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People Online Are Naming Things Folks Should Stop Glamorizing, And Here Are 36 Spot-On Answers
While it’s OK to fail to see the bigger picture, to not have enough perspective sometimes, cause we’re all human, it’s not OK to let it stay that way.
Needless to say, this can lead people through a dark corridor cause skewed perspectives are always trouble in the long run.
One such path is romanticizing things, which often, if not always, have a very toxic side to them. And this is what people have been discussing this week on Reddit.
Reddit user u/mysteryscallop asked the AskReddit community “what do people need to stop romanticising?” stirring up a comment section of over 18,000 responses and generating 28,100 upvotes with 70 awards in just one day.
We’ve collected some of the best responses from the post and created a curated list of the things people tend to overly glamorize, glorify, romanticize and whatnot below. Check it out, vote, comment, and share your thoughts on what else people tend to romanticize in the comment section!
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“Touching” and “wholesome” situations where people in need have to rely on donations from others to pay for healthcare or other basic needs. Particularly when this happens in a developed country. Go-fund-me’s for hospital bills or teachers paying for kids’ school lunches. And then romanticizing this like it’s something that should be happening. Yuck.
Looking at you, USA. That’s not normal. Sincerely, Scandinavia
OCD. It’s not quirky or funny when I’m late for work because I had to back upstairs to check that the gas stove is off for the fifteenth time because I can’t stop envisioning the whole building blowing up.
I literally stand frozen to the spot trying to fight the urge to go back when I KNOW I CHECKED but the intrusive thoughts are too upset to deal with.
OCD isn’t cute and quirky and being organised. For me its believing that people will die if I don’t check again.
I get so tired of hearing people say that "Oh wow he has OCD? His room must be spotless". Um, no. My son's room is chaotic and he can hardly wash his own hair. But each car/rock/toy/can must be JUST SO. He must lock windows and doors and he worries constantly about his sister. It's not fun. As for his sister, it's her skin. Any bump must be picked off. She literally cannot stop herself from picking and will ask for bandages when she catches herself picking. She knows that she shouldn't make herself bleed but simply cannot stop. I wish people would stop thinking that OCD means perfection. It does not.
Poverty. You read articles like "Hero mom works 3 jobs to pay for the treatment for his sick son"... That's not right, that shouldn't happen
Yes! A moment's rational thought would tell you this is NOT a feel-good headline, it's horrifying. But people DON'T (or don't want to) have a moment's rational thought - they take the superficial happy feeling because it's easy. It's like "thoughts and prayers". The minimum amount of effort to give someone who isn't them any of their attention.
Pretend_Drink5816 said:
Mental illness is a serious condition. Having one does not make you cool, unique, or insightful. It's a disaster.
deja_geek replied:
The people who call ADHD a "superpower" are just flat out wrong. ADHD is super debilitating overall. While there are something we can do better than people who are nerotypical, overall ADHD is extremely hard to manage and often can destroy a person's home life, school and/or career.
I heard of someone who pretended to have depression because it was "cool". I feel like I would've stabbed them. If you want my depression, sure. You can have it. You can also have this fun benefit of wishing you were dead every other week. I'm not going to keep you from the kitchen knives; if you think depression is cool you should be able to handle the side effects. (Apologies, but I needed that out of my system.)
Overworking.
My coworkers tend to make it a competition to see who can make the most sacrifices for their career. Who puts in the most overtime hours? Who does things off the clock for work more? Etc
It's bulls**t. I have a life and a family I want to prioritize.
Special needs and disabilities in kids. My son is special-needs and the way people romanticize it and make it sound like he’s so lucky to have it and “what a Time to be alive” and all that s**t pisses me off so much. He’s a great kid, I make damn sure he’s got a great quality of life, but he’s never going to have a normal life and there’s nothing cute, quirky or romanticize-able about that.
THIS!! Sure, my munchkins are gifted in their own way but those gifts come with life long struggles.
