If there’s one thing we humans are really good at, it’s sweeping things under the rug and pretending they’re fine—as long as they don’t affect us directly. It’s definitely not the healthiest coping mechanism, but it’s one we’ve collectively mastered.
In a recent thread, Redditors called out the stuff society has normalized that’s actually pretty creepy. From parents oversharing their kids’ lives online to ads that seem to read your mind, here’s what they had to say.
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Electing a convicted felon to lead the country.
Topped only by the republican appointed supreme court judge allowing the President immunity from prosecution. Bizarre
Load More Replies...This is not normal and I’m embarrassed it f*****g happened. This country is screwed
twice... Honestly, If I were a Russian, I would be pouring myself a vodka watching that guy. And those FSB dudes probably got a raise too
I just got back from Russia a week ago. Speaking to people there, many say they are hopeful it might lead to an end to the war (and most did call it a war). But all of them admit that Trump is an idiot that Putin pushes around. I will also note that not only do the larger cities use electrically powered public transportation, but that the women have full autonomy over their reproductive systems, with no restrictions to abortion. And their metros are meticulously clean and look like art museums. This despite their government being f*****t.
Load More Replies...And allowing a Hitler fanboy from another country who was never voted for and NEVER elected have more of a say in OUR country than US citizens do. Elon Musk is the ONLY person with free speech now
Child beauty pageants have got to be up there.
Only Americans say it's okay. And only a small percentage of them. Hardly qualifies as "society"
What are you talking about? Don’t just say things because you want them to be true and minimize what’s happening. There are child beauty pageants all over the world. UK, France, all over Asia. Everywhere.
Load More Replies...I second that n I’m a mum ! thankfully I live in the uk them not allowed here !
Load More Replies...So creepy. I have a few family members in the US, my second cousin is a doctor, her husband is a military doctor both are highly intelligent yet they put both of their daughters in pageants. They're both beautiful girls but they deserve so much better than being objectified and taught that looks are the most important thing. The worst part is their mum was in pageants throughout her childhood and teens and hated every minute of it yet she's forced her daughters into it too, 'll never understand it.
Many times it's really mom trying to live vicariously through their child
Yes, yes you do. Miss Teen Pageant Girl UK, International Junior Miss United Kingdom, Mini Miss UK, among others.
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For profit healthcare.
I mean, yeah, but we have the PBS in Australia. the large pharmas hate us.
How dare we make medication affordable to everyone!
Load More Replies...When something is widely accepted as normal, despite being anything but, the best way to challenge it is by speaking up. That’s exactly what Arcenzo, the Redditor who started the conversation, did. Bored Panda reached out to them to find out what inspired the post.
“I was just thinking about how many things in society are normalized but can actually be pretty unsettling when you really think about them—like invasive advertising, unsolicited opinions on personal lives, or even certain workplace expectations,” they told us. “It made me curious about what others find creepy but socially accepted, so I decided to ask Reddit!”
In turn, Arcenzo was surprised and even a little overwhelmed by how much attention the post received. “It’s wild how many people have shared their thoughts. Some answers were things I never even considered,” they said.
Putting your children all over social media and even worse, making separate social media accounts for your kids that can barely even walk or talk yet.
Paparazzi/celebrity gossip culture, and how we basically accept that it's okay to stalk people as long as they're famous and you can make money out of intimate details of their lives.
honestly, we just go through anyone's private life but never think about our own
The problem is that the celebs need publicity. But they also want to be able turn it off. It simply doesn't work like that. I believe that it's a mistake that The Princess of Wales made, and I've seen Megan Markle do the same. Wanting to be left alone, whilst posting family pics. You can not have it both ways!
It should work that way; choosing to post pictures of myself or family is my choice, it's not an invitation to stalk.
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Kicking out your kids at 18 or thinking an 18 year old is a full grown adult.
Luckily, this is getting much less common (even in the U.S. I was born and raised here and don't know anyone that this happened to), but it needs to stop altogether.
I'm 43 this year. Hopefully I'll eventually become a fully-fledged, mature, capable adult!
Load More Replies...Mine are 23-20 n live at home n they can as long as they want to both work long hrs both in stable relationships to ! No way in hell would I kick em out at any age ! I left home at 16 (long awful reasons ) n I wouldn’t put mine thru that !, any parent as does should never have had kids in the first place ,
Especially when you didn't teach them how adult. Part of your job as a parent is to prepare your kids to become adults.
The parents who do this, and the parents who actually raise their kids to be functioning humans (while still being available for support); those aren't the same parents
I worked with a woman about 20 years ago. She and her husband had 6 or 7 kids and on the day after they turned 18 they were kicked out even if they were still in highschool.
