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Last Christmas, Playboi Carti ended his social media hiatus to vaguely write two things on X (formerly Twitter): “Hello Twitter” and “love all my supporters it’s time.” Understandably, fans took this as the beginning of a musical rollout, but Carti made them wait another year. Last week, he dropped his single “2024,” and on Tuesday, December 19, he surprise-dropped another song, “H00DByAir,” alongside a video in the form of an Instagram Reel posted by Opium.

Carti remained active on Instagram over the last 24 hours, re-sharing praise for “H00DByAir” to his Instagram Story, including this post by Schoolboy Q and screenshots of texts from, um, unlikely sources.

“Yooo on the flight bumping this sh*t!!!” someone saved under the contact name “Sex” texted Carti. “Congrats dear, f*ck yeah it’s so so good!!!” That was followed by a screenshot from God — or, a contact saved as “God” — texting, “Biggest in the world. You’re the best of all time. The greatest.”

Perhaps the main focus should be what all of this activity says about when Carti will finally drop his first album since 2020’s Whole Lotta Red — widely believed to be titled I Am Music based upon Carti’s Instagram profile picture as well as his usage of the #IAmMusic hashtag — but I am way more interested in finding out who “God” and “Sex” are.

It should also be noted that Carti posted “YVES” in the same lettering as his “I AM MUSIC” profile picture. Complex chalked up that as Carti clarifying the spelling of his newborn daughter’s name, which was initially assumed to be “Eve.” When “H00DByAir” dropped on Tuesday night, December 19, many people noticed that Carti announced his newest child toward the end of the song with the lyrics, “I was 24 when I had lil’ Onyx / Then I had a daughter, I had a daughter too / 27 when I had Yves / Now I can finally sleep.”

See Carti’s posts below.

Dr. Seuss may have been cancelled a couple years ago, except that he wasn’t. A few of his more obscure books were flagged for problematic material, but they’re still available. And his contribution to the holidays? Not only wasn’t How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Memory-holed, but there are not one but three movie adaptations available to stream with the fam.

But how can you watch them in our streaming future-scape? Here’s how:

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

The first take on Seuss’ 1957 book came just under a decade after publication. Produced by MGM and first aired on CBS, this TV special pulled out all the stops. Boris Karloff was enlisted to narrate Seuss’ euphonious, wordplay-heavy prose and give the Christmas-hating green Grinch his voice. Future Tony the Tiger and top shelf name-haver Thurl Ravenscroft sang the songs.

And for the animation, they tapped no less than Chuck Jones, semi-fresh off departing Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, to give Seuss’ imagery life. Jones was a genius, but he was particularly brilliant at two things: the pacing of jokes, which embraces stillness before launching into frantic action; and gorgeous, detailed close-ups. It’s one thing to stare at the Grinch’s face in Seuss’ book; it’s another to him launch into a smirk with such leisure you can see it form in slow, granular detail.

Where to stream: Peacock

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Nearly three-and-a-half decades later Seuss’ Yuletide tome received a big screen take, this one live-action. Poor Jim Carrey underwent a torturous daily make-up routine, taking 2 ½ hours to apply a get-up from horror legend Rick Baker. Carrey described it as “akin to being buried alive,” and after two weeks he appeared to lose his mind, disappearing only to be found having shredded his make-up. Eventually Carrey had to be trained with someone on the “methods of enduring torture.” Ron Howard directed.

Where to stream: Also on Peacock

The Grinch (2018)

You know who didn’t have to be tortured to play the Grinch? Benedict Cumberbatch. All he had to do was stand in a recording booth and crap out Dr. Seuss’ iconic lines. This one went back to animation, albeit the modern CGI style, though, like its predecessor, it also had to Stretch-Armstrong a story, one that makes for a snug 25 minute TV special, out to about 85 minutes, end credits included. Karloff did double as narrator and Grinch voice. Cumberbatch is spared that, with the narration supplied by Pharrell Williams.

Where to stream: Guess what? It’s also on Peacock

In short: If you want to binge all three Grinch movies, you can do so on the same place. Otherwise you’ll have to rent them or wait from them to appear on good old fashioned linear TV.

