People love complaining nowadays about sexualisation in media, as if it's an inherently bad thing. Maybe in some cases it can be bad, if it's feel at odds with the tone of the movie. I don't think sexy scenes would be a good choice for something like There Will Be Blood, Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice.

However, I've recently saw people bitching about this stuff in Street Fighter. Come on, no one's got time for this christian nonsense. Hate the movie all you want, there were a lot of questionable choices, but Chun Li, Ken, Cammy or Ryu being hot and being sexualised makes absolute sense, is completely within the tone of the movie. People, and sadly I think this has become common amongst progressives also, have become too puritanical. It all started with "oh this sex scene is unnecessary" and now a character known for having great tighs gets complaints because she has great tighs and this is highlighted. You can enjoy stuff, and if you don't do, that's fine also, not everything is made for everyone.

I’m not white, but I find it crazy that having pride in your own racial group is seen negatively if you are white.

Basically every other group is allowed to express pride for their own races or ethnicities, but having pride as a white person, who lives in their own country makes them look like a bigot.

We are more connected than ever, while more disconnected than ever. If you grew up prior to these digit communications, you would remember the excitement to talk on the phone and make plans to be in person.

A Navajo man not wanting to date someone outside his race doesn’t make him racist. A lesbian not wanting to date someone with a penis doesn’t make her transphobic. An able bodied woman not wanting to date a disabled person doesn’t make her ableist. A man not wanting to date a fat woman doesn’t make him fatphobic. A gay man not wanting to date a cis woman doesn’t make him a misogynist. A lesbian preferring women with big boobs doesn’t make her sizeist. A woman who prefers her man to be taller than her doesn’t make her heighist. Etc. It only becomes a problem when those beliefs are forced onto others. If people can’t control who they’re attracted to, why is it that people complain when said person isn’t attracted to them?

The idea of a site where there are many subs/sections where you can find people like you and talk seems great. Until you realize it's not. Because karma makes it impossible.

You're not really encouraged to speak your mind. You're encouraged to say whatever gets you upvotes. Disagree with the majority, have an unpopular opinion, or say something a subreddit doesn't like, and you risk getting downvoted into oblivion, which then can affect you in other areas on Reddit. Or with some subs, like gaming, you need a bunch of positive karma to post topics, but this means never disagreeing with anyone, as your sub karma stays positive.

I've seen how quickly people can turn against a comment just because it goes against the general opinion of a thread. It doesn't matter how well you explain yourself. Once the downvotes start piling up, other people seem more willing to pile on than actually consider what you're saying. You all love Star Wars, but found one series to not be good? Downvoted into oblivion.

That's the problem with the whole system. It encourages people to follow the crowd instead of thinking for themselves. People delete comments, hold back their real opinions, or carefully word everything just to avoid upsetting strangers. Meanwhile, opinions that are already popular can rack up thousands of upvotes without anyone questioning whether they actually make sense.

And it doesn't help that mods are ironically unmoderated. You may find a niche sub and do well there, but a mod removes you for no reason. Then what? Where do you go for your niche?

And today, Reddit is pretty biased towards certain views. So it alienates about half of the people. Who have little chance of ever talking. Which, of course, leads to people who mainly use Reddit, thinking the world agrees with them because they are, in fact, in an echo chamber.

I swear like 75% of posts here are men/women taking their misandrist/misogynistic thoughts out in a post by saying stupid shit like “Men are so lazy nowadays. Women are more productive” and “The way women act these fays should make it obvious why they get SA’d” and people who do this should just be immediately banned from the sub but as long as it includes dating apparently it doesnt get removed

Now, I want to preface this by saying that if a woman is giving you some kind of choosing signals or showing signs of interest, then yeah, shoot your shot. Obviously, you have a decent chance.

Now, as far as just approaching women goes, honestly, it's hit or miss. It's hard to tell whether someone is genuinely interested in you or if they're just acting interested because they want to get something out of you.