Forcing your kids to hug/kiss adults when they don't want to (like grandmas, uncles, family friends etc.).
The only kiddo I have in my life is a cousin's daughter. First time I met her I told her she didn't have to hug me just because we were related. Cousin was annoyed, kiddo was relieved.
My brother & Sister in law brought my nephew up to know it is ok not to want to hug someone, and to say something if you do not want a hug. When he was a toddler I taught him to high five me hello & goodbye, as he got older we added fist bumps and it keeps growing, we now have our own 'secret handshake' routine. He invented the dinosaur claw-love heart move.
My parents always made us do this, me and my siblings don't do that to my nieces and nephews, my stepmum had a tantrum about 10yrs ago because none of her grandkids would kiss or hug her and we wouldn't force them. She was quickly put in her place and told she either accepts that it's the child's decision and respects their autonomy or she doesn't get to see them at all.
Nope hate this mine where bought up to say no and to respect themselves ! Being forced to do this was never happening to mine ! mind u as im an older mum they never had grandparents my mother died when I was a baby 8 mths old n my grandparents died when I was 15 so thankfully was never an issue
Worse than some, IMO. The key word here is 'forcing' - if the kid doesn't want to do it they should not be forced to.
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It's getting better but the "boys will be boys" mentality.
Boys WILL be boys. But what is considered 'boy behaviour' can be changed over time, as social standards change. No-one now accepts that owning slaves is OK, whereas it was perfectly commponplace 500 years ago. Harmful behaviours can be identified and adjusted.
well yes, and girls will be girls, BUT - the phrase "boys will be boys" has serious contraindications, "boys will be boys" thinking they have the right to s*******e women. That is the problem. Wolf whistles, stating 'well, she shouldn't have dressed like that," "if she didn't want it, she wouldn't have dressed like that" ugh - just because a woman has a tank top on doesn't mean she wants your (particular, over the top, sexualized) attention. The phrase 'boys will be boys' excuses sexual harassment, horrible attention, and r**e. not ok
Load More Replies...Boys will be boys. Boys will be girls. Boys will be nonbinary. Girls will be girls. Girls will be boys. Girls will be nonbinary. There's a whole smorgasbord of possibilities.
High Schools and Middle Schools requiring female athletes to wear tight and short uniforms on athletic teams similar to what women wear on a beach.
I would rather have the men adopt the skimpy outfits, but I'm a gay man. Thank God shorts are finally getting shorter again. Our long national nightmare is over.
Not only on school level. Not long ago there were some very loud voices from, among others, beach volleyball players, that protested the "dress code" of some tournaments. There's literally no sport, at any level, that should require women to wear bikinis or any other excessively revealing clothes.
Those outfits are probably more comfortable when it’s hot and humid, though. I don’t want to roast just because of someone’s outrage over “modesty.”
I don't know my netball skirt was pretty short when I was in school. (UK)
Load More Replies...Many beach volleyball players say they prefer to play in bikinis because the sand gets messy over more clothes. College level tend to play in shorts.
yeah, but seriously there has to be sand everywhere (in a bikini, shorts are not a problem)
Load More Replies...I've seen several school uniforms in different countries where girl's skirts were too short, too imo. The boys walking next to them wore much longer trousers.
Children's clothing being designed to be tiny versios of adults, specifically little girls 4 yr olds don't need booty shorts and croptops.
It's been considered normal for centuries for young children to be dressed in miniature versions of what their parents wear, the only difference here is that you don't consider their parents clothing choices to be acceptable in their own right.
I'm sure (in the UK at least) children's clothes for young children were gender neutral, unlike adults.
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Exploiting your own children for social media clout.
What sort of people do this? Are these people who regard their children as chattels? Something to be used for their own enjoyment? These leeches really should be be held legally accountable. Unfortunately, as has been the case for many years, technology moves a lot faster than legislation.
Adults in their 30s-50s and above dating anyone with an age ending in "teen"
(18-19)
It's legal, yes.
But still super creepy.
P********a (alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. When was the last time you saw an 18-19 year old? A pedophile is normally attracted by a child that looks like a child, behaves like a child. According to your logic, a 40-year-old with a 28-year-old partner would also have to be a pedophile..
Load More Replies...They want them young and dumb so they don't know any better
Recording strangers in public and posting it online.
US it is, even profiting off it. Even though it’s illegal to do that with other media. Past time to bring internet in line with other media laws
Load More Replies...One of the WORST is when people do an act of kindness for a stranger just so they can exploit whomever they are "helping" and publicly pat themselves on the back. Disgusting
I had someone take my picture without permission in a bar once, but to be fair, I *was* carrying a street sign around with me. I've still got it, in fact.