Abusive relationships. Like stalking your love interest/partner, drama all the time, bad communication and misunderstandings, trying to invoke jealousy, obsessiveness. It's not romantic, it's creepy.
Romanticizing a women's role in family, especially by husbands (case in point Chris Pratt) . Like she works and takes care of kids and cooks and cleans and still takes care of her figure and looks great while the husband is so clueless and dumb that they will burn the house boiling milk. Stop expecting all that of the woman and share in the responsibilities so that the she doesn't have to do all that alone.
I think Millennials have improved this one, since their marriage rate is half what my generation's was. When you live alone, the only one who will do household chores is YOU.
Teenage years. Yes, you are young, but that doesn't mean s**t when you have no control over your life, no life experience, no money, no mental stability and nobody taking you seriously. I wish people would stop telling teenagers that those are the best years of their lives. I was absolutely miserable as a teenager. I'm 23 years old, 24 next month, and only now did I start to enjoy my life.
My life got better in my 30s, but each succeeding decade was exponentially better than the last.
gor8884 said:
Having followers
taleofbenji replied:
There is a very big taboo problem in America today that society isn't ready to deal with.
Which is parents exploiting the s**t out of their kids on social media. And sometimes, the reasons that these kids are getting followers is pretty dark.
Especially as that stuff is there forever. Parents you DO NOT OWN YOUR KIDS. They are not possessions. You didn’t ask your child’s permission to post images of them or talk about what should be private in your online groups. Get a life
ajrichardsonnz said:
The military.
moderately_moderate2 replied:
As a guy with 15 years in, I can't agree more.
Joining the military doesn't make you a good person, nor does it make you special.
Its a job that you chose, that you are compensated very well for (at least in the US).
I plan to retire in 5 years, and move as far away from a military base as I can. Im going to tell people I was in prison for the last 20 years or that I as a janitor.
My dad, grandfather, and great grandfather were/are all in the military. I'm determined to ensure that there will never be a fourth generation. There is too much stress involved for everyone, and free trauma due to parental absence for every child.
Attractive people doing harmful things?
People shouldn't get a pass to do toxic and rude things simply because they're attractive. Why do I see serial killers and toxic partners get romanticized simply because they're hot? Why does that make their horrible actions somehow badass and charismatic??
eggofreddo said:
Still trying after being rejected or being told no.
vanillayanyan replied:
And an extension of this would be to leave your exes alone. Stop texting them and trying to make things work when things are over. Respect people’s decisions to walk away. Dated a guy for 3 months and realized we weren’t in the same place in our lives in terms of life experience and I wasn’t willing to wait for him to catch up. Kept asking me to stop “giving up on us” and I got fed up and blocked him after he would not leave me alone.
THIS. I caught my ex husband poking around my social media 2 months ago. I divorced him in 2000.
History. I get it, as a historian I want to make people interested so that learning why it is so important is fun, but so many eras of history are romanticized and in reality most of history is filthy and violent. Everyone wants to talk about battlefield glory and the magnificence of empires, no one wants to talk about people s***ting themselves to death in a field camp or all the incest it takes to retain a dynasty.
Yes, but I am pretty sure our age will appear filthy and violent to next generations as well.
Sex, I mean yes sex is amazing but we have put it on such an insanely high pedestal it’s basically a superhuman experience. Almost every show, movie, piece of art somehow relates back to sex and like seriously I do love it, but there is more to life.
Destroying your ex's stuff. I don't understand why so much media portrays destroying game systems, cars, TVs, clothes etc. is an appropriate and healthy reaction to a breakup. Even if the person supposedly "deserves" it, it's still criminal.
Being fat.. it’s not cute, it’s not self love, it’s a legitimate health issue and people don’t need to be shamed.. but people should consider the impact on their health.. I would know… fat guy here
I applaud BP for showing us cat photos to distract us from the bad things here. Even if the cat is overweight as to comply with the item.
The "gangsta" lifestyle and all that it entails.