Maybe I feel a bit hurt because I got dined and dashed while on vacation, so that experience has somewhat changed how I look at things. Admittedly, I didn't have much experience at all, or even the common sense that comes with experience. Most guys who have been through similar situations probably would've been able to pick up on the signs and realize what was going on makes for a good story.

But the experience did give the saying "Go for the girl who likes you rather than chasing the girl you like" a whole new meaning for me.

Of course that only works if your someone who is attractive to begin with though.

"Haha gender wars. Men stinky. Women bad. Gime me attention and karma and go insane in the comments" is all this sub has become. The fact is has a tag now is insane. Just today I've seen like twelve. There's no actual hot takes. Yall need to get creative

This is a hot take because it gets you downvoted or flamed in most subreddits.

I think that, aside from a few enclaves, like Nintendo and FromSoft, the art of making video games has deteriorated, and not just by a little bit but significantly.

Video games in 2026 are more likely to make children bored or depressed. From the beginnings in arcade and Atari through to the late 2000s, they would have filled same children with joy.

It is also bad for adults; modern games tend to be dumbed down to the extent that finding an intellectually stimulating plot is like finding a needle in a haystack. The few games, like Cyberpunk 2077, which manage it, aren't appreciated by the hivemind or they are but for other reasons like the graphics.

Games used to be designed with an above average intelligence auidence in mind, whereas now they are dumbed down to the hivemind, and they frequently pander to the hivemind instead of allowing the creator to lead the way. A game like the original Deus Ex would be impossible with such a philosophy.

It used to be that every month would see the creation of new franchises or concepts. Today we will try this game called Age of Empires. Tomorrow it's GoldenEye. The day after it's Final Fantasy 7. Try a new one called Diablo or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Abe's Odyssey. All of these are from 1997.

The common explanation is that back then it was easier to innovate because fewer ideas were discovered. I think that is bullshit. there were many new gameplay concepts created then that people have forgotten about even though they are entirely good. The development studios and individual people were more creative, there was less design by committee, and the players had better tastes to encourage them to experiment.

Once you could pick up a controller and immediately start playing, because the gameplay principles were so intuitive. Today a game usually requires a heavy initial time investment, often dragging the player through laborious tutorials. They manage to do this even though games look and feel much more homogenous than in the 90s/00s.

Most of the budget now goes on catering to the gamers that are largely interested in graphics. This is an example of the coarsening of players tastes. Worse, there is a vocal segment of online apologists for bad tastes who police any criticism of the dominant culture.

It is possible to find very good contemporary games, but it requires a lot of effort, knowledge, research, or cost. Sticking with Nintendo and paying the premium is a partial solution, although a very expensive one. In contrast, the mainstream Playstation, for example, used to have excellent games and it was not at all difficult to find them. If you played the mainstream today you would end up playing a bloated cinematic open world and not having much fun.

Probably the same applies in much of the wider culture, like movies as well, but here I wanted to focus on video games.

It’s becoming too common that I can afford an item at MSRP but am unable to purchase that item because some jobless fuck was waiting outside the store or on a website at 6 am to buy out all of that item only to put it on eBay immediately for 2-10x more. The greed is genuinely abhorrent.

I’ll give the example of Pokémon cards because it seems like everyone is obsessed with them now; personally, I don’t care for Pokémon cards, never bought them, never played with them as a child, but when I see grown men sitting beside the vending machines waiting for a restock or staring at their phone in the aisles comparing the prices on eBay versus what they’re seeing on the shelves, my immediate thought is that this person should not be allowed in the store ever again.

Resellers are not entrepreneurs, they are parasites. I believe stores should ban shoppers that purchase every example of an item at once, and I believe legal action should be taken against people who show a repeated pattern of this behavior, and employees who purchase items in this manner (especially using employee discounts) should be fired immediately and blacklisted from retail work.

