We all want to feel like we belong.
For some people, that entails jumping on the bandwagon and doing what everyone else is doing.
But how far are you willing to go?
There was a time when every kid in my neighborhood played Dungeons & Dragons, which, for the uninitiated was a fantasy role-playing game that was ideal for escapism.
I tried. I wanted to be cool, but I just was not into it. And that was when I realized I don't have to do what everyone else was doing and that marching to the beat of my own drum was much cooler.
Although I lost out on social opportunities with friends, I gained perspective by staying true to my convictions.
I don't knock others for the things they are into – whether it be tattoos or listening to the most commercially successful music group or artist, but I will seek them out on my own terms and not because they are trendy.
Redditor Mobslayer7 asked:
"What's a trend you refuse to get behind?"
Proof Of Philanthropy
"Filming myself doing a good deed."
"I'm not sure why this starting, but personally I find it takes all of the generosity out of the act. Ex. Filming yourself giving a homeless person food."
– ecitruoc
Blowing Up Lips
"Lip injection."
"a-f'king-greed. Your lips have to fit your face. If you have naturally big lips, great! But if you don't, there's nothing wrong with having Tilda Swinton lips."
Time To Shut The "Gate"
"Adding 'gate' to the end of every controversy. It makes no sense!!! It was called the 'Watergate' scandal because that was the name of the hotel that was being broken into. But ever since then...ugh."
Vine Replacement
"Tiktok. (Oddly enough, I miss vine!)"
"TikTok is poisonous."
Hey All You Cool Cats & Kittens
"Watching Tiger King. Still haven't."
"There are no hero's in that show."
Music Video GIFGiphyQuirks
"Purposely going against a trend for the sake of being qUIrkY!! Also hating people for following trends. And writing words in random uppercase and lowercase letters."
– E1lySym
Bringing The Curtain Down
"Cancel culture."
"This guy wants to cancel cancel culture! Let's cancel him!"
The Sweet Stuff
"Smoothie bowls. You're putting fruit on top of your blended fruit??"
"Also, those things are sugar bombs. It's a really weird way to start your morning—I'd crash within an hour."
Cancelling Fashion
"Wearing super expensive, popular clothes or shoes."
"Im part of the age group that does this and i think it is the stupidest thing, more so with shoes and the people who try to keep them clean all the time. Half the time the expensive sh*t dont even look that good."
Kids These Days, I Tell Ya
"Those weird 'emojis' as I'll call them that kids these days are using."
"OwO UwU whatever the hell those stupid ass things are."
"what👋is👋this👋 suppose👋to👋mean???"
"I f'king hate people that do this."
Let's Leave "Karen" Out Of It
"Using the name 'Karen' as an insult. You want to call someone an entitled b*tch, call them an entitled b*tch. Leave poor Karen out of it... none of the 'Karens' I've met were actually named Karen, and all of the people I know named Karen are lovely people... but they can't complain about their name being taken as an insult because to do so would get them immediately labeled as a 'Karen.'"
Political Mockery
"Trump bashing. It seems the thing to do on Reddit, but you will never hear me badmouth that orange, small handed, lift wearing, stroke denying, cheating, fraudulent piece of turd treason scumbag a**hole. Never."
– gozba
"What dark facts do you know about food industry?"
Unwanted Extra Ingredients...
"Sometimes the salads aren't bug free."
"There were times where I received crap for taking too long washing lettuce."
"Staff would wash a large container of lettuce like once or twice."
'I did it 3 or 4 times."
"I didn't stop until the water was clear and had no bugs."
"The others had a 'who cares' attitude."
"One time my boss needed my help and said to me frustrated, 'The lettuce is already washed, unpack it in salads quickly'."
"The lettuce looked dirty so I said to myself 'I can't sell this to people'."
"I washed it and guess what the water looked like."
"Dark brown from soil, 50+ dead gnats, a living and swimming spider the size of a penny."- FightStageYouTube
The Contaminants Will Not, Though...
"Worse I participated in as kitchen staff in a rather top-flight restaurant."
"On a slow summer Sunday afternoon, the boss sent us down to the walk-in meat coolers to spray paint the rusted walls."
"We were instructed to not remove the contents of cooler first; rather just shift the meat from one side of cooler to other."
"The coat of silver spray paint will come off during cooking."- Zealousideal_Lie_383
Season 11 Cooking GIF by MasterchefGiphyYou Have No Idea What's Been In There...
