Today in approximations of human emotion:

"Research? But that's hard and lame." 

-Americans

The phrase crocodile tears refers to a false display of emotion and it's usually a charge we level at kids for pretending to cry when they don't get their way. But I was curious as to why that is, so I looked it up. Fortunately for me, we live in a world where doing research is a simple as a lazy internet search, with the best, most accurate results always being among the first. Ok, obviously I'm being sarcastic and we can easily blame the internet for the spread of white supremacy, climate change disinformation, and the entire Trump administration.

Pictured: almost enough salt.

Fine, but I think I can be fairly confident that there's not a bunch of conspiracy theorists out there spreading fake etymologies. Sure, we should take everything we read online with at least some salt, but let's assume that what I found about the origin of crocodile tears is probably correct. Anyway, it's an old phrase that's been around since ancient times and it comes from the way crocodiles appear to cry when they feed which people in the past, being dumb, interpreted as the reptiles crying for their prey.

Above: like, a week ago?

The biological truth of it is that they're actually lubricating their eyes while they feed. Since we tend to only observe crocodiles eating while they're on land, they're usually a little dried out, hence the tears. So like I said, ancient people: kind of dumb. I mean, they followed leaders who didn't have their interests at heart, some thought the world was flat, and still others mistrusted science because they felt it challenged their worldview. Luckily for us, humans have moved on and are now driven by reason.

So why even bring this up? I don't know. The question popped into my mind yesterday for no reason at all. I guess I was suddenly curious as to why we use the image of a cold, calculating predator without the capacity for remorse to describe an insincere child.

Pictured: an unrelated photo of Kyle Rittenhouse weeping at his 
trial for those murders we all saw him commit. Like, on video.