45 Times That Reality Crushed Expectations In Hilarious Ways!

If you’ve ever ordered anything online, you know that sometimes the items we buy just aren’t a good fit, or look nothing like what we ordered. This happens to the best of us. For instance, sometimes you ask for a specific haircut, but the hairdresser gives you something completely different. The good news is that, if something like this has ever happened to you, you can rest assured that you’re not alone. Most of us have had our expectations crushed by reality, and all we can do about it now is laugh! In case you are in need of having a good laugh, and trying to feel better about yourself, we’ve compiled a list of 45 times that reality crushed expectation in the most hilarious ways possible! 

Don’t always trust what you see!

Buying things online can be quite tricky, especially when it comes to buying clothes and other fabric items. It’s kind of hard to tell whether the piece of clothing will fit, and the same thing happens when you’re looking into buying bed linens.

This person was browsing blankets on the internet when she came across one that looked incredibly comfy. A couple of days after she bought the product, it arrived—and it was not even close to what she expected! Instead of fitting her entire bed, the blanket was so tiny it could barely cover her feet, let alone her bed!

What even is that?

Buying a nice blanket should be pretty simple, right? Well, it seems to be trickier than one would have imagined. This next person ordered a beautiful knitted blanket to keep them warm on cold days, but they received something completely different. 

They expected a beautiful quilt, but the reality of the product they received was far from what they imagined! It’s hard for us to even describe what in the world that thing is! It looks like someone forgot to actually knit the blanket before shipping it — maybe it’s a DIY quilt! Yeah, not really.

How am I supposed to sit on this chair?

If you have a deck, or if you always have friends over, you know that there are never enough chairs at home. So, imagine that you’re browsing the web and you find a nice chair that is on sale, and can be put outside. Your first reaction is to buy that chair immediately, right?

The sad news is that, in reality, the chair you’ve bought is nothing like the one that was advertised. Sounds pretty sad, right? Well, that’s precisely what happened to this person. She bought a plastic chair that seemed perfect, but when it arrived at her house, it wasn’t a regular chair — it was a miniature chair!

What kind of alien is this?

When we have kids at home, we can’t help wanting to buy them gifts. If we see something fun and child-friendly in a store, we immediately want to purchase it, and bring it to our kids. However, sometimes things don’t go our way!

This woman, for instance, bought these cool-looking Alien balloons for her kids. When she got home, she tried to blow up the balloon and was surprised to see the final result. Instead of having a defined Alien shape, the balloon looked just like a regular balloon with tiny eyes! Well, at least it looks cute, right?

Didn’t they have a bigger mask?

Dedicating time to a skincare routine and buying skincare products has become insanely popular over the past few years. If you’re into skincare, you must have at least considered starting a routine at some point. We have a tip for everyone who’s about to buy skincare products: check if the size is right!

This woman, for instance, didn’t check if she was buying a face mask that would actually fit her face. Instead, what she got was a miniature mask that didn’t even fit her forehead! Maybe she bought a face mask for dolls — and that’s why you need to double-check face mask dimensions before buying one!

Minimalist nail art?

If you’re the type of woman who enjoys taking care of your nails, then you probably know how hard it can be to find a good nail salon, or even a nail artist that knows what they’re doing. Sometimes we expect to get really nice nails, but the final result is far from that.

See what we mean? This girl wanted to get this snake design on her nails and, considering how simple it looks in comparison to other nail designs, she expected to get good results. Unfortunately, her “expectation vs. reality” moment came too soon — it just looks like a mistake that the nail artist did when her hand wavered!

Does that haircut look familiar to you?

When we’re feeling bored, we tend to do stupid things to our hair. Some people cut their hair, others dye it a different color. Some guys get haircuts that don’t suit them. Check out this next picture for an example.

Do you feel like you’ve seen that haircut somewhere before? If you watched the comedy movie Dumb and Dumber, that’s where you know this haircut from. He expected to look cool, but ended up looking like Lloyd from the movie!

What is that supposed to look like?

Back again on the topic of face masks. It’s not unusual to see masks with different prints on them. Some people consider traditional face masks to be plain and simple, so they want to buy cute masks. However, sometimes things go horribly wrong.

Instead of looking like a cute bunny face, this mask looks awful and nothing like a bunny at all. Actually, if you look at this mask for a minute straight, you’ll start to get scared by how creepy it looks in reality!