Well, public means public, with no expectation of privacy. It sucks, but you can't prevent strangers from filming you. Wear a bag on your head I guess.
Not really. "Public" doesn't mean "everything's allowed", and somehow in so many other matters we understand it. Plenty of countries have laws that clearly state that you CANNOT take a picture or a video of a person in public without their consent and distribute it. Not that it stops all of the creeps, but at least it's some deterrent.
Load More Replies...Actually it isn't illegal here at all. In the UK it is established legal precedent that there is no expectation of privacy in a public place. It is generally legal to photograph anyone and anything that is in a public place and post it online. There are a few specific exemptions to this though, such as voyeurism, up-skirting and rules regarding children, but the general law here is that if it can be seen in a public place, it can be photographed in a public place.
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A lot of people say "Child beauty pageants", adult ones are pretty creepy too.
However, adults are choosing to participate, knowing about the consequences. Children can't make that decision.
I question whether they really do know though. Beauty pageants aimed at teens and barely adult women are also predatory, particularly in developing countries where they intentionally exploit women and girls of low socio economic status with the promise of financial gain. The contestants are expected to 'host' predominantly male sponsors. Even in the American competitions there is a significant power imbalance at play, and expectations by sponsors that the girls will make themselves available to powerful wealthy (male) sponsors and make unpaid appearances to promote their products and services. In some competitions, the qualifying requirements are how much money the contestants raise and the 'charity' is essentially a shell designed to funnel salaries to directors and officials. The outcome being that the girls are being paraded around so some old white guy can earn [more] money. Pageants were never established for women - they are purely a tool to exploit women for financial gain.
Load More Replies...Putting importance on how pretty someone is is just gross in general too
That people with a disability or chronic illness can be treated as sub-human / third rate citizens. Seems universal worldwide.
Tell me about it I’m treated like that but do I care nope says more about them than it does me !
You should care. This treatment affects your ability to do a lot of otherwise normal things regardless of whether your illness or disability has any effect on them, and does the same for all others in similar circumstances. It's fine to ignore the person on the street who says stupid shït. It's not so fine to ignore elected officials saying the same stupid shït.
Load More Replies...The fact that it gets called a disability is enough to say this. "Condition". Easier to say and spell and understand that it's just a difference.
Parents pushing their kids too far in sports. I grew up racing motocross. I went to regional amateur races. The amount of kids that were getting hit by their parents in the pits after races was sickening. Motocross parents are the absolute worst. Thankfully my parents never did that c**p to me.
Like child beauty pageants. The parents failed during their time, and now they want to live vicariously through their children.
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Predatory financial practices (like payday loan establishments and slot machines in gas stations).
Odd pairing of two completely unrelated things. Not disagreeing that they're both exploitative and predatory, but no real link between them.
The interest rate on student loans belong here. 12.5%???? REALLY?!?!?!
What is the point of this comment? This whole post is about things in the world we live in that are not ok. Are you trying to imply this is actually ok, or just that we shouldn't hope for change?
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People/strangers asking about your s*x life or how many people you’ve slept with.
Men harassing people, and it being “boys will be boys”.
Adults telling little girls that their sons are just picking on them because they’re “pretty”.
F*****g weird culture. Just had this happen with my niece where a little boy was shoving her and his mom came over and told my niece that “he just thinks you’re pretty”
I immediately told my niece that his behavior wasn’t ok and no one has the right to touch her or be mean to her.
This kind of behavior should never be excused or justified. It's one of the biggest things wrong with society. It teaches boys that it's ok to be a*****e, and it teaches girls that they should let themselves be abused. It's disgusting.
In german they say "was sich neckt das liebt sich" ... what teases each other loves each other. Nope.
I was told, while preschool aged, that the boy who kept picking on me "just liked me". Years passed and this sort of mistreatment from boys steadily escalated because nobody was doing anything to stop it until the "inevitable" happened when I was SA'd by a boy in highschool, on campus in broad daylight while his friends watched and laughed. That's where it leads.
Forcing women to give birth.
DJT and the toady Supremes. Worse than that to me, is now in his 'resurrection' he wants to take Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP and all the rest from the kids he 'saved'.
Excuse me as I jump off a bridge because you're the 1000000th person like this I've seen in 2 days
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Cruelty to livestock including macerating male chicks at birth in the egg industry.
That's good, what do they do with the male chicks instead?
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Constant surveillance, both by our governments and tech companies.
