“I Silently Cringe When People Bring Them Up”: 25 Popular Things That People Say Are No Good
It's not just the quality that makes someone or something known. "People, brands, and styles become popular because the right people have adopted it — rich people, celebrities, opinion leaders ... and we copy them in the eternal human quest to be fashionable and admired," said Douglas Holt, professor of marketing at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and previously a professor at the Harvard Business School.
According to him, cultural icons emerge because they express a particular ideology that society demands at that moment. However, not everyone might understand or agree with the messages that these beacons are sending. So when Reddit user The_Real_Garfield_ posted a question on the platform, asking others to share their favorite examples of the phrase "just because it's popular doesn't mean it's good," many obliged.
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Fashion brands like Louis Vuitton or Gucci. Well done, you're paying an extortionate amount of money for something you can get for half the price without the name at exactly the same quality. And half the time, the clothes/bags look ridiculous and ugly anyway! Why would you pay 3 grand for a bag you can't even get a fart into just because the label is "high end designer"?
Headlights so bright that the owner is the only one on the road who can see anything.
Caused my cousin to have a fatal car crash. He had only just learnt to drive at age 17
Religion. Scamming vulnerable people for centuries. Causing wars, women to be oppressed, bigging up the patriarchy. Putting the fear in people who are just trying to go about doing the best they can. Enforcing eternal sin and therefore causing people to feel guilty for things they haven't even done or that are natural things to do. Making people feel that they are bad or evil just because they are who they are. Using the cover of godliness to do unspeakable nasty things to innocent children. Stripping cultures of their individuality and enforcing the bland beliefs of mass religion onto them.
Being horrible to people for no other reason than to make you feel better about yourself. At the end of the day you’ll just end up with less people liking you.
The whole uprise of “pranks”. I love a good harmless prank that’s fun for everyone involved, but a majority of what you see trending is just harassment.
Cable TV. They should be paying us to watch commercials not us pay them.
Ditched cable fifteen years ago. Repetitive c**p with the price constantly going up.
The answer is 100% TikTok, I don’t get the appeal for it, from what limited I’ve seen of it it seems like a bunch of s**te.
Hate for Taylor Swift. It’s super trendy to hate on her. But the gal goes up on stage and actually sings and actually plays. That’s already not common in pop music. She writes her own songs; also not common. She has single-handedly gotten girls that cared nothing about football into football. She also single-handedly got young people to register to vote in America. She’s changed the world for the better. I get that people may not like her music, that’s fine. But there are people that straight up hate her simply because it’s trendy. And that’s ignorant.
Fair enough to not like her music or even to not like.her as a person but people make it a whole personality and it's ridiculous. It goes the other way with people who are obsessed to the point of worshipping her and that's all they talk about as well. She's a human leave her alone for 5 minutes!
Tik Tok influencers convincing gullible viewers to spend money on things they don't need like the trend of selling kids adult skin care.
Sequels, prequels, reboots, reimaginings etc. Just stop. .
Those damn Stanley cups. I got my wife one when they first became popular and our generic ones keep ice FAR longer.
Twilight book series. Had to tell so many people who tried to get me into those, just because it’s on the bestseller’s list doesn’t mean it’s good.
50 shades of grey is another one, the quality of the writing is abysmal!
In the uk, charity shops stopped excepting donations of these as they wewere inundated
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Don't hate me, but I kind of enjoyed these books. Yes, they are terribly written and cheesy. But not everything you read needs to be worthy of a Nobel prize. I have a BA in English so I've read enough of the Classics to last a lifetime. Sometimes an easy read is just what suits me at the moment.
I'm with you. I'm an avid reader, and I don't believe that "fluff" books are useless or a waste of time. As long as my kids are reading, I'm not overly bothered by whether they're learning or not.
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I have another one. I can't understand all the hype years ago about The DaVinci Code. I read it. It was awful (and though I'm a Christian, I can look past the controversial theme; I just thought it was poorly written).
It did have its flaws but I found it exciting too.
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"Had" to tell them. Like your opinion is so much better than anyone else's >_>
If someone is using its status as a NY times best-seller as an indication it is a good book then it is worth telling them it is pretty much meaningless.
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Publishing companies buy their own books to make the "NY Best Sellers".... readers did not buy the books, the author and their publisher did
I read them because the language is easy and I can sort of switch off while reading. Do I think they are decent quality, not even a little bit.
I agree that best sellers list is just a lot of people buying the book. Not necessarily a good book. I have quirky tastes.
And they’re not even Mario Puzo-level bad where you can laugh at ‘em. (Cripes! My second “Godfather” mention in as many posts. Whatta weird day.)