Is that really ombré hair?

Just like nail artists can’t always get the design correctly, hairdressers don’t always know how to do a certain style. And it’s okay — nobody needs to be good at everything, after all. However, things can sometimes go so wrong that you can’t help but feel horribly disappointed!

For instance, imagine you wanted to get that ombré hair in the left picture. You ask your hairdresser to do it, and you have great expectations about the result. And then, when they’re finished, the actual result is the one pictured on the right.

I look…cute?

As adults, we usually want to purchase clothing items that will make us look classy. Sometimes, we may even raise the bar and try to look elegant, but still cute — and maybe this is something that the woman in the next picture was trying to do.

The fur coat on the left looks absolutely stunning, doesn’t it? In spite of the cat ears, wearing this stylish coat on a cold day would certainly make you look classy, while showing that you also have a sense of humor. But that’s only what we would expect, not what the woman on the right got!

Poor doggo!

Who said that getting bad haircuts is exclusive to humans? That’s not true at all! In fact, house pets seem to get bad fur-cuts almost as often as we do. It isn’t even their fault — animals don’t ask to get a haircut, after all. Or at least, this next dog certainly didn’t!

Just like humans show pictures of nice haircuts to their hairdressers, pet owners also show pictures of nicely-trimmed dogs at the groomer in hopes of getting their own dogs to look as good as the one in the picture. Well, it seems that didn’t happen with this adorable dog! Luckily, his fur will grow back on in no time!

A dog mohawk?

Mohawks and related hairstyles are usually associated with rockers and punk people, right? Well, maybe this next dog is a rocker, or maybe his owner wanted him to look cool. Or, maybe his hairdresser just didn’t get the fur-style correct!

Looking at this picture, it’s kind of hard to tell how in the world this happened. We guess the owner wasn’t there watching over his dog, and thus couldn’t prevent the groomer from doing this sort of mohawk on his dog. Reality certainly did its job at crushing this poor dog’s expectations here!

What’s up with these customized masks?

Remember that bunny exfoliating mask we showed you earlier? Well, we did mention that there are different face mask styles available on the market nowadays, and this next picture is just proof of that. It’s proof that you can find pretty much any face mask, and that reality sometimes has no mercy on our expectations!

Does this mask look creepy or does it look creepy? We don’t know if this mask is any good for the skin, but we do have a tip on how this woman can use it. If she buys one of those around Halloween, it could be a great costume to scare the kids!

Did you get a flying carpet as well?

Buying clothes on the internet is proof that we all have a lot of trust. You may be making the purchase of your life, and end up looking great in your new outfit. But you can also be spending your money on something awful, just like this next woman.

Technically, those loose pants were supposed to look good while being comfy, and that’s precisely what this woman expected when she bought them. However, when the pants arrived, the woman noticed that the pants were only comfy, and not cute. Personally, we think she looks like Aladdin—we wonder if the flying carpet came with the pants!

Sir, that is not what I asked for!

Have you ever heard of balayage before? We know that the name may sound weird but it’s actually quite a popular hairstyling technique. Many women prefer this technique for many reasons, including that it makes the chosen hair actually look natural.

Well, obviously that’s not what this girl got. She expected the result on the left, ended up receiving the result on the right. While her hair doesn’t look nearly as bad as the other red ombré hair we showed previously, it still looks quite different from the inspiration picture.

What in the world is this haircut?

Undercuts have been a huge thing for a while now. Well, it’s no surprise that this hairstyle is incredibly popular — it looks cool and makes people feel cool, whether we like to admit it or not. However, not all hairdressers know how to do this hairstyle.

See what we mean? The picture on the right looks nothing like the picture on the left — and it should be enough of a reason for you to make sure that your hairdresser knows how to do an undercut.

Cosplaying Cruella!

If you’ve been keeping up with movie releases, you know that Disney just released a live-action movie about Cruella. And exfoliating mask makers couldn’t help creating moisturizing masks with Cruella’s face on them. The thing is: we’ve already seen that customized face masks don’t always work!

Remember that “bunny” face mask? And the other one that was supposed to look like Ariel? Well, just those two other masks, this one doesn’t look like Cruella at all. It actually looks like the face of some creepy demon one would see in a horror movie, doesn’t it?

