15 IRL Things With Outsized Influence

There are lots of things we look at or hear about and never give a second thought to. It turns out if we did, though, we might learn about the actual people, organizations, and even animals that impact the world in huge and mind-blowing ways.

 We bet you didn’t know what the letters ‘YKK’ stand for on your zipper.  Don’t feel bad, neither did we.  That’s not even getting into the horrific death toll and mass extinction that’s been caused by one of the most common pets in America.

Here’s the thing, there’s a lot of wild stuff happening right under all of our noses. We’re not proud to say we didn’t know about it, but we sure were pumped to learn about these absolutely wild factoids. So come along for the ride!

We asked our readers to bring together the ones that affect us the most. The winner is below, but first the runners-up...