'Better to be safe'

A video showed up in my Facebook feed recently of what the poster described as her daughter's eyebrows coming off after using Minion banana bubble bath.

I watched the video. It seemed fishy. It didn't pass my sniff test.

I read the comments where several people offered their "we've never had any problems" comments.

And then there were the people who said, "It's better to be safe than sorry."

Sure. Yes. I don't want to put my children at risk - but I also understand that knowledge is power and, in this particular case, there is a very, super slim chance my children would lose their eyebrows because of their bubble bath.

To me, the saying "it's better to be safe than sorry" should instead be, "it's better to be informed than sorry."

In our current online culture, people are so so SO quick to believe the headlines and ignore any kind of content (as a now out-of-work journalist, I cannot even begin to tell you how much this annoys me. Wait, I could begin to tell you - words are my thing - but that's really another blog post).

This isn't a statement for everyone, but you (should) know who you are: Please, research things before just saying, "I will never use that product/drink that juice/eat that hot dog/go to that amusement park." And please, for the love of god, research things before posting reviews to websites denouncing a product or posting it and telling your friends "beware!"

There are so many cases of people who do things to get attention. I do not know if that's the case here, but it wouldn't be unheard of.

In this kind of case, I always turn to Snopes. As of Aug. 9, this claim was "undetermined."

In the end, it really doesn't affect me - I don't use this kind of bubble bath, and don't foresee myself ever using it. But it's so important people stop believing everything they read, and not only believe it, but post it to social media and tell their friends, "You know, it's better to be safe than sorry."

Don't be that person. Please.