We wonder if she’s having a boy or a girl?

If you have a child, or if you know someone who has a child, you’ve probably heard of gender reveal parties. If you don’t know what they are, they’re exactly what the name suggests: parties that parents throw to reveal their baby’s gender.

If you don’t get the joke behind this picture, we’ll explain it to you: the whole point of throwing a gender-reveal party is that parents create a lot of suspense before revealing if they’re having a boy or a girl. Having a blue cake on display certainly messes the whole thing up, right?

Is that Gollum?

When we date someone, we do lots of things to make them happy. One of those things is buying them a custom-made cake on their birthday. This is a great way of showing that we care, and that we know they like. This girl, for instance, bought her boyfriend a cake, but it didn’t live up to their expectations!

First of all, let’s get started on the color palette, which is nothing alike. Secondly, the cake they wanted was obviously minimalistic, but the cake they got was quite sophisticated. Lastly, let’s talk about that frog — doesn’t it look like Gollum, from the Lord of the Rings franchise?

Well, that’s more like it.

Badges are a great example of “love it or hate it.” You either love adding badges to your jackets, or you don’t. If you’re into styling your clothes with fun and quirky badges, you probably would love this next badge — if only it looked exactly as it was advertised!

Instead of saying “I want to believe,” as in believing in aliens, this badge arrived at this guy’s home and read. “I want to leave.” Well, considering how crazy things have been in this century, we certainly won’t object to that spelling error!

Did I order bacon?

We’ve already shown you pictures of nail art gone wrong. Once again, we reiterate that not all nail artists will be able to give you the nails that you want, so it’s important that you try to find a skilled professional. The prices may rise, but at least you won’t get results like this one.

See? We’re pretty sure that you wouldn’t want to walk around town sporting those bacon nails, would you? In the nail artist’s defense, this girl’s nails are much shorter than the ones on the left, and maybe that messed up the process. Regardless, this picture is the perfect example of “expectation vs. reality!”

Is that enough to clean this house?

When we said that you should always check the size of things before making online purchases, we didn’t mean to be annoying. We were just trying to give you some useful advice. Had the girl in this next picture followed our advice, she certainly wouldn’t have ended up with this giant dustpan!

Can you imagine her surprise when she received a package and found this enormous thing inside? Though, we guess there’s a positive side to this dustpan: she’ll get to put all of the dirt in her house into this dustpan at once!

Well, that’s just unflattering.

Staying on the topic of buying things online without checking their dimensions first, here’s another picture. This time, the item that was bought was not giant — it was the very opposite of that! What would your reaction be if you expected promise rings and ended up getting these?

The first thing we would ask ourselves would be: how did they even make these tiny rings? Then we would wonder how we bought miniature-sized rings without checking first. We’ve got to admit that these rings are cute, though. They would perfectly fit Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) when she shrunk!

He’s got two left feet…for real!

If you haven’t heard the idiom about having “two left feet,” you’ve probably been living under a rock, just like Patrick Star. This idiom simply means that one is clumsy, or doesn’t know how to dance. While this is just an idiom, it seems like this store took it quite literally:

This guy expected to receive a good pair of running shoes but ended up getting two left shoes instead. We wonder how in the world this even happened — and we also wonder if he is any good at dancing!

Excuse me — what exactly is this?

If you’ve ever been scammed online, you know how it sucks. Though we can look back at it and laugh, it’s always disappointing to get something that is completely different from what you wanted. Buying shoes, especially, can be quite tricky, and you may end up getting scammed like this guy.

What do these two pictures have in common? Probably just the brand name and logo! This man bought the boots on the left, but ended up receiving the ones on the right, which look like a way cheaper version than the other pair. Actually, it looks like the store sent this guy a pair of rain boots, doesn’t it? 

How long are my legs?

Buying shirts online can be tricky, but buying pants is even worse! Remember that one girl we showed earlier, the one that bought a pair of pants that were so baggy they looked like Aladdin pants? Well, that’s just one example of what can happen when you buy pants online.

The other thing that can happen is exactly what you see in the picture above. Maybe your newly bought pants won’t fit you because they’re too small. But maybe they won’t fit you because they’re super long, and would never fit any human being, because no one has legs that long!

Where are the curls?

