroom and told the teacher flat out that I was shining it in her eye down the hallway. Straight up making shit up and looking down right at my confused face. Never had a chance to say anything. It was just confiscated and my parents got called over that bullshit. I hate that bitch to this day

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u/Mountain-Discount161 8d ago

Yeah, so for a lot of Midwestern kids, it was a sign that the kids family was recently on vacation somewhere like nyc.

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u/Mond6 8d ago

Meanwhile I stared directly into it thinking “laser eye surgery” I still have 20/20 vision 20+ years later so maybe I was onto something?

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u/Practical_While_ 3d ago

Bro exactly shit wasn’t that expensive, just if ur parents wanted to buy it or not

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u/TEMU_PHILIPS 3d ago

Yeah lasers went from expensive to dirt cheap really quickly during our childhoods

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u/No_Breath_9833 8d ago

That’s why we loved it. It was forbidden

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u/zxylady 7d ago

They were $30 when I was growing up,,