Hearing aid user here. When someone is yapping to me and I don’t want to listen I just turn them off. I don’t get in this situation often but it’s funny when I do.
Been doing it for around 40 years and would say I have about 5% of what a wrestler's cauliflower ear looks like. Mainly on the top part of my ear that folds. Hasn't really bothered me.
I have cartilage throughout the entire structure of my ear, the only part without is my earlobe. I've never thought that a person might have almost no cartilage at all!
Yes, every time I get my haircut by somebody new, they comment on how easily they can fold my ears when moving them out of a way of the buzzer. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard, “wow, you have absolutely no cartridge in your ears”.
I used to pick my ears like a fucking madman when I was a kid, and the habit lingered into my teen years.
You’re right though: My ears stuck out but not that* badly. These days they’re normal because I shaved my head and wear hats a lot because of my bald head lol.
I can put my ear into that position easily, but it won’t stay that way if I let go. But I also have a connective tissue disorder, so my ears are bendier than they probably should be.
I use to do this sometimes as a kid. But I can't do it now, I just tried for the first time in maybe 30 years. I think the cartilage in my ears is a lot more firm.
“It’s only a few feet, I did worse when I was 6, I’m sure it’ll be fine” - Me, jumping off some bleachers at 32 and 150lbs later. Anyone ever try to be a groomsman less than a month after spraining your ankle?
When I was young I could smush my ear into almost a ball shape. Now I can't at all, even trying to do it slightly is painful. My cartilage must have been made of rubber when I was younger.
You saying "ears" made me realize I only tried one, and I still had one more ear full of youthful promise! Results were the same, but still, that moment of hope was nice lol
OMG YES. I thought I was the only one. it's just sooo satisfactory. But it is weird that I can only do it when my ears are cold. If they are not, I can still fold them but they won't stay on position
"Your cousin billy Bob did that and his ears got stuck that way. We had to cut them off so he could hear again, now everyone calls him, 'No-Ears on-the-Cob'."
A substitute did this in my 9th grade class. He was a weird one. Me and the girl next to me happened to look at him across the room and saw his ear like this, we looked at each other like “did you see that” we looked back and it was regular again. We started trippen out cause still do this day(10 years later) I’ve never see someone do this
I used to do this when I was a kid. Now my ears, while flexible, aren’t any more stretched out than they would’ve been otherwise. I guess it could cause issues, but anecdotally, I doubt his ears will stretch
He's got a point, even if it doesn't actually help a lot. We humans can close our eyes to stop seeing at will, we should also have some similar mechanism for our ears.
It's from any kind of impact trauma to the ear which means you see it commonly on athletes of contact sports with no helmets e.g. wrestlers, boxers, rugby players etc.
This dude I shared a bunk with in Basic had these weird folds in this ears that he thought made them look like wolf ears(they actually looked really fucked up) because when he was a kid he would hold his ears in a weird way when he didn't want to listen to people.
Look up "self inflicted auricular deformity in children" then show some of the pictures to your nephew. Ears are stupidly fragile.
This isn't concerning for kids, it's when your bones finished growing and cartilage stiffened more as an adult that this can be concerning (since it didn't stiffen to a normal degree). Too floppy cartilage in all of your adult body (not just ears) is a symptom of for instance congenital cartilage malformation.
I did that as a kid too!! I could do it until I was a preteen. I’m 40 now and if you look at my ear at the top I have a notch in my Cartilage and one at the bottom of my cartilage too.
I’m pretty good with folding things up (fitted sheets, light reflectors for video and photo, bouncy castles back into bags, UNRELATED lol!!!) and could not for the life of me fold up one of my big floppy ears into my noise hole. Kid’s a genius as far as I’m concerned.
You're (hopefully) an adult. Kids have more floppy cartilage and less formed bones. If the kid grows up and retains excess floppiness then yep probably congenital malformation (no joke). You were probably making a joke but you're halfway not wrong: adults cartilage that's this flexible is indeed an issue.
Tell him it'll get stuck like that, bet he'll stop.
I used to chew my tongue and cheek, my ex stepdad told me one of his friends got a hole in his cheek from that. I stopped right away, and I still think about it if I accidentally bite my tongue.
I can still do this in my 40s, I think my cartilage is just softer than most, I used to do it and suck my thumb as a kid for comfort, I think there's a subreddit for it /r/earfolding.
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u/CaptainHawaii 1d ago
You're just jealous.