I grew up in Oakland and have witnessed far too many of the people I grew with get caught up in the game. Roughly half of the guys from my former neighborhood are either serving life sentences or were killed. I grew up in the 80s, but it's even worse now.
Hustle culture. I don’t understand why it’s cool to always be busy and dedicating all your waking hours to making money. When do you get to enjoy your time if you are always stressed out?
Hustle culture isn’t for workers, it’s for business owners and entrepreneurs.
Mattie725 said:
People dropping all their own goals and interests for someone else. Yes, the plot of standard rom-com.
AllNamesTaken145 replied:
This is so true my sister got her first boyfriend when she was 18 despite being good at school and almost graduating she drop out, and decided to start working to help her boyfriend out with his band, now she's 23 they broke up it's so idiotic.
Parenthood. It’s not all baseball games and bedtime stories. If you put the effort in to practice patience and bond with your children rather than lord over them, the rewards can be limitlessly gratifying.
Bragging about having a harder childhood than your children and constantly shoving it in their face. Ironically these types of parents usually take out their trauma on their children and continuing the cycle anyway.
Parents doing this is abuse. They have children without getting treated and they traumatize their children because they don't work on getting better.
Small town / rural / country living and lifestyles. So many shows and movies love to portray these less populated communities as havens and perfect places to live and will almost never even acknowledge the very serious problems faced in alot of these communities. This leads to a significant portion of people (mostly middle age white dudes) to almost fetishize this ideal of a rugged yet charming small community unchanged for 150 years full of vibrant personalities where everyone knows each other; and while this is accurate to some extent these places also suffer from huge drug problems, brain drain, racism and homophobia, underfunded social services and are all too often dying in one way or another.
I grew up in a small town. (By "grew up", I mean I spent ages 10-16 there) I didn't know anyone. And there are a ton of issues in that town. Nothing romantic about it.
Getting married young and spending a lot of money on your wedding, and proselytizing your subjective view of love to the world through social media. Lots of couples I know need to go to counseling and make a lot of choices to grow their intimacy and bond in private…
I live in a state that is largely rural. Marrying your highschool sweetheart straight out of high school is super fetishized. Then most of them end up bitter and divorced at 28. It is just gross. Encouraging people to make decisions like getting married and having kids before 25.
Smoking and drinking so much alcohol that you're having a hangover. Both are so bad for your health, yet there's a lot of people who think smoking is sexy and forgetting what you've done the last night because of alcohol is cool. It's not cool, you might have done something really dangerous to you or/and other people.
Even when the drinking and smoking times stop (if they do) there are long term issues caused from it. Neuropathy and COPD are just a couple. That sh!t does not go away.
Pregnancy.
Edited to add: I don't know what the ratio is, but I know that while there are people who had great pregnancies, others had a hell of a time.
Just in my circle of friends, I don't know anyone who didn't have a tough time at some point. We've all commented that pregnancy is so romanticised and you don't find out what it can be like until you're in the thick of it.
It's like hearing about this great club and seeing all their romantic baby bump photos, then joining the club and someone pulls you to one side like "Right, here's a bag of symptoms. Stick your hand in and grab a few. Ooh, bad luck, you got hyperemesis gravidarum!"
Currently 36 weeks pregnant and I’ve hated all 36 weeks. I am so very grateful that I am able to get pregnant, but the strain that pregnancy places on you physically and mentally can be torturous. Why aren’t we educated about the very common symptoms of pregnancy until we experience them?
Living in a van or RV. The people that do it comfortably are often quite wealthy. Also - smells like funk and lots of inconveniences.