Mormons allow adult men to probe their children about their s*x life.
it's expected by the children, at least every year, that the "Bishop" will interview them and ask them if they have ever touched themselves. if the answer is yes, he will ask more about it to get the details.
Sounds like these "bishops" just wanna have pervy fantasies about kids. Sick old f***s.
Honestly, you could have put a period after the word children and you'd still have a true statement.
Abusing the vulnerable is WHY men get into the organised religion racket.
People posting near fatal and fatal videos on social media. All for karma or likes . Totally disgusting.
I was involved in providing CPR in a public place once, horrible and traumatic, and ultimately unsuccessful, and I looked up to see someone pointing a phone at us. I confronted them afterwards, and they actually had the temerity to pretend they didn't realize it was outrageous and insensitive.
Social media seems to bring out the absolute worst in people. It must be the perceived separation from real world consequences.
Male Infant Genital Mutilation as a religious blood ritual.
Anyone performing any sort of genital mutilation on anyone (male OR female) should be burned at the stake IMO.
There are medical reasons for some men needing circumcised later in life…some get recurrent infections in their f******n that don’t respond to antibiotics and the only safe course of action is surgery. Should we burn the Urologist performing these surgeries? I don’t think so…but that’s my opinion. On the same line of thinking infants aren’t suffering from any infections and therefore circumcision isn’t necessary at this stage and shouldn’t be done just because of appearance.
Load More Replies...I was circumcised at birth (65 years ago) and have never felt mutilated or that I am missing out. Female genital mutilation removes the clitoris. Male only removes the f******n. All feeling is there.
I think they mentioned male, because female genital mutilation is thankfully not normalized by society anymore.
Load More Replies...I dunno, my brother is circumcised for health benefits. Awful to do it to females, but there can be health reason/benefits to do it males? Idk.
The outrage is because it is forced onto young people for non-therapeutic reasons in most cases. The prepuce actually has several known functions.
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How obsessed people are with celebrities’ personal lives, down to tracking their flights and stalking them in public.
I can't fathom this. The Real Housewives series - packs of hyenas. The Kardashians - Famous because one of their daughters was on the game (Nothing wrong with that. But becoming famous for it?). Paris Hilton heiress and Nicole Ritchie daughter of a famous singer - I don't know what they've accomplished. Why is anyone paying any attention to them?
Are people obsessed because tabloid exist, or does tabloid exist because people are obsessed?
Father/Daughter "purity dance" like a prom, but dads take their daughters.
Noone outside the US does... It is a kind of travesty of a marriage ritual, only it consists of daughters promising their fathers to stay "pure" - ring and all.Somewhere between incestuous and straightup religious nuts, not known in any other country.
Load More Replies...This actually happens? I thought it was just a joke on Family Guy and American Dad.
Oh, no it is very real. They obviously aren't getting married but make no mistake, it is a wedding. They are grooming girls to accept blame and abuse. There is no purity ceremony between the mothers and young boys, however.
Load More Replies...WTH. What religion or culture does that here in the US? I've never heard of it.
Just guess. I’m pretty sure you’ll get it right.
Load More Replies...Creepy...sounds like an emotional incest of sorts. And I'm someone who is remaining a virgin till marriage, due to my faith. No one forced it on me. It's my own decision. My parents would love me either way, and they would never do something weird and cringey like this. Ew.
🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮 Interesting that they never have these BS "purity balls" for the boys - especially when they are the ones with no self control
How about making people live in pain and suffering. Seniors, sick, disabled, mentally ill. Some of them just can't take it.
It's about people who are suffering but aren't allowed to díe with dignity. It's a huge hypocrisy that if someone has a pet that is seriously ill, that person can be prosecuted for cruelty if they refuse to have the animal euthanised, but a person who is suffering and has the mental capacity to give informed consent to be euthanised has to be kept alive against their own wishes.
Load More Replies...I'm not sure why Crystalwitch attracted the downvotes. Seems to me that they are among the people having to live in pain and suffering and expressing their reasonable opinion from that perspective
Perving on young women as soon as they're 18 "because they're legal". When I was 27 and on a dating app I had a 22yo message me and I felt like a p**o. just for her messaging me.
My hubby is 21 years my senior.... There was no grooming and there is no abuse.... So long as both are adults and can provide informed consent there's no issue
Load More Replies...There was once a website with a countdown timer "time until they're legal" for the Olsen twins.
I get the 18 but have to disagree with the 22. I met my wife when she was 22 and I was 30. I wasn't actually after anyone, we just clicked. Married in 2000, have a daughter and still together
I recall feeling weirdly different the first time the centerfold was younger than I was.
you know how many people use and met on dating apps. just because you don't like something doesn't mean its for desperate losers.
