Reviewing Useless Life Hacks From The Internet

Lots of life hacks from the internet aren't that useful. Let's take a look at some life hacks and find out why they are pointless.

June 1, 2023・

9 min read

The internet has become flooded with so-called life hacks. These are tricks and tips that help you cut corners and save time on a daily basis. But as more and more helpful life hacks surface across the web, so do the really unnecessary ones. So, let’s try out some of the most pointless life hacks, and review them.

Phone Jack Cleaner

One video from CELIMA teaches how to make a budget phone-port cleaner with nothing more than cotton wool, hot glue, and a thumbtack. Shoving a homemade stick into your phone made from three things you never want anywhere near expensive technology seems like a foolproof plan, right?

Well, I tested it. As you can see in the footage below, the hot glue sticks to the cotton well, but the cotton quickly starts to shred. So, as you’re jamming your glorified Q-tip into vital ports and jacks, the fluff starts to get stuck in them.

This defeats the entire purpose of its creation, not to mention that it actually jams stuff further into the ports instead of getting it out. Verdict? Pointless.

Fresh Orange Juice Hack

Ever thought that buying a bottle of orange juice was a waste of time and money? CELIMA might have just come up with another bizarre life hack for you. Instead of splitting the orange and juicing it like a normal person, why not hot glue a bottle lid onto the top of an orange, roll the orange around a bit and pour out the liquid to produce a minuscule amount of juice?

Naturally, I wanted to see just how fruitful this life hack really is. First, start off by emptying your perfectly good bottle of orange juice. After carving the top off the bottle, hot glueing it intensively to an orange, and rolling it around, you can see there is a little bit of juice ready for pouring.

Emphasis on the little. I barely got a drop out of this hack! Oranges may contain Vitamin C, but I really didn’t C much of a result from this endeavor. Verdict? Pointless.

Master Key Card

A life of crime isn’t easy, but another life hack from CELIMA may have found a way to get past all those pesky locks in your life. Simply cut an unmeasured rectangle out of an old plastic card, slide it down the lock of any door, and open it with ease.

To start, I cut out a rectangle from an old rewards card, and used it to try and open doors in my house. On a locked door, it stood no chance because it was way too flimsy. But when I unlocked the door and tried again, I managed to break the card. However, it did open the latch.

All in all, it would have made more sense to just use the handle. Verdict? Pointless.

Balloon Phone Case

One of the simplest life hacks ever to grace the internet is the ‘balloon phone case’. Just place your phone on a deflating balloon, and you'll have a phone case that looks as strange as it is ineffective.

So, let’s see if this really is the hassle-free solution to the eternal ‘I can’t find a phone case’ problem. I followed the method and it was pretty successful, or so it would seem. If by successful you mean unable to use the camera, or any charging and headphone ports you may need on a daily basis.

No matter, you can just cut a hole to get to them, except that then splits the phone case. That’s this life hack deflated! Verdict? Pointless.

Shoebox Projector

Projectors are expensive pieces of equipment, so a life hack that shows you how to make one with nothing but hot glue, a shoebox, a cheap magnifying lens and your phone should be an obvious trap. But I tried it out anyway! Using a cardboard box, I cut out a hole for a magnifying lens and hot-glued it into place. Then I balanced my phone inside.

To the surprise of nobody, the magnifying glass-cardboard box projector didn’t project anything. Modern projectors require a really powerful bulb, highly technical prisms and reflective panels to get a far-throwing projection. So, this hack isn’t just unnecessary, it’s a blatant lie! Verdict? Pointless.

Flip Flop Wet Wipes

Why carry wet wipes around in your bag or pocket like a chump when you could put them on your feet? According to this next life hack, you can just replace the top of a sandal with a packet of wipes with nothing more than hot glue.

This seemed ridiculous enough to try and make myself. After removing the straps from my incredible fetching Frozen sandals, I then took two packets of wipes and began hot glueing them to the sides of each sandal. However, standard packets hold way too many wipes to make any kind of arch for the feet.

I asked someone with significantly smaller feet than me to try them on, but as you can see, they just ended up breaking. This has left me with an unwearable mess of an otherwise amazing sandal. Verdict? Pointless.

Pizza With Hairdryer And Hot Iron

Ever bought a frozen pizza knowing you have no way to cook it? Such a classic dilemma and to solve a pointless problem, you need a pointless life hack! According to the internet, by placing several heavy blocks into a plastic tub and using them to balance a hot iron upside down, you can make a pizza-specific hot plate. Not cooking fast enough? Just use a hairdryer!