My husband and I have spent much of the last thirty years on the road in vans for our work. For us it was overwhelmingly positive- but we rarely drove more than 500 miles in a day, camped in mostly pretty places or parked up with good friends. Our work is extremely gratifying (we’re folk musicians), we adore spending time together and get along super well. We used up four Volkswagen vans- a 66 split front window was the first one, then three VW Westphalia vans- 71, 84 and 91. Then a beloved and wealthy patron bought us a basic 2003 Sprinter which we turned into a glorified Westy and it’s still running beautifully. We have had so many good times on the road- and our last tour was a real high mark for us. Now we are likely to never tour again due to Covid and the degradation of safety in general. The last tour had some super scary moments where due to other drivers we were literally inches away from wrecking. Drivers’ skills and ability to focus on driving has radically declined over…
Codependency. People often get it confused with interdependence. Codependency seeks value through the other person and there's a lack of proper boundaries. Interdependence is 2 autonomous individuals in a relationship together
Conflict. It's always romanticized to "fight for what you believe in" or to "never go down without a fight" or stuff like that, to the point where people forget that opposing something or someone isn't the only solution to a problem. And also that just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they want to fight you or be in conflict with you.
Asking the girl out. It’s not going to be this big movie moment, stop building it up and just ask her
Anxiety makes this almost impossible. I've done it maybe twice and even then I was a nervous wreck. Didn't work out either time so I guess back to the drawing board.
Living in a castle. It was cold, damp, full of rats and other pests. No indoor plumbing, people were filthy. I could go on.
France. Don't get me wrong it is a stupidly beautiful place... In parts. But movies and TV have made people believe it is a magical fairy tale place full of roamntic men waiting to sweep women off their feet and overly sexual women just waiting for a man to come along who can satisfy her appetites.
The reality is none of those things. And from a fairly extensive amount of travel that I have done, I'd argue that there are FAR more beautiful countries in the world (broadly) than France.
Again there is ABSOLUTELY beauty in France. But nothing to the tune of its romanticised nature.
I took French in high school and was very excited when I went and I managed well enough, but other than the bread and pastries, it didn’t really send me. I was harassed almost constantly and I also happened to be there during the coldest winter since WWII.
The internet. It's not the freedom everyone hoped fifteen years ago. A s**t ton of advertisement, misinformation and stuff to pay for, makes it a very unfree place.
Internet celebrity. Most people that are famous on the internet probably aren’t making nearly much as people assume and they also are probably working may more hours coming up with things to film, negotiating places to go, and editing to make those short little TikTok or Instagram clips. They are paying the full price for their own benefits and they are paying taxes as an independent contractor. There is a definite shelf life to their earning potential as well and they have to be very careful about where they go and what they do because the internet is a very fickle market to base your livelihood on.
There are good internet personalities and bad internet personalities. Good ones occupy a niche, showcasing a particular talent or unique skill. Bad ones try to garner attention by being offensive or shocking. Compare Tommyinnit or Sad-ist with someone like Pewdiepie or Alex Jones.
Luxury or status brand product. People also should stop looking at another person as ideal. Be it be spiritual or political leader they support or just a sports star. No person is a superhuman at the ground level and often make mistakes as a regular person. And people should also stop thinking things as just good or bad. In almost every case a things are usually grey and just not black and white.
Ireland, living here all of 20 years, the luscious green landscape comes with being too expensive, most people in their 30s not even owning their own house, and alcoholism being a public health concern. Don’t get me wrong I love my home but I’m getting out as soon as I can
Fellow Irish person here. Totally agree on the home ownership if you want to live in or near a city. But saying that, think home ownership and alcoholism concerns are worldwide. Don't think ireland is to blame. Want to be a downer on Ireland? The bloody rain that gives use the lovely green scenery
Having autism. It’s not quirky, or cool, or trendy. I’m autistic and it affects my daily life so much and makes even being outside s**t. No, I’m not your ’autistic bestie’, no you don’t need to treat me like a little kid, no you don’t wish you were autistic. (I don’t speak for every autistic person, this is just my opinion)
Having autism. It’s not quirky, or cool, or trendy. I’m autistic and it affects my daily life so much and makes even being outside s**t. No, I’m not your ’autistic bestie’, no you don’t need to treat me like a little kid, no you don’t wish you were autistic. (I don’t speak for every autistic person, this is just my opinion)