"The deep fryer grease is long overdue for a change; but it’s expensive to do so nightly."- Zealousideal_Lie_383
And People Go To Bed Hungry...
"The amount of waste thrown away every single day by grocery stores."
"I worked in the meat department of a decently sized grocery store and the waste their was nauseating."
"I sh*t you not, we would throw away an industrial sized garbage bin worth of meat, fish, and poultry every single day."
"The expiration dates dictated everything which is obviously a sensible policy to have, but they wouldn't do anything about it."
"They wouldn't donate it, let employees take it home, or make adjustments to the orders so we wouldn't have to throw so much away."
"The reasoning was always 'better have to much than not enough' which I guess makes a little sense, but when I am throwing away dozens of pounds of tenderloins, center cut fish and shellfish per night, its to much."
"Mind you, this is one department of one grocery store."
"Sorry for the rant but I feel like it needed to be said."- Zastrow_Studios
Waste Management Food GIF by UC DavisGiphyThere's A Reason They're "All You Can Eat..."
"In my country, buffets often sell spoiled food, like if the employees see mold on top of the sour cream, they just scrape it down and continue selling it."
"Also, if they sell cooked meat, they often leave them on the counter for days and add some oil to it every morning to look fresh."- Wooden_Potential_699
Don't Believe Everything You Hear... (But Remember, This One Was In Canada...)
"So odd to see all of the comments that chain places are dirty!"
"On the weekends I work as a server in the lounge of Boston Pizza (Canadian chain—not sure if there are any in the states) and when I started working there I was seriously impressed with the cleanliness procedures!"
"For one example, parmesan and chilli containers are emptied and cleaned every night, as well as salt and pepper shakers!"
"Kitchen protocols are very clean and organized as well!"- noobishpineapple
Happy Season 17 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyNot Exactly "Haute Cuisine"...
"You'd never want to eat at a restaurant again once you saw how much of your $70 meal for two came frozen and pre-prepared in plastic bags."- PhilipLiptonSchrute
It's Not Just The Greens That Need Washing...
"Grocery distribution warehouses are often extremely filthy and rarely cleaned."
"Wash anything canned, bottled or jarred!"
"They're filthy as hell, covered in microplastics, rotten food, mouse pee, bird sh*t, etc etc."
"I used to do maintenance on conveyor systems for a major US chain and they just send sh*t flying down the conveyors so fast that, its fairly common for glass to shatter because of the vibrations, food to fall off, etc etc."
"I saw Bats, Birds and Mice in that facility, but it was within tolerance of their health policy."
"Also saw people that were sick sneezing and coughing on products."
"Never saw a floor scrubber go through the warehouse the entire 3mo I worked there and I was doing alternating double shifts!"
"The only time I saw a broom was if there was shattered glass."- -Plunder-Bunny-
mice GIFGiphyRemember, All These Incidents Are Case By Case...
"As a former chef, I've got to say that I've never seen any of the horrible stuff mentioned here over my career (mostly higher end and fine dining establishments)."
"We on ocassion would have things like frozen airline chicken breasts brought in, but other than that we did all prep and cooking by hand with fresh ingredients from mostly local purveyors when possible."
"We also broke down and deep cleaned every night from the ranges to the floors to the wells to the vents."
"Every night."
"Myself and staff have always taken this sh*t very seriously, and it's always disappointing when you hear of this kind of behavior."
"Do better, people."- iamtehryan
They Trick You With The Language
"It’s more like misleading labeling."
"No sugar."
"Right?"
"Wrong if you read ingredients on a lot of these packaging it will say things like maltodextrin and dextrose."
"That’s actually a sugar."
"Because of regulation they only have to label it no sugar and people think it’s healthy, etc."- SavemebabyK
Maybe Just Stick With Sausage...
"Worked in a pepperoni factory 20+ years ago as an accountant."
"Found that the more MSP in the bill of materials, the lower quality and cheaper the product."
"Looking at the stuff, it looked kind of like an old square crumbly eraser if you remember those."
"So I asked what MSP was."
"It's 'mechanically separated pork'."
"When I asked what that means, they told me that after all the good meat is cut off of a pig, a power washer is used to blast the remaining flesh off the carcass."
"That's scooped up, dried out and packaged as MSP."