Let’s be honest: we all would love to look like Hailey Bieber. To have sun-kissed skin, a fit body, and amazing hair? Sign us up right now! While we can’t always have what we want, we can always work around certain things, and try to look prettier — and one of those ways is by getting our hair done in similar ways as our idols!

Unfortunately, you need to have a good hairdresser in order to achieve the expected results. If you do it like this girl, you’ll probably end up with the same disheveled hair instead of having beautiful golden curls like Hailey Bieber!

I thought it was sunflower season!

When we meet that person with whom we want to spend our life, marriage is one of the first things that pop into our minds. And because our relationship is so special, we want our marriage to be just as special and perfect!

This woman was so excited to get married to her long-term boyfriend, but not all things went perfectly at her wedding. The wedding cake, for instance, looked nothing like what she wanted. We wonder if actual sunflowers were out of season at the time of their wedding?

Stitch, what happened to you?

If you’re into watching the Food Network, you’ve probably seen that they have some popular baking competitions. In those competitions, there are people who bake amazing cakes, but there are also people who bake the greatest atrocities one has ever seen!

This guy, for instance, tried to bake a Stitch cake. The thing is, he is not the most skilled baker. He expected to create a good-looking and delicious cake, but ended up making that thing in the picture. We can only hope that it tastes better than it looks.

They look similar…ish.

If you didn’t know this yet, macramé has become incredibly popular among youngsters lately, especially because of platforms such as Tumblr and Pinterest. It is incredibly cool, and people are creating amazing and practical designs, such as plant hangers.

If you take a look at the picture on the left, you’ll see what we mean by macramé plant hangers. Now, if you look at the picture on the right, you’ll see the actual result when someone tried to copy the owl plant hanger design. Depending on how you look at it, one can even say they look kind of similar…

Are those jelly beans?

Who doesn’t love jelly beans? They’re truly delicious, and make for a great game with friends — a game in which no one knows what flavor they’ll get! We’re sure you know this delicious candy, but have you ever heard of jelly bean nails?

If you take a look at the picture on the right, you’ll see what we mean by jelly bean nails. The nails in the inspiration picture are a pastel color and have a quite simple design. This girl’s nails, however, have a glossy, faded color and ended up looking like jelly beans!

This doesn’t look like the dress she ordered, does it?

Shopping online is almost like buying a mystery box: you just never know what you’re going to get. Can you get a perfectly fitted clothing item? For sure! Can you get an item that is much bigger or smaller than your size? Of course! You can also get items that look nothing like the advertised ones!

For instance, this girl got herself a beautiful prom dress. Her expectations were really high, especially considering how important senior prom is to teenagers. What she got, instead, was this weird-looking dress! Doesn’t it look like it was made of plastic? We hope she got her money back!

How did you miss that?

Getting something attached to our body is a real commitment. Not everyone that gets a tattoo or a body piercing is really ready to live with it forever. That’s why it’s important to be completely sure that you want them in the first place. 

If you get a body piercing, you also need to be sure that you want it — and be sure that you’re hiring a skilled piercer! Or else, you may end up just like this girl, who asked for piercings inside her ear but got piercings on the tip of her ear! And if that wasn’t enough, her piercer only gave her a “sorry, my bad” in response!

There are no words for this!

Remember that Stitch cake that went wrong? Well, we’re about to show you another cake that seems to have gone in an even worse direction than that one! In fact, it’s kind of hard to even grasp how did this person manage to mess this cake up this way.

The fun thing about this is that the inspiration picture didn’t even look that good in the first place. We mean that maybe, if this person only needed to put a little more effort into baking this cake, and they could’ve probably gotten the desired results. Instead, they got this…whatever it is.

These dresses look nothing alike!

On this episode of “online shopping fails” we’re going to tell the story of a girl who bought a silky dress, but ended up receiving a dress that doesn’t look flattering at all. In fact, it doesn’t even look like an actual dress!

If you take a close look at it, you’ll see that the dress actually looks like a giant pillowcase. We’re not sure as to how the store sent this product instead of sending the real thing. But, we sure would laugh if we received a dress like that one!

What do they even have in common?

This next picture is both hilarious and confusing at the same time. Some would even say that it is the perfect example of online shopping that went wrong. It is hard for us to try to understand how it even happened! Check this out.

