Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Explain Which Things They Wish Everyone Would Stop Romanticizing

People Explain Which Things They Wish Everyone Would Stop Romanticizing
Karen Warfel / Pixabay

Listen, if your twenties are the best time in your life then, barring something seriously tragic, you did life wrong. I have no idea why media tries to paint a person's twenties as the peak of their life.


Young people, please understand it is all lies. Your twenties are probably going to be a raging dumpster fire where you have no idea WTF you're actually supposed to be doing, but you're pretty sure you're doing it wrong.

One Reddit user asked:

What is something that people should stop romanticizing?

You know my answer. Check out what these people had to say.

Sacrificing For Your Job

i feel sick sigh GIFGiphy

Being willing (or forced) to sacrifice your own health for your job.

So many times I've listened to people get into bragging competitions about who has been the sickest and still gone to work. F*ck that noise, if I'm sick I'm keeping my @ss at home!

If there's one thing I hope COVID is able to permanently put to rest, it's the idea that going to work sick is in any way acceptable.

Employers are 100% on the hook for this.

F*ck off with your "lean staffing" plans (read: deliberate, chronic understaffing) and offer sick pay to your employees so that they don't feel like they have to come in and infect the rest of the staff when they're sick.

- lachwen

Trauma Is Not Trendy

I've joined some groups for bpd support and stuff and been dismayed to find they're filled with teens who have just post cringy memes and talk like anime characters.

There are even trendy words. I tried to explain to someone a couple years ago about how I got too high and started dissociating (like actually felt like I was a robot and out of my own body. Absolutely terrifying) and I didn't realize that "dissociation" has become a trendy buzzword to mean.... I don't even know what, but they were like, "Ah, yes." like they understood exactly what I meant.

- bob-omb_panic


Romanticizing trauma, basically. Dissociation can be super scary.

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and the number of people I've seen online that basically appear to want this disorder is appalling.

I'm in a good place now and love my alters, but for a while there I was hospitalized with sky high anxiety and all I did for 12 (sometimes 24) hours a day when I was finally home was try to manage my emotions while switching from alter to alter.

I spent all day every day not knowing if the horrible memory I just got in a flashback is real and I've forgotten it or not. It's not fun being like that at all.

- MizElaneous

He's Abusive

Joker and Harley Quinn's relationship.

He's abusive, people.

- CaptainPrower

As someone who has been in an abusive relationship and can also kind of understand romanticizing theirs, it's complicated. I think that maybe a lot of women like me have been in similar simulations and can find comfort in knowing they're not alone.

None of this is an endorsement, by the way, but I do get it.

- Cobie1232

Main issue with this one is that I'm willing to bet that nearly all of the Joker/Harley lovers have only gotten their view of them via the Suicide Squad & Birds of Prey movies.

There was no abuse shown in those movies (it was kind of implied in BoP, I guess) and that is why the emancipation part of BoP fell flat for me. We never really saw the abusive relationship or the truly messed up stuff that I have heard of from the comics.

- RaHarmakis

It's Harder And Kind Of Sucks

Disability. It hasn't given me "a whole new and different and unique and special perspective on things."

I just can't see as well, it makes life harder, and it kind of sucks.

- robetofontiglia

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Thank you!!

Honestly, I'm so over this "you can do anything you set your mind to!"

No I can't. I'm disabled.

It's hard for my to do a lot of stuff. And that's ok. Some times it gets me down and that's ok too. I don't have to be the embodiment of positivity because I'm disabled.

- DramaticFantastic


Yesss! Visually impaired and chronically ill here.

It's totally fine to be happy for someone's accomplishments, but the inspiration porn needs to stop ASAP. So done with that sh*t.

And the idea that you can do anything if you just work hard? Well 1, no. I can't do anything.

But more importantly 2, I shouldn't have to work 10x harder to barely meet your standards and then get told that my disabled peers are doing way better than me. That's ableist, not inspiring.

And it's also what got me kicked out of college cause it was so inaccessible.

- theblindbunny

Just Normal

Gay people.

For pete's sake we're not unicorns. We're not inherently cuter or more inspirational or whatever people like to say about us.

If you wouldn't fawn over me if I were with a guy, don't start melting into a puddle because I'm with a girl.

- an-ineffable-plan

Trans person here.

I appreciate that American society (or at least where I live) has gone from borderline legal to murder me to treating me like I'm a special, I really do.

But more than anything I just want to be left alone.

- BW_Bird

You want to be - hold the phone - treated as an equal to any other "normal" person.

Crazy, right?