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The fact that most social media apps listen to us and then show ads for things we just talked about.
It is not. I had to cut and straighten copper tubes for work (I'm a chemist, don't ask) and was telling a friend about it on Signal. The next day Amazon suggested she needs to buy a copper tube straightening tool.
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Sugar on everything.
I can't stand it. For the last 6 or so years I had to change my diet to accommodate illness similar to diabetes, and it's so fücking difficult! EVERYTHING has tons of sugar in it, even if it's not needed at all and there are sugarless versions of the same product on the market. Yet, those with less or no added sugar are a rarity on the store shelves, when they could easily become the default to the benefit of literally everyone 🤦♀️
The normalization of extreme violence in modern warfare. I think that have grown to be so desensitized to the horrors that we think exterminating other human beings like they were pests or bugs is something normal. It sickens me to watch the news and hear that hundreds of people are brutally killed every day in the same tone of voice as if they were announcing that tomorrow the weather will be warm. It's inhuman.
Are you trying to suggest that extreme violence was not used in ancient warfare? That whole tribes, whole nations, whole ethnic groups, were never systematically attacked and massacred by invading armies? Sickening it is, but don't be misled into thinking that it's a recent problem - it's only because of near-instant global communication that we see so much of it, whereas in the past such events might make just an inch column in a newspaper.
It's always been like this. Just more people see it now cuz of video recordings and such.
Considering what the Japanese did to Manchuria, POWs, and any European (as they considered them to be subhuman) yet the atomic bomb is considered a "war crime".
Waiting for a girl to turn 18.
Used to be 16, indeed it still is in some parts of the world. Look back on songs featuring the lyrics "sweet sixteen" to see how long this has been a thing.
In some world part there is no waiting. They have a mentality like: If it has a v****a it's got to go.
Load More Replies...Not really said as "okay" but still somehow legal is anime characters being like 30+ but they look like children and teenagers in skimpy clothes. And just the over sexualization of female anime characters in general.
Age of consent laws. Specifically how low said age often is.
Automatically labeling people with psychosis/mental illness for having uncommon ideas.
Or banning them from commenting because more than 10 people disagree with them...
Sadly, this has been common since civilization began. "The Earth is round?! You must be insane!" for example
Using phone trackers to track your partner and kids.
I have one on my youngest child's phone. They have additional needs and are very vulnerable but like other teens want a degree of freedom. It is only there to use if needed.
With consent by all parties, this can be a vital tool in keeping family & friends safe. Without consent I agree, its just creepy & wrong.
Having a tracker on your kid's phones, good parenting, having a tracker on your partner's phone total lack of trust. One good one bad
Death penalty. The fact that anyone can support that without being afflicted with a higher level of psychopathy is puzzling.
There's sometimes a high level of support for the death penalty even in countries that have banned it for decades. Something like 40% of UK adults still support it, despite us banning it in the 1960s.
Load More Replies...I will support only in extreme cases like serial murderers where evidence is objective and DNA based. Too many innocents in jail because of false eye witness testimony or judicial bias and bad defence representation from me to have faith an innocent won't be killed.
18 equals free game no matter what age the other party is because ✨legal adult✨
Disgusting 🤢.
The way society sexualizes and demonizes girls with “daddy issues”.
Putting kids as main characters(who get hurt and experimented on) in Adult shows. I am referring to Stranger Things. Those kids, who today are adults, admit how sexualized they were when they were minors. Not just the girl but the boys as well. But for some reason people loved the show and didn't complain.
The show didn't do that, only perverted adults watching. I don't remember Eleven running around in pre teen underwear or the boys comparing their junk.
I would add: normalizing, legalizing and encouraging bigotry toward anyone who's not part of the "majority". The most disconcerting thing of all is how casually people who otherwise wouldn't embrace bigotry will give into it when this happens. Western society especially is built on this normalized hatred, it's writ large in the blood of the innocent in our history books.
Unfortunately it's being replaced by demonising those who are part of the majority, which isn't going to achieve equality.
Load More Replies...Adding: those websites that would count down the days until a child star was legal
I would add: normalizing, legalizing and encouraging bigotry toward anyone who's not part of the "majority". The most disconcerting thing of all is how casually people who otherwise wouldn't embrace bigotry will give into it when this happens. Western society especially is built on this normalized hatred, it's writ large in the blood of the innocent in our history books.
Unfortunately it's being replaced by demonising those who are part of the majority, which isn't going to achieve equality.
Load More Replies...Adding: those websites that would count down the days until a child star was legal