"Enjoy your next cheap pepperoni pizza."- Lahk74
Catering Happy Birthday GIF by Feliks Tomasz KonczakowskiGiphyIt's very easy to decide not to eat at a certain restaurant, or dine at a certain grocery store owing to a less-than-appealing appearance.
That being said, many people might be surprised to discover that conditions at the "higher end" options might be as bad or worse.
Then too... if the food is delicious, and has yet to make you sick, then perhaps ignorance is, in fact, bliss.
Redditor rayray1010 wanted to hear about the ways TV has been destroyed, so they asked:
"What single plot decision ruined a good television series?"
Break Out
prison break GIFGiphy"Prison Break was a great concept for a show. But then once they broke out of prison they kept making the show."
Se7enLC
"Fox doesn't know when to cancel a show. They either go for a season or two too long or they get canceled too early."
bangbangracer
Too Weird
"Deb being in love with Dexter. I don't know what they were thinking."
wilmontcm
"It was kind of pointless. If they brought it up in the first place, they should've run with it. Then, on their wedding day, Debra finds Dexter's slides."
"I can hear her now 'I was getting ready to marry my brother, but now I find out he's a f**king serial killer!!'"
GrandUnhappy9211
"Came looking for this. Weirdest plot choice ever."
RateNXS
Grievances
"We could fill this entire comment section with GoT grievances :/ "
DIWhy-not
"Season eight singlehandedly took one of, if not the most talked about shows at the time and made collapse into pop culture oblivion! Not a single person I knew or interacted with wasn't watching 'Game of Thrones,' I swear every other conversation looped back to that show eventually, but after S8 no one gave a sh*t about it."
Enganeer09
"There were so many, and this is so unpopular opinion, but Dany and Jon falling in love was just boring. I hope GRRM avoids it but I guess the chance for that is low. I mean, the chance he ever finishes another book for the series is low."
sharksarenotreal
Over It
"The Blacklist writers almost cruelly withholding answers from the audience year after year after year."
zsal830
"I gave up when Liz died and Dembe became an FBI agent, and the show was already dying before that for me. I loved watching James Spader's acting, but it got to the point that even that wasn't enough to keep me involved. I've heard it's in the final season now, so once it's over I'll just Google the ending and that's good enough for me."
Bobisburnsred
Bad Changes
Episode 3 GIF by BBC ThreeGiphy"Misfits when they started getting rid of the main characters from season 1."
discostud1515
"The second the group changed the show lost what made it great."
legend_forge
That show was delightfully strange and certainly fit its title.
Cast shake-ups can really zap a show of its magic... especially when the show itself is about super powers.
Oh Luke
season 4 netflix GIF by Gilmore Girls Giphy"When they revealed Luke had a child he didn't know about in Gilmore Girls."
writtenrain
"Like I feel bad because she’s a kid, but I hate April. Such a terrible plot device. There was plenty going on without her coming into the picture."
helloitstessa
Stop at the beginning
"When they left the park in Westworld."
Indian_Bob
"Unfortunately the writers were very keen to write a commentary on AI in society, and thus drove it in a direction, which as a show in itself is interesting, but went a lot further than the source material in this regard. There were two shows there and neither was done justice."
IHaveHivesWithBees
"I think Season 1 is one of the best shows ever made. It has everything: characters, story ark, riddle, and its closure and very good (just a bit open) ending. Other seasons are just an attempt of producers to milk the story and Id rather pretend they don’t exist."
techlogger
Too Soon
"Sherlock f**ked up by killing Moriarty too early."
"Andrew Scott's performance was so great that they then had to keep trying to shoehorn the already dead Moriarty into later plots or end up with the travesty that was the last series with Sherlock's even smarter sister, who secretly cooked up everything with Mortiarty, just so they could have more Moriarty scenes."
"The whole show went from top-class Peak TV to absolute dogs**t in a slow decline that started with the poor Doylist decision to kill Jimbo."
Histary_Studentary
A Re-Work
"The overall seventh season of Once Upon a Time. It should have been reworked in its entirety."
StillAnIntrovert
"I agree with that. Another bad point was when they made Emma the Dark One when they literally just introduced Lilly, who had the saviors' darkest potential."
"That could have been an epic villain as 'The Dark Savior.'" Also, them constantly having Rumple and Belle get back together. He was power-driven and would always put her second. I loved it in season 4 when she finally realized that and banished him from Storybrooke."
Electrowhatt19
sexy happy days GIFGiphyMany of these franchises jumped the shark, as they say.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments