Those who can, can’t always teach. When you’ve studied a skill for years, it can be hard to break down your steps and remember what new learners don’t know. Which is how you end up writing instructions like the above, which Reddit user kdesh titled “Step 1. Threaten the coconut with a machete”.
Photo by kdesh
Inspired by the parody tutorial “How to draw an owl”, this subreddit mostly covers intentionally vague art instructions, like “How to draw a raccoon” from artist Jim McKenzie’s web series “Makin’ Things”:
Or “How to draw The Tick” by Tick creator Ben Edlund:
It also includes the real-world inspirations for these parodies, like the sincere instructions in How to Draw Anything:
The subreddit also covers artificial intelligence:
And product assembly:
As with so much Reddit humour, there’s a lesson to draw from these jokes: When you’re giving instructions, try to break them down into as many steps as possible, and test them on amateurs.
Conversely, when working with vague instructions, try to forge your own way. As Redditor phpdevster noted about How to Draw Anything, some instructions are vague on purpose: “You only learn by doing, which is the strategy these books attempt to follow.”
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