This is all good info except for the gender thing. The round/long difference is just a growth habit. Watermelon plants (and other cucurbits like squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, etc) produce male and female flowers. Only the female flowers produce fruit and must be pollinated by a male flower to do so.

This was bullshit the first 2000 times it was posted to reddit and it's still bullshit here.

Nah, I'm just going to continue doing what I've always done: tapping the watermelon to hear the sound and pretend that I know what I'm doing.

Even on lemmy people still aren’t bothering to fact check things. Disappointing.

I spent a season working in a packing house for watermelons. They'd come in by the crateload and we were allowed to just grab one to eat any time we wanted.

The trick I was taught, and which proved to be pretty reliable over the course of the season, was to feel the veins. (This is possibly what's being described as webbing here?) Watermelons aren't smooth, they have wide "veins" running top to bottom and you can feel them if you put your hand flat on the side of the melon. The bigger/poofier/wider the veins, the more ripe is it.

I'll just remember "pick the most fucked up looking melon with patchy orange spots and ugly crisscross webbing". It's probably not going to make the photo reel but it'll taste good.

This is horse shit

Where's the part where you slap it?

In my family we just slap the watermelons

None of these visual methods are reliable as these things differ greatly amongst melon varieties. The easiest way is just to knock on the watermelon like you would a door, if it sounds hollow on the inside, then it's ripe.

The fuck is a "male" plant ovary?

This infographic brought to you by someone selling gnarly watermelons.

On oranges, damage to the fruit (insect bites, cuts, etc) often cause the fruit to be sweeter in the area of the damage. So ugly fruit is often tastier.

Americans especially are sold shiny pretty consistent fruit. Ripe fruit is browning, wrinkled, lots of flaws. After a while you'll see some of those "flaws" as signs of tasty fruit.

Why the green arrow for the "wrong" one, and the red arrow for the "right" one?

3 of the 4 items (gender doesn't matter, variety does) are generally correct.
Source: I'm a former watermelon "cutter" (the guy that goes out in the field first thing in the morning and cuts the good melons off the vine, and turns them belly side up so it's obvious to the field workers which melons to load up)

Also, with the whole thumping thing, most people just look silly doing as they don't know what they're doing. If you do thump, ones that have a higher pitched ping are still green, and that have a really dull/flat thud are over-ripe/too gritty/sugary. Also, weight should feel right, too light and it's overripe/rotten.

In general, any melon sold at the store should be good, just take one and stop trying to be a hero. At least the farmers I dealt with are pretty ethical, they aren't purposely shipping bad melons. It just takes experience of seeing/handling melons for a while to get the "picking one" correct. Most store I know of have a satisfaction guarantee anyway, take pictures if it's bad and when you go back get a refund if you're that concerned with it.

Finally now I know my melons gender, now I won't get in trouble on twitter

I will never remember this but I will think about it sometimes

YSK: Nonbinary watermelons are even better than male and female watermelons, but they're pretty rare so they tend to command a high price

Anyone know where I can find those sweet and juicy webbed females?

Morgan Freeman taught me to flick melons to determine the ripeness in Unleashed, and I have honed the skill to a masterful level. Get weird looks from strangers sometimes tho..

Never eat them, horrible watery bullshit and more effort than they're worth.

However, a very much appreciated post because my wife loves them and if this is true, I can become the Watermelon Wizard

Thanks, possibly:)

There’s nothing better and more comforting than sitting down with a cold watermelon in the middle of summer.

Conversely, there’s nothing worse than sitting down with an unsweetened, tasteless garbage ball of a watermelon.

Saving this to increase my odds!

Round and brown. Got it.

I worked at a grocery store and the old timer who trained me in the produce section said that all you needed to find the best watermelon was learn how to give it a slap and if it sounds like a basketball that's a good watermelon. Learning the slap takes some practice but when you do it right, you'll know.

Fruit don’t have “genders,” this is complete bullshit

So basically..the uglier the sweeter. Got it!