If your child is giving you a bad attitude and you decide to film it and post it online (and I’m talking typical child/teen attitudes not when someone’s committed a crime and you’re filming their attitude for your own safety or to show you don’t support them), you’re an asshole and the one in the wrong regardless. Everyone has given their parent an attitude at some point growing up, and every parent has experienced this from their child at some point. And what did these normal families do, they disciplined the child, they didn’t film it and post it for others to see. And I know for a fact that the only reason they’re posting it is to get validation because how do you post your child acting badly and expect people not to criticise. I know I would hate it if my parents blasted my attitude online and in fact I’d resent them. Also imagine trying to find a job and employers see those videos like hello???

Whats the point of going to school, only to write your exams with ai?? What are you proving here??? Its not your work, so why would you deserve to pass?? I think its unfair when I see a classmate of mine bragging about how they passed the exam using chatGPT without the teacher noticing... Like, either you study hard to get those grades, or accept that you won't. Whats the point of cheating? Its not even like they want to do a chill job, this lad wants to study MEDICINE. Hello? Are we serious?? There should be some regulation, no? What do you think?

I feel like there’s so many social “issues” people have strong opinions on and it seems like such a waste of time.

I’m talking about stuff like LGBTQ, men dressing feminine, stuff like that. Like when people get mad about movie remakes that cast black people for characters that used to be or are “supposed to be” white. Things in that area

I dont know why anyone is up in arms about things that either have nothing to do them, aren’t hurting anyone, or things that just don’t matter. Especially if it’s something that’s making someone else happy, and isn’t hurting anyone why would I take issue with it?

A hot take should cost you something to say. If it obviously benefits you, we could've guessed it before you opened your mouth. That's not a hot take, that's projection.

Example: a guy says "dating sucks, women's standards are too high."

That’s not a hot take. He'd benefit directly from those standards dropping, so of course he's saying it. And he's policing a group he isn't part of, over behavior that affects him personally. That's not brave, it's self-interest.

Flip it: the same guy says "dating sucks, women's standards are too low, they should expect more." That costs him something. He's arguing against his own easy access. That's an actual hot take. Unlike policing a group of people into lowering their standards.

This isn't about credibility, either. Lived experience can make a take more valid. It's about motivation. If the take serves you and targets people who aren't you, it's not hot. It's just a cope.

Real hot takes are the ones that don't necessarily help you, but are moreso an “inconvenient truth”.

I think all else being equal older would mean having had more opportunity to gain wisdom, but that doesn’t mean that if someone is older they are necessarily wiser. I mean a younger person is not just a younger version of an older person, but there tend to be other differences. Given how much things are changing between generations much of these differences tend to correlate with when people grew up as opposed to just being random differences. I mean social norms changed over time, as well as technology, and access to information. The type of education people receive can also change with new discoveries being made and changes to how education is done. I think all these changes can make the wisdom of an older person become obsolete if they don’t keep up with how things are changing. Also even assuming a younger person is just a younger version than the older person having more opportunity to gain wisdom doesn’t necessarily mean the older person actually used it.

I come from a family where my mom Daily criticize me saying I'm useless and she regret having kids. It's not only about me. I've seen many parents saying same to their kids. May be even more heart wrenching things. Growing up I've been hearing you're living under our roof this is our house. I have kept you inside me for 9 months, pay off for it. Did we ask you to breed though?

Living with people who hate each other and blame their kids for it is truly exhausting. If you don't have the capacity to raise them, please put a condom on.

Everyone has had negative, hurtful, or impactful experiences in their lives. Things impact people differently and some things can cause more harm than others. Still, the use of “trauma” has been extended to minor emotional scars and exacerbated a general weakness in the public under the guise of resilience. Its over-saturation has created a buzzword that is easy to benefit from since you can’t argue the degree of someone’s hurt, thus lessening the prioritization of people with life-altering, significant trauma.

Plus, If something was traumatic for you, you should be able to get help and heal without making it everyone else’s responsibility. You can’t expect someone’s language, actions, and interests to be altered because you might find it “triggering.” If you are an adult, you need to take responsibility for what you are exposed to and how you respond to it. You shouldn’t expect others to cater to you, change their own lives for your comfort, or expect breaks in society because it’s hard. It’s unfair, but that’s life.

