And if that doesn't scare them enough... Tinnitus

You go do some loud crap, concerts and such, don't really care. One day, you're sitting there and notice a ringing tone. It's not necessarily loud, but constant like someone has a high speed fan running the background. Whatever frequency level your dammage is in, your brain fills in the gaps with a constant sound. Nothing and nowhere are ever quiet again. When you're in a noisy situation where the noise is in the range of what remaining hearing frequencies you can still work with, you can't hear anyone over. and as things progress, you can lose more ranges and the ringing can get louder and in different frequencies.

You can get custom fitted earplugs for specific decibel ranges now, which is what my construction buddy got. I have a pair myself for raves and concerts

Not just that, but giants of acoustics, like Sennheiser and AKG — don't remember exactly who — make earplugs for musicians or concert-goers. With which one gets good sound, but quieter.

I bought my wife noise cancelling ear plugs for sleeping because I (in her words) snore like a pig. She has several recordings to back that up. So I bought her these noise cancelling earplugs (Soundcore A20 in case anyone is interested) in the hopes it will allow her to sleep. I will eventually get surgery done for it, because I also have apnea. She hasn't put them to the test yet because it's not always that she can't sleep, but I hope they will serve her well.

I’ve worked in eye care. Simply put, wear your fucking goggles.

I'm a lefty in a very red state. Everytime I go to the gun range, there is some idiot without ear pro. Now I took care of my hearing, even going so far as to wear earplugs at concerts(which invited a ton of teasing). Even then I have had short bouts of tinnitus and it fucking sucks!

The one pleasure I draw from this is knowing their unpleasant future.

I work is a loud environment, and didn’t take it as seriously as I should've, and just wore regular earbuds because I wanted to be able to listen to music over the noise of the machinery. I don't have it as bad as either of those cases you mentioned, but definitely noticed that I couldn't hear as well by my mid 20s, and it takes very little background noise to prevent me from being able to following a conversation.

Now I am pretty good about wearing earplugs, and have bone conduction headphones that I can use with them, and the sound comes through clear even at low volume with the ear pro in. I would highly recommend them if that is part of anyones hangup around wearing ear pro.

What kind of treatment did your buddy get after that sudden exposure?

Yes! For 10 years I was addicted to those fitness classes and YES I eventually started wearing ear plugs because the music volume was ridiculous.

My city has a bike week in November. I hate those open header cruisers more than I should. And I take pleasure in knowing the riders will be suffering from tinnitus in the future.

supermarket I was at once that had some "repeller"

Sounds curiously close to them ‘teenager repellents’ that emit high-pitched noise which older ears can't hear.

WHAT?

Perhaps a bit ironically, William Shattner has really terrible tinnitus and once considered offing himself because of it.

I've gotten good at avoiding being Rick Rolled. But this catches me out way too often.

audible groan