Can you explain what happened there? The picture on the left is the dress that this girl purchased. On the right, we see a picture of the same girl wearing what she received. We can’t even begin to list the differences between these two pieces of clothing, so we’ll just stick to trying to solve the mystery of how this happened!

Hey, it actually looks better this way. 

Back to the topic of body piercings. We have another story of a piercing that didn’t look quite as what was expected by the customer. The thing about this story is that the end result actually looks cooler than what was requested.

See what we mean? The nasallang piercing that she wanted (that piercing that goes all the way across the nose) doesn’t look quite as good as the one she got. Her piercing actually looks like a mix between a nasallang and a septum piercing, so that’s nice.

Well, it made you look fancier!

This next picture is another “expectation vs. reality” that actually seems to be better than what the person wanted. This girl wanted a simple hairdo to go out for a nice dinner but her hairstylist took it up a notch and gave her this:

While it wasn’t the exact same hairdo that she wanted, it still looks pretty cool. This fancier hairdo actually looks like the kind of hairstyle that the girls from Bridgerton would wear. Who wouldn’t want to look like a beautiful girl from the Regency era?

It makes for a good look in cats!

Imagine buying a cool shirt for your daughter, sister, cousin, or other female relatives. It’s a fun, girly crop top that will look good on her during the summer. But then, it arrives, and looks like a miniature version of what you had first seen online!

Instead of fitting the person for whom you bought it, it fits a cat! That’s pretty crazy, but it’s exactly what happened in the picture above. And once again, we’re here to remind you how important it is to check product dimensions before actually buying!

That’s not at all what I had expected!

This next picture we’re going to show you is actually really funny and unexpected. Apparently, buying pillowcases online can be just as tricky as buying pants and shirts. The size may not fit your pillow. Or, in other cases, the print on the pillowcase is not necessarily what you expected!

Isn’t that hilarious? This woman saw this cool dinosaur pillowcase and immediately thought her son would love to have one. She didn’t think twice before buying it, but was more than surprised when it arrived. It wasn’t a dinosaur-shaped pillowcase; it was a regular pillowcase with a picture of a dinosaur-shaped pillowcase!

Well, that’s just scary!

If you have children, you know how easily they get scared. Even adorable animals, such as bunnies, can scare them! Now, imagine you bought your child a teddy bear for their birthday, and it ended up looking like this one.

That’s just creepy, isn’t it? While it was advertised as a giant teddy bear at 6 feet tall, the seller didn’t explain that it also had giant legs, unlike the picture they used to advertise it. The legs alone look 4 feet long, and it looks like this person bought it straight from the infamous deep web!

How am I supposed to use it as a headrest?

Now, it’s time for a situation that is the total opposite of the previous one. This father saw a cute-looking pillow for his young daughter, and decided to buy it as a gift for her. What he didn’t expect was to get this tiny pillow.

Instead of using it as a pillow, his daughter will have to use it as a key chain, considering how small this adorable stuffed toy is. Still, we hope that this man got his money back, because this tiny thing should probably not be nearly as expensive as a big one.

Did she spend hours hiking for this?

Are you into hiking? Not everyone is interested in outdoor activities, especially because they require a lot of physical effort. Hiking for hours? No, thank you, sir! The woman in the next picture did go on a long hike, but she had a not-so-pleasant surprise.

Now, this is why we don’t go hiking. The chances of things not working our way are just too big! After going on this long journey for a few hours, this woman expected to be rewarded with an incredible view. Instead, all she got was a picture with a foggy background!

Don’t give one of these to a child!

We showed you a picture of a scary-looking bunny that would certainly give children nightmares. There’s another that would give them nightmares, and it’s the SpongeBob popsicle. Have you ever seen one of those? If you haven’t, here’s one for you to check out.

Can you see what we mean when we say that they’re scary-looking? The fun thing is that, while we expect to get a popsicle that looks like adorable SpongeBob, most of the popsicles look crazy like this. Someone even said that they should be called “SpongeBob Scarepants” popsicles!

You tricked me!

Do you enjoy lighting some candles around the house? It is a popular practice, and even celebrities are creating their own candles and selling them to their fans. However, it’s important to keep in mind that even candles can be tricky to buy!

This man and his wife, for instance, bought a candle. They expected it to last for a very long time, considering how big it looked. But then they pulled it out of the case and guess what? The candle was barely half the size of the holder. They definitely weren’t expecting that!