What people accept as normal varies due to any number of factors – upbringing, culture, personality – but there are some seriously questionable things that we accept as a culture.
You might not think that’s true, but the more you think about it – or read through these 16 examples – the more you’ll realize it’s true.
16. It really is weird.
People knowing every detail about celebrities’ lives.
Not even their lives though, just being invested in celebrities in general. I know someone who literally cried when Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott broke up.
Talking completely seriously about how they ‘don’t believe in love anymore’ even though their parents have been happily married for over 25 years.
15. So. Much. Sugar.
Feeding children disgusting amounts of sugar and then blaming them for being fat.
For that matter how much sugar is in things in general. If you mix honey nut cheerios and regular cheerios 50/50 they still taste perfectly sweetened. Hell, you can even go 40/60 and it tastes not much different. Why does sugar cereal literally have 2x as much sugar as is necessary to be sweet?
It’s not even merely unhealthy. It is gratuitously so more than it needs to be.
14. As kids growing up in the social media world, I kind of doubt they’ll think twice about it.
Parents essentially recording a child’s entire life from baby to adult on social media. It’s disturbing to me how many parents will do this with zero regard for how their child will feel about it later in life. I’m actually so glad I was born a decade before Facebook even existed.
I imagine this is going to become more of a mainstream political issue in the next couple of decades, in the form of Gen Z/α people demanding stronger child privacy rights as they realize their entire lives have been laid bare for all to see.
13. This should be getting more legit press because they need to be shut down.
Paparazzis. They have KILLED many celebrities and done nothing but snap pictures while they were dying. There is no freedom for these poor people that wanted nothing but to pursue their dream.
Former secretary here, the worst person I ever had to speak to on the phone was a paparazzi guy who WOULD NOT stop calling us. He was kicked out of our property in NYC because a production had a permit for the normally public space, and he was kicked out. He was so demeaning to me and overall the biggest ass I’ve ever had to talk to.
Worst part was he KEPT calling but wouldn’t take “they have a permit so the space is closed to the public” for an answer. My coworker and I hung up on him a few times when the swearing wouldn’t stop.
12. Start taxing them and see what happens.
Tele-Evangelists, these people should not be out in the wild. Controlling, manipulating, moulding their audience to give as much as they can as “The Lawd” has spoken to them and they require a new Lear Jet, all psychological showmen and their target audience laps it all up and defends their every action with gusto.
Being charged with being a beast? they were doing God’s work but they also needed that new mansion to stop the flood.
Give now so you can get in the pearly gates with Q-Jumper (TM).
How they are allowed to peddle their Biblical Fan Fiction nonsense to the impressionable actually makes them beyond creepy.
11. I’m not sure this is technically true, but…
That in America, if you go to jail or prison for ANY reason you are allowed to be brutalized, raped and treated as sub-human with zero rights.
10. Well that can’t be safe.
Snapmap on Snapchat. Most people don’t turn it off and you can just see where a person is and where they live and the last they were on Snapchat.
9. This just made me shudder.
Count downs to when a famous woman turns 18. Like being able to say that “she’s legal now” doesn’t lower the creep factor.
Billie Eilish (idk how to spell her last name) for example. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable she was when everyone was literally counting down the days until she turned 18.
8. Don’t even get me started on purity balls.
I’d just add the general obsession over other people’s virginity or lack thereof… fuck too many guys and you’re a slut, too few and you’re a prude, fuck a bunch of girls and you’re a stud, fuck too few and you’re a loser.
Like no one should actually care that much about who’s getting laid.
Throw in the obsession with non-heterosexuality being “unnatural” and it gets really creepy to me how much people are thinking about who I might or might not have had sex with.
7. And current elected officials in those states have voted to keep it that way.
Child marriage. Only 34 states have a minimal marriage age in the US. There really needs to be a federal law on this.
Only 14% of child marriages from 2000-2010 were between kids. MOST are between a child and adult. Luckily atleast the majority is at age 17.
67% of the children were aged 17
29% of the children were aged 16
4% of the children were aged 15
1% of the children were aged 14 and under
BUT when looking at areas with the youngest age or the largest age gap it happens in states with the worst laws.
Examples: An eleven year old boy married a 27 year old women in 2006 in Tennessee and in 2010 a 65 year old men married a 17 year old girl.
These are extreme cases but having a federal law requiring a minimal marriage age of 18 would be a great start in protecting these kids.
6. Privacy is slowly disappearing.
My coworkers think I’m insane because a few weeks ago we got on this topic and I said I googled my name and city then removed all the instances of where my full name and home address showed up on those creepy “people finder” sites. Then I did the same with my husband until our home address wasn’t found when I googled our names.
I also told them about the deep dive I did on my fake Facebook account (no friends, just used to run a business page) and how hard it was to find all the settings that gave them permission to gather data, even if my Facebook wasn’t open on my computer.
They all said if I have nothing to hide I shouldn’t be worried. I couldn’t argue with them because they genuinely don’t understand privacy.
EDIT: For everyone asking how to remove their information from these sites.
Each site is a little different and it usually takes me a while to find the opt out, but I start by looking at the privacy policy or contact page in the footer of the site. Usually the opt-out is hidden in text on one of those pages. You usually need to copy the link to the page with your information and paste it in the form along with your email address.
5. That’s definitely no one’s business.
When my GF and i began dating all my friends where HEAVILY pushing me to have sex with her. 6 months into our relationship we had not did the thing, and my friends were horrible, telling me i had to do it, that it’s weird we haven’t done anything and all
It sucked because it bothered me, but it also made me feel like i was not “normal” and had to go “faster”
4. I can’t believe this happened!
Not anymore, but when I was young Family Feud was hosted by Richard Dawson.
And Richard Dawson would go down the line and kiss every woman on the show on the lips. ON THE LIPS! Even the underage girls.
And he did this season after season. And back then that was somehow acceptable on broadcast television.
3. That should not be allowed.
Well in South Africa we have this cultural practice called virginity testing where an old woman will take your female child into the bush, shove her finger into a her vagina to see if she’s still a virgin and if so she and a bunch of other girls that have undergone the same process will get to dance topless in front of the chief at the chance of one of them being his bride.
I mean the practice of the act is protected under cultural law but still, you’re letting someone your grandmother’s age finger your daughter in the woods
Edit: for those wondering about age it’s around 18 give or take two years but for the sake of keeping it legal most people stick to 18
Edit: okay a few South African people are bothered that I’m not shedding light on the fact that this is practiced by only a single culture out of the tens that SA has. This is true.
2. This drives me up a wall.
Nudity not allowed on TV, but graphic violent deaths are. There was a scene in Hannibal of two flayed, naked people, and NBC found their naked butts too offensive. To make it less offensive they covered their asses with blood and it was approved.
1. American purity culture is a weird thing to try to pin down.
Likewise with swearing, but that seems to be a uniquely American thing.
I watch a tonne of MMA, and fighters getting their sound muted while giving post-fight interviews always make me laugh.
Like I’ve literally just watched a grown man kicking someone in the head until they were unconscious and that’s fine. Or after one guy was elbowed so viciously in the face that a doctor intervened in to stop the match due to the severity of the cut and sheer amount of blood it was spewing- yep that’s chill.
But calling someone a mutherfucker? That’s too much buddy!
Weird.
Some of these really knocked me sideways!
Were any of these eye-openers for you? Share which ones in the comments – and add some of your own if you’ve got them!
