A woman has said her whole childhood is ruined after she realised pirates don’t wear eye patches because they are missing an eye. Instead, it’s for a very clever reason
If you were asked to draw a pirate right now, you’d most likely come up with a person donning a wooden leg, hook for an arm, a big hat and an eye patch.
From when we were little, from learning about the fearsome Blackbeard to the stories of Captain Hook, we all have a certain idea about what pirates should look like. But now it seems many peoples’ childhoods are ruined – as one woman has shared a bit of knowledge which will have you questioning everything you know.
According to online content creator Chelsey Edwards, pirates didn’t wear eye patches because they were missing an eye. Taking to TikTok, she explained, in a video captioned ‘my whole childhood is ruined’: “Do you want to know what I found out today? The reason why pirates wear eye patches is not because they’ve lost an eye in battle, or it’s been prodded out by someone’s hook. Because I don’t know about you, growing up I always thought they had a patch because they were missing an eye.
“But no, apparently the reason is super clever. So they have an eyepatch over one eye, so that all they can see on that eye is dark. So when they are up above the ship they are seeing with their eye in the light, and when they go below deck they switch it over so that their eye is immediately adjusted to the dark.”
It turns out Chelsey wasn’t the only one to not know this, with one person writing: “Thats very clever, thank you for educating me!”
Another shared: “So I’ve been squinting all these years going in and out the house in summer when I could of just worn an eye patch.” “Wow, I was today years old,” said another.
Mythbusters also tested this theory, and deemed it plausable. They were sent into a dark room with light-accustomed eyes and were told to compelete certain objectives.
Due to the darkness it was hard to complete the tasks. But when they went into a rearranged but equally dark room, with an eye that had been covered for 30 minutes, they were able to complete the objectives in a fraction of the time.