I actually liked them. I just got back from a 15 month deployment in 2009 and everything was Twilight. I had no idea what it was, so with no preconceptions I read them over a long weekend and it was the escape I was looking for.
Stephanie Meyer wouldn't know how to write about a vampire if it bit her in the a*s.
A good book is in the eye of the reader. We all have different tastes. Twilight was better than I thought it would be, yet I had to stop after the first one. Not my taste in books, and I only read it because a student gave me a copy of it. I had it a couple of years before I opened it.
I thought these were good, not award winning, but i liked them. I’ll go against the grain on this one.
Same here. I think people enjoyed them more than they are willing to admit - because it's trendy to dump on Twilight. They're not great, but they're entertaining.
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Beats headphones. Supreme clothing. Both marketing machines. Subpar products.
Drinking bottled water. For most of us, tap water is fine but we often opt to pay for water in plastic bottles instead. So many plastic bottles.
An example of a phrase would be fast fashion. It's fashionable and affordable, but often comes with ethical and environmental concerns.
Never understood Twitter, the threads and replies are odd to follow. It should just uncollapse like Reddit. Never understood why people love it so much.
I never got Reddit. It should follow newest post after previous post, just like forums in the good old days. None of this uncollapsing stuff
Those Monster energy drinks. So overpriced and taste like pineapple flavoured cough syrup. Absolutely repulsive, I say. The worst thing I've ever bought.
SMEG. It's a kitchen appliance brand known for their cute mid-century aesthetic that's super overpriced for their functionality and quality. I silently cringe to myself when people bring them up or I see them in the wild. Even the brand name sounds gross. Did nobody ever make the connection to 'smegma' before they decided on a name?
Drake. Guy hasn't put out anything worth hearing in years. Why is he one of the most listened to artists?
The Fast and the Furious series. The series had a few great movies early on (1, 5, arguably 3), but has gotten progressively ridiculous since then. But even when it's bad, they got family.
If you're watching F&F movies intending to take them seriously, you're doing it wrong. They're not supposed to be super serious, they're supposed to be fun to watch.
Prime hydration drinks. It's crazy expensive, yet it's one of the worst electrolyte beverages around because it's low in sodium and high in potassium. It's also very low in sugar, which is NOT what you want when when you're trying to rehydrate quickly.
Video games that win awards based on revenue rather than highest consistent peak-player count and highest consistent user reviews.
You know who you are, Todd.
Selling power =/= quality. If it did, then McDonald's has the objectively best burgers on earth.
The fact that many people use credit cards and don't pay their balance in full. It's quite literally the worst way to be 'loaned money' since its often 20%+ interest. Loosing money for no reason.
I say this because there are usually ways to get loans 'when life happens' at much lower rates (maybe about 10% ish).
Yet, many, many people use this.
Being from denmark. Credit cards and credit scored have always baffled me. Why on earth to you need to “loan” money every time you buy something in order to be able to borrow money for a house/car. We do have credit cards here but no credit scores. And most people, not all, pay in cash or debit card.
People who full on guilt trip you into thinking like them. Like I’ll see videos of people drawing Disney fan art, and the comment section is full of Palestine supporters who scream that they’re a terrible person for “supporting Disney”, or vegans who say that eating meat is animal abuse, or artists who yell at beginner artists for tracing faces, and saying that they’re stealing artwork
I have a book complaint! If I'm reading a fictional book, I DO NOT need a preface, an introduction, or a prologue. Just start with Chapter 1.
Yeah maybe, but I disagree about prologue. A prologue can often very usefully provide action (of course, only when done well enough) to hook readers in & get them interested before the calm at the beginning of the story start. As well, there are amazing writers like Tolkien who can get away with prefaces and introductions, but yeah.
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I don't know if that would exactly be considered "popular" as it's more INfamous than famous 😅 but you're absolutely right, it is an abundant cornucopia of crazy s**t
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People who full on guilt trip you into thinking like them. Like I’ll see videos of people drawing Disney fan art, and the comment section is full of Palestine supporters who scream that they’re a terrible person for “supporting Disney”, or vegans who say that eating meat is animal abuse, or artists who yell at beginner artists for tracing faces, and saying that they’re stealing artwork
I have a book complaint! If I'm reading a fictional book, I DO NOT need a preface, an introduction, or a prologue. Just start with Chapter 1.
Yeah maybe, but I disagree about prologue. A prologue can often very usefully provide action (of course, only when done well enough) to hook readers in & get them interested before the calm at the beginning of the story start. As well, there are amazing writers like Tolkien who can get away with prefaces and introductions, but yeah.
Load More Replies... I don't know if that would exactly be considered "popular" as it's more INfamous than famous 😅 but you're absolutely right, it is an abundant cornucopia of crazy s**t
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