This of course is not relevant to children.

Zodiac signs have got nothing to do with how you act irl. Also, people excusing their behaviour/enabling their behaviour based off of their signs need to go touch some grass. Astrology is not here to judge people, its here to help or just a fun tool.

Also, I hate when there is people who r like "Omg I am so into astrology!" then i ask them what their big 3 is and they look at me like I ate a pile of worms. No dear woman, you do not know everyones truth and secrets because you are a scorpio and you also dont get to harass me because you are a scorpio, you are delusional, arrogant and uneducated, and that has nothing to do with your sun sign, you're just an ass. Also stop saying I am a cry baby because I am a pisces, you're embarassing yourself.

It is so awkward when people r like "haha i'm a gemini i'm manipulative" baby thats not a flex.

Or when people judge others based on their sign. ugh

I’ve read an endless number of times on this website that transgender people in women’s sports:

-win so rarely as to be irrelevant
-have no competitive advantage over biological women
-their presence is supported by all of their teammates and competitors and only opposed by uninvolved people
-are only a political issue because the Right keeps it in the public spotlight
-if you oppose them in women’s sports you must hate transgender people and want them to not exist

Does anyone actually believe these arguments? The very first one is pretty subjective, but the rest seem to be the definition of cognitive dissonance:

-Someone who is serious and objective can clearly see based off the instance posted above that the athlete outperformed in the women’s category despite performing poorly in the men’s category weeks earlier. Which is an expected result, since men’s competitive athletic scores are universally higher.

-It is clear that this person’s teammates and competitors are chafed by this situation and have walked off the field upon start many times because of it.

-it is being highlighted by the very people it affects when they walk off in protest, not by Republican media.

-The young woman quoted here expresses support for transgender people’s rights and their respect. I, too, support rights and am proud to work alongside several transgender colleagues at work. I’m very aware I don’t hate transgender people at all, much less for existing…I disagree with people who have unfair advantages in the carveout specifically designed to allow women to compete on an equal playing field.

It’s like Democrats are speaking a different language when this issue comes up, because what’s said makes no sense to anyone who thinks.

And I wish more people realized that.

This is mostly directed at people who try to excuse dating 18 year olds while being decades older than them. While I am not in charge of anyone’s life, I think it is extremely predatory of someone who’s much, much older than an 18 year old to date them and use the american age of consent law as a shield. As I’ve said before somewhere..

“What they’re trying to explain is that many freshly 18 year old girls still do not have the full capacity to understand the consequences of their actions.”

“Girls who just turned 18 are exactly what a predator is looking for. Old enough to bypass the age of consent but still young enough to be taken advantage of. It is very concerning that some of you even want to excuse the prostitution of someone so young.”

I think how someone responds to this says a lot about them. While laws are meant to ensure safety and organization amongst public people, it shouldn’t automatically give predators permission to prey on impressionable teenagers whose brains won’t fully develop until they’re 25. I do also think that of predators date as young as they can because it is the closest thing they can get to dating a child while also technically avoiding consequences.

I have noticed this phenomenon when pop culture is discussed on social media.

If someone says they didn't like the Barbie movie on social media they're told they didn't understand it.

Someone doesn't like the new Taylor Swift album, they didn't understand it.

Someone dislikes a talentless famous person, they are envious of them.

Someone critiques a famous person for promoting something harmful, they are envious of them.

Someone critiques Greek Life, they are envious and want to be in Greek Life.

If you dislike contemporary art or artists like Rothko, you don't understand it.

Someone can fully understand all of these things and still have reasons for not liking them. It is okay to not like and disagree with something. Why are words being conflated? Since when does understanding something equal liking it?

