Of course in practice there really was plenty of it to go around, dollar stores seemed to be the most flexible at navigating the supply chain derangement and if you didn't mind buying it by the roll, it was never really hard to find.

Also- you don't need to follow the news for there to be a panic, empty shelves will do that all on their own. Everyone deciding to stock up a little on everything was enough to deplete shelves, people walking in after saw empty shelves and stocked up more, etc. I don't think most people were following the "omg supply chain" news, they just saw depleted shelves.

It's also common in Asia (at least South East) they can survive without toilet paper :) The Japanese even have entire water jet massage toilets, they do it like a king.

Or if you don't want to use water, you could use serviettes, tissues. Even newspaper.

That's why I didn't understand the fuss about it. Sure it's annoying if you run out but not the end of the world especially when you're at home where there's always a shower to hand. I don't understand that people were so obsessed with toilet paper.

What would be much more important is food, water (in my city the tap water is terrible so I don't drink it), medication etc.

COVID was a perfect case study of mass hysteria, and how you can't even trust "the experts" in these situations, because the "experts" you hear from early on are also generally the ones who are the most willing to spout pure speculation for attention. Humans are gonna human, and a background in science doesn't change that fact.

But it doesn't matter for what I'm saying: paying too much attention to the news about a weird new virus from China would have clued a person in that something big might be coming, on whatever dimension you care to measure it.

The Covid pandemic lasted much longer than would have been reasonable to prepare for via hoarding of supplies etc.

In my view, that was the entire problem: Much of the world overreacted in the short term (hard lockdowns including fining people going for a walk by themselves etc.) and underreacted in the long term (limiting avoidable large indoor gatherings such as most office work, air filters etc.)

Many governments did as much as people would tolerate for as long as they could (which meant, for some, doing nothing at all), rather than focusing on doing effective things they could actually keep up as long as required.

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but I really hope that’s a lesson many learned from it.

Not to mention how gross cleaning yourself with dry tissue is.

I think many people in countries like the US or northern Europe wouldn't even know what it's for when they see one :)

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily fromNarodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realize that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick and Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existencial catchphrase "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon's genius unfolds itself on their television screens.

John Tuld: If you're first out the door, that's not called panicking.

—Margin Call (2011)