- DeceiverX

Hustle Culture

People need to stop romanticizing "Hustle Culture". People need to understand that overworking does not lead to being overpaid. You are just going to end up being overworked and burnt out.

Just be consistent in whatever you do.

- izanaglizanami

It's like an even more twisted version of the Protestant work ethic.

Instead of suffering hard work in this life to get into heaven, you're suffering hard work just to maybe, if you're really lucky, afford to live in a house like the one you grew up in rather than a rabbit hutch in the stabby part of town.

- AdmiralGinge

Young Love

leonardo dicaprio love GIFGiphy

Young love.

Your first relationship most likely won't last. It'll hurt when it does end, but it's not the end of the world.

Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy, not a romance. The story is about two young people (Juliet is 13) who over the course of 4 days have a forbidden love and then commit suicide.

- dring157

Cultural products like music and movies especially f*ck up kids who are dealing with raging hormones and insecurity.

The idea that you are supposed to find TRUE ETERNAL LOVE with another confused kid puts on so much more and unrealistic expectations.

- hungrylens

The Feel-Good Nature Of Bad

Cheating and other "forbidden fun," with relationships. So many songs nowadays embracing the feel-good nature of a bad decision.

- jonoflashh

Cheating. In the media it is shown as a love story, nobody shows the suffering that the betrayed person suffers, the pain, all the trauma. These people are always abusive, ugly, unsuccessful, all as a way to "justify" adultery!

- mranderson789

Post Bottoming Out

I am bothered by the romanticized view of the post-bottoming out rehab process. Movies love showing people sitting in circles telling horrible stories. In real life these are stories about how you hurt yourself and loved ones very deeply.

- kraziefish

Fix You First

Stop romanticizing getting pets, having kids, or getting married when you're unfit for that.

People need to address their own sh*t before they add another living being (partner, child, animal) to the mix.

People either don't give it much thought and think that's what they have to do. Or they think adding one of those things to their lives will fix whatever issue(s) they have going on.

Also, people that don't have children sometimes are called "selfish."

I think people (especially people with serious problems that are not being addressed) that have children are just as, if not more, selfish than children-less adults. These people think the world needs another one of them running around or they are using this human or animal to serve some purpose for their lives.

- HungryArticle5

Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

New Jersey Pennsylvania welcome signs with overlay tweet from @jimbofication that reads "oh nj wants to fight"
Paul Souders/GettyImages, wellesenterprises/GettyImages

New Jersey's Official X Account Just Started A Hilarious Feud With Pennsylvania—And Oh Dear

New Jersey got feisty and skewered neighboring Pennsylvania with a dig in response to a tweet asking where the "saddest place on earth" might be.

The tagline is a riff on Disneyland's designation as "The Happiest Place on Earth," which Creepy.org's X account invoked to get responses for the following inquiry:

Keep ReadingShow less
Instagrammer Darnell Davis; Harry Styles
@the_nell_man/Instagram, Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Guy Chums It Up With Stranger Who Complimented His Outfit—Only To Discover It's Harry Styles

An Instagrammer was complimented for his outfit by one of the biggest pop stars and didn't even know it.

Darnell Davis said he was in a public park in London when a random stranger approached him with a glowing review of his threads.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from Troye Sivan's TikTok
@troyesivan/TikTok

Singer Troye Sivan Calls Out 'Genuinely Homophobic' Gossip About Why He's On Tour

Out music artist and actor Troye Sivan called out a circulating blind item, a piece of celebrity gossip, that made a "genuinely homophobic" claim about his alleged motivation for going on tour.

The Australian singer/songwriter, known for hits like "Rush" and "Get Me Started," recently kicked off his co-headlining Sweat Tour with British pop hitmaker Charli XCX in Detroit.

Keep ReadingShow less
Mike Lindell
My Pillow

Mike Lindell Accused Of Sneaking Nazi Reference Into Latest MyPillow Ad

MyPillow CEO and MAGA acolyte Mike Lindell is under fire for what many have characterized as a dog whistle for various White nationalist and White supremacist groups.

A new ad for his product features pillows at a discounted price of $14.88, a number associated with the neo-Nazi and overall White supremacist movements.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Winslet
Kayla Oaddams/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Kate Winslet Reveals She Was Told To Suck In Her 'Belly Rolls' While Filming Bikini Scene In New Biopic

Kate Winslet revealed that while shooting a scene for her upcoming biopic Lee, a crew member advised her to "sit up straighter" to make her stomach look flatter during a bikini scene... and she wasn't having it.

Last month, the actor opened up to Harper's Bazaarabout the incident.

Keep ReadingShow less