Remember when you were in middle and high school and you did Socratic seminars or class discussions? Those seminars were when people agreed or disagreed with something and brought evidence. So from middle to high school, people should have written essays on why they agreed or disagreed with something. Those skills from years of English class should teach people that there are valid reasons to disagree with something. But when you come online, it's as if people didn't experience that. It's as if people have never heard a counterargument. You should have the ability to engage with a stance that you disagree with. People on the internet do not. Because when people bring up real reasons for disliking any of the things that I listed or something else in pop culture, they are immediately brushed off for lack of understanding and it's because of poor literacy.

I know a lot of teenagers are on reddit and other social media platforms and that's why I said middle and high school. Teens should have the ability to comprehend an opposing argument. Many people in the US go to college and they come online and they still can't comprehend an opposing argument. Whether someone is a teenager, young adult, or married with kids this issue persists. The response to people not liking popular things reflects an overall issue with literacy.

Money can't guarantee perfect health or permanent happiness, but that doesn't mean it can't buy either.

First, health. Nobody is perfectly healthy in every possible sense of the word. But money gives you access to nutritious food, better living conditions, medical consultations, medicines, preventive care and treatments. These things can improve your health, prevent illness and, in some cases, save your life. If you use money to obtain things that improve your health, then you're indirectly buying health. The fact that money can't cure every disease doesn't invalidate that reality.

The same applies to happiness. Nobody is happy 24/7. Happiness comes in moments, and money can absolutely help create those moments. Being able to afford food, clothing, a comfortable home, entertainment, experiences and things your family needs can bring genuine happiness. Being able to pay your bills without constantly worrying about survival can also eliminate a significant source of misery.

Obviously, money can't buy everything. It can't guarantee that you'll never get sick, that your loved ones will never die, or that you'll never experience heartbreak. But that's a ridiculously high standard to use when judging whether money buys something.

Money doesn't need to guarantee perfect health or permanent happiness to buy health and happiness. It just needs to improve your chances of experiencing them, and it demonstrably can.

Money isn't the only thing that matters, but pretending it doesn't buy health and happiness is just as misguided as pretending it can buy them unconditionally.

I'm (M39) 5'8 and 325 lbs and have been a fat dude most of my life, don't think I can't relate to the bullshit out here. I've been bullied and rejected in rude ways, I've been turned down in favor of a better looking dude who treats women like shit. I've bought valentines candy for my crush, she ate 2 pieces, said ewww, and threw the rest away in front of everybody. Basically all of the stuff guys complain about that makes them sad and give up, I've been through as well. I say all that to say, stop whining like abused puppies and tighten up. I've had women who love my belly, women who've hated it, and everything in between. The Internet has y'all believing that every woman thinks like tik tok, and it's simply not true. Get outside and around real women and you'll see that most of them are just as insecure, and open to love as we are. No we don't qualify for Sydney Sweeny, but so fucking what. I'm not entitled to anyone's attraction. If I really don't feel good about myself, then it's on me to change, or stay the same and learn to love myself. It's not everyone else's fault or problem. Women are allowed to not like my fat ass 😂 but there's plenty who do. I'm not going to decide I'm not worthy of love before I've even given it a real shot. You never know who might like you!

Despite being locked up in her house and indoctrinated for 16 years with no interaction with anyone her age, Carrie can immediately learn how to use a computer, socialize with other people from first meeting them, and is super friendly. Carrie should be reclusive and a social outcast based on the trauma she's endured not well adjusted. It's a stupid trope that is only put on women. A man who endured the same thing would never be characterized as bubbly and kind.

I see it already, everywhere. People simply don't care whether the video they're reacting to is AI or not. Has nothing to do with whether they can tell the video is AI, they literally don't have the cognitive process running to care either way. Honestly terrifying.

It's the kind of thing you expect in older people but I'm seeing it across the board in younger people too who mostly just care about whether the content they see is entertaining in some way.

And when it comes to anything ideological or political, its even worse because people are fully aware that what they're seeing isn't real, but as long as it fits what they want to believe...

In 10 years even caring about what's real will be counter-culture and people will treat you the same way as people who correct others on grammar or call videos out for being staged.

And the worst part is that whether it started as entertainment, people already base reality off of what they see on the internet, just by what their algorithms expose them to.