Folks have said their childhoods were ‘ruined’ after finding out the dark truth behind the popular toy Sea Monkeys.
Remember Sea Monkeys? They were a staple for kids for Christmas and birthdays: a cute plastic tank that came complete with three packets and allowed you to create life.
After filling the tank with water, you could add the ‘water purifier’ sachet and once that had done its job, you could pop the Sea Monkey eggs in, too.
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Finally, once the Sea Monkey, which were actually brine shrimp, were alive and kicking, you could use the included food pouch to make sure they didn’t starve.
If you managed to avoid knocking the whole thing over, you’d end up with a tank of tiny little creatures - that did not look anything like the depiction on the front of the box.
Despite the fact that it was less of a toy and more of a heartbreak when they inevitably died after a couple weeks - Sea Monkeys remained incredibly popular with a whole generation of kids growing up in the 1990s and 2000s.
However, the popular practice pet has a pretty dark truth behind it, as they were invented by an American man by the name of Harold von Braunhut.
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Von Braunhut was an inventor of a number of bizarre gift ideas for children including X-Ray glasses, a monster card that would grow hair when you added water and the 'invisible goldfish' which was just a fishbowl and some food.
Alongside that, it turns out, he was also a massive white supremacist.
Sorry folks, but the inventor of Sea Monkeys bought weapons for the Ku Klux Klan and regularly attended neo-Nazi groups.
He didn't try to hide it either, as in an interview where he made racist statements he then said: "You know what side I'm on. I don't make any bones about it."
Yep, it’s tough to learn, isn’t it? But here we are.
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As you can imagine, the discovery has not gone down well with those of us who did own Sea Monkeys - as one person put it: “Can’t say that. That’s ruined my childhood, like.”
On X, people were also left unhappy after finding out the truth, with someone posting: “Just found out the inventor of Sea Monkey may have been a Nazi, there goes a piece of my childhood.”
A second wrote: “Today in another instalment of ‘childhood ruined’ I found out that the guy who created Sea Monkeys was an extremely prolific neo-Nazi.”
Sorry, guys.
Claire Reid