I decided to test this non-existent problem-solving hack out. Firstly, why do you need a whole plastic tub? You can balance your iron upside down easily by placing a heavy object on either side, and putting the whole set up on a heat-resistant surface. Then you cover your iron in foil, apply the pizza and get out your hairdryers. This is guaranteed to send your toppings flying.

After about 12 minutes, when a frozen pizza in an oven would usually be done, you can't expect more than a soggy pizza. There’s just not enough heat to cook this thing through. Maybe it would work better if you applied a second iron on top, but what kind of person has two irons and no oven? Verdict: Pointless.

Popping Popcorn With A Flat Iron

Don’t you just love popcorn? According to this next hack, all you need to make it is raw corn kernels and a flat iron. This is great if you have time to kill and don’t mind spending a while popping each individual kernel. Unless you just pop one kernel before putting it into a bowl of the store-bought variety. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, so I decided to try this one out.

I heated up a flat iron to its maximum temperature and placed a kernel on it. What they don’t show you is how fiddly getting the kernels onto the plate is. With even the slightest pressure these things ping off in every direction!

After finally being able to get one on, I held it down and waited. And waited. And waited. 5 minutes on, and I was no closer to getting my snack. What this leaves you with is an afternoon of wasted effort and a bunch of burnt kernels. Verdict? Pointless.

Power Drill Brush Cleaner

Has cleaning the insides of things like disposable coffee cups and jars full of water ever posed a serious problem for you? According to ViralNova365 you can build yourself a power drill cleaning tool specifically for this purpose!

Simply burn a hole through two plastic bottle lids, attach a drill-compatible screw, and hot glue them down along with 4 toothbrush heads to create your own drill brush! Seems dumb enough, so let’s give it a whirl!

You need a drill with an open tip so that you can use any screw to make this. I didn’t have one of these. But like most life hacks I showed, with enough hot glue, you can fix anything. After forming the base, I destroyed a perfectly good set of toothbrushes and fired up the glue gun again. The last step is attaching the drill piece.

After trying it, I found out that it can't clean my dirty mug but it does a good job of spreading the dirt around, as it can only reach the sides of the mug and not the bottom.

I imagine this would be more effective with water and soap, but I’m not risking an electric shock for a life hack! Verdict? Pointless.

Robotic Arm From Cardboard

Have you ever needed an extra hand? Yuri Ostr showed the world his genius life hack by building a robotic arm made from cardboard, straws and string. In a seemingly simple breakdown, he shows us all you need to do is cut out a rough map of your own hand and base for a handle, cut up and hot glue some pieces of straw.

Then, you need to run each straw through with string secured by a piece of popsicle stick. Finally, you wrap the strings around your fingers, strap them in your arm and voila! But what can it actually be used for?

To find out, I made one myself. The video may make it look easy, but this took me well over two hours to make. The whole process was fiddly and trying to tie knots one-handed around my fingers was almost impossible, meaning I couldn’t get the strength needed to pull the cardboard fingers down.

One wrong move and the entire thing started to fall apart. As for picking up items, anything lighter than a feather ripped the weakest parts of the cardboard rendering the whole thing useless. The only use I can think of for this is germaphobes trying to get around a handshake. Verdict? Pointless.

Watermelon Chicken

This is a life hack that you can really take a bite of; the infamous watermelon chicken. According to this life hack, you just get a chicken, put way too much glaze on it, then cut through two sides of a watermelon and scoop it out. After that, simply put the chicken in and ‘cook for two hours’; no oven temperature included.

The reasoning for this weird abomination is never mentioned. Is it to make your chicken taste like watermelon? My first problem was the bird-to-melon ratio. I could not find a bird small enough, nor a melon large enough, to comfortably fit one inside the other. So, after using enough glaze to smother this chicken, I crushed it in as best I could and sealed it up with foil.

With no temperature mentioned, I took a gamble and preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit then cooked this melon-strosity for 2 hours. To my horror and joy, it came out well-cooked! But the apocalyptic amount of glaze meant that I barely got a hint of watermelon. That kind of defeats the entire point of this hack. Verdict? Pointless.

So as you can see, most life hack videos you see on the internet are pointless. I hope you don't make the mistake of trying them out. Thanks for reading!