There’s a lot of talk on Twitter about things we should “normalize” doing and talking about, but On Reddit, there’s an important conversation about going the opposite direction. Too many things are treated as normal that shouldn’t be, and if we’re not vigilant about it, it will only get worse. Redditor u/Buttercuppy44 asked the community:
“What’s something that people should stop normalizing?”
Some of the suggestions were a little spicy, in terms of hot takes. Some are things I hadn’t really thought about in a long time, which means the power of normalization was working. We should always be questioning the things we take for granted, especially when those things are awful. The world doesn’t have to be the way it is, if we want it to change.
1.
Ads on stuff you’ve paid for. —DinkaHakumai
2.
Having no sleep —aglioolioo
3.
Working while on vacation. You go on vacation to relax and enjoy yourself, not to try to fill out spreadsheets and deal with work bullshit in your hotel room. —earhere
4.
Filters that change the shape of your face to fit a beauty standard. Kids are growing up with an even more distorted view of what they should look like than previous generations —sol1loqu1st
5.
Also coming to work sick. People tend to get praised for that, but they are in fact just endangering others to get sick as well and in the end it costs the company more as if they just stayed home. —derEggard
6.
People should stop defending leviathan corporations who insist on monetizing absolutely every aspect of human behavior. Ya’ll assholes need to defend YOUR best interests, not corporate America’s. Won’t be happy until you have to subscribe to a service to have a heart beat. —Tyrannosaurus___Rekt
7.
The grind. Not taking vacation. Working on vacation. Working through your lunch break. Working early and late all the time. Answering emails after hours.
We are completely dispensable to the companies we work for. Don’t lose your life grinding for a company who only thinks of you as a number. —Crazy_crazy_chipmunk
8.
Having an opinion on everything.
It’s okay to look at something on the internet and think to yourself “I don’t have to care about this.” —SymphonicStorm
9.
Failures in political leadership. I feel more and more we are becoming less critical of failed character in our leaders. —shellwe
10.
Married couples disliking one another. Normalizing abusive and toxic elements in marriage is lame, bro —JoeBidenTheDictator
11.
Students overwhelmed by homework when it isn’t necessary. I’m excluding situations like when the workloads from classes are reasonable and happen to pile on one day or students who aren’t organized, etc. This whole thing is a grey area, but sleep, burnout, mental health exists. —WTSD12
12.
The entire “game” involved in modern dating or even most social interactions. The playing hard to get, the “arriving fashionably late” like people can we please keep it simple?
Ya go on laugh at me.
ETA: Thanks u/ParallelEnvy for pointing out the golden (shitty) rule of dating – 5 minutes of waiting before responding to a text. I’ll add what I observed over the years.
Initially I thought this was pertinent only for dating, but gradually I saw this spill over to non-romantic interactions as well. Between friends, for example. Possibly to give the impression to the other person that you have a life outside them. Which is fair, but sometimes it just seems like overdoing it. It looks like some people have made giving the impression of being busy into an art form. To the point where if you appear eager to interact with the other person it almost sends a negative social signal (clingy, desperate etc). It is a sad way to look at things.
As an extension, eagerness, or sincerity in any form seems to be preserved for people without social clout. Imagine turning up at a friends’ reunion, only to have friends arriving “fashionably late” and talking on the phone for half an hour after arrival. You end up feeling like an idiot for agreeing to meet up with these people and start doubting your own understanding of social norms and basic courtesy. —unpopularcryptonite
13.
Hustle culture
I like my life outside of work. I live to leave at 5, see my wife & cats, play video games, grill some food. All jobs should pay a living wage, and you shouldn’t be expected to work 60+ hours or more to survive. Hell, 40 is too much. —tacobelmont
14.
Cheating. Sooo many “love stories” on netflix, or just any sort of romance movie released these days have cheating involved in them so much. It’s always branded as this romantic thing to do. Oooo like at this dark and brooding handsome guy with no personality. Time to fuck him and forget about my 2 year relationship, or some shit like that. It’s not romantic, it’s just wrong, and it should not be normalised. —VolcanicIron
15.
Hoping from one relationship into another … especially from an unhealthy handsome manipulator to the wounded nice guy …. is a trope in all the Hallmark movies …. makes me want to scream, “take some time alone to heal!!!” —Lybychick
16.
Being shitty to retail and food workers. We work hard all day, deal with some of the worst customers bar none, and really don’t get paid enough to support families but we do it anyway. For way less than it’s worth —That_Cosmic_Chealien
17.
Throwing tantrums in public. Time to openly admit that the person flipping out is usually in the wrong. —sketchysketchist
18.
Alcoholic moms. No, you don’t NEED to bring wine to your daughters soccer game. It’s not quirky. It’s awful. Wine mom stuff on social media only strengthens it and makes it more popular. —DarthVerona
19.
That anything is possible if you try hard enough. Don’t get me wrong, a lot is possible, but not everything. There are factors beyond ourselves that determine our success. The best we can do is to give our best, and be happy that we’ve done so. —a-marsupial-mongoose
20.
Obese pets as “cute chonkers”. No. Stop that. —Holybull79
21.
Condemnation without thought and the desire to apply real-world principles to artistic expression.
Where you read a scene in a book and instead of understanding why that scene was necessary and what it’s trying to show, people instead condemn any perceived moral wrong.
I guess you could call it hyper-moralizing?
We need to stop before the only art allowed to exist isn’t art at all. —AuntModry