In November 2022, Big Sean and Jhené Aiko welcomed their son, Noah. Simple math: Big Sean has had 13 months to embrace fatherhood, and the Detroit rapper was quick to deploy a dad joke — even if it was a slightly inappropriate one — when approached by TMZ on Tuesday, December 19.

In the 98-second video, The off-camera correspondent brought it to Sean Don’s attention that the Oxford Word Of The Year is “rizz.” Before she could ask him a question about it, Big Sean interjected, “Rizz as in ‘j*zz’?”

“No,” the TMZ correspondent responded, disappointment soaking her voice. Big Sean claimed, “I was just playin’,” but he asked what the word means. According to The Associated Press, rizz is “a term used by Generation Z to describe someone’s ability to attract or seduce another person,” and it is short for charisma, as explained by Jimmy Fallon.

Anyway, back to Big Sean, who teased he will drop an album at some point in the near-ish future — “it’s been a while” — but wouldn’t commit to whether he used “Gen-Z words” in songs on the very vaguely confirmed album. “I guess you’re gonna have to wait and find out if I used rizz on the album,” he said, and the tone of his voice suggests he was just saying anything to get to the end of this interaction — playful yet exasperated.

“Rizz, well, it’s kind of like RZA, right?” he said.

Again, no, Big Sean. Not at all.

There are two things Quentin Tarantino seems to like doing more than most: vowing to make movies he never does and claiming that he’ll only ever make 10 movies. Sometimes these two activities clash. For instance, remember when Tarantino talked up maybe doing his own, probably R-rated version of a Star Trek picture? Turns out he actually almost did that…until he couldn’t bear making that his swan song.

In a new interview with Collider, screenwriter Mark L. Smith — whose credits include Vacancy, Overlord, the forthcoming sequel Twisters, and George Clooney’s new The Boys in the Boat — opened up about working with Tarantino on his aborted Star Trek movie.

“So Quentin came in to Bad Robot, we met there, and he had this pitch, this idea of a version of Star Trek that he wanted to make,” Smith recalled. Smith says he was blown away by Tarantino’s pitch, so much so that he said he wished he’d “snuck something in to record as he’s doing his dialogue, and his acting it out is just so wonderful.”

Tarantino even wanted something that was unthinkable for him: He wanted another writer to do the script. That tuned out to be Smith, who got so far as a draft.

Sadly, as it dawned on Tarantino that Star Trek would be his final screen work, he backed out:

“[H]e started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films. I remember we were talking, and he goes, “If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it?” And I think that was the bump he could never get across, so the script is still sitting there on his desk. I know he said a lot of nice things about it. I would love for it to happen. It’s just one of those that I can’t ever see happening. But it would be the greatest Star Trek film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a balls-out kind of thing.”

Instead Tarantino decided to make a very different kind of last work: The Movie Critic, which not only finally gives him the opportunity to make a film set in the ‘70s, but may have him reworking the era’s cinematic classics, like Rolling Thunder and Taxi Driver.

Mind you, Tarantino could also back off this “10 films and done” deal. Then he can make Star Trek. Then he can make a 12th film. Then, what the hell, he could make a 13th. Maybe then — just hear us out — he could do a 14th.

(Via Collider)

There are two things Quentin Tarantino seems to like doing more than most: vowing to make movies he never does and claiming that he’ll only ever make 10 movies. Sometimes these two activities clash. For instance, remember when Tarantino talked up maybe doing his own, probably R-rated version of a Star Trek picture? Turns out he actually almost did that…until he couldn’t bear making that his swan song.

In a new interview with Collider, screenwriter Mark L. Smith — whose credits include Vacancy, Overlord, the forthcoming sequel Twisters, and George Clooney’s new The Boys in the Boat — opened up about working with Tarantino on his aborted Star Trek movie.

“So Quentin came in to Bad Robot, we met there, and he had this pitch, this idea of a version of Star Trek that he wanted to make,” Smith recalled. Smith says he was blown away by Tarantino’s pitch, so much so that he said he wished he’d “snuck something in to record as he’s doing his dialogue, and his acting it out is just so wonderful.”

Tarantino even wanted something that was unthinkable for him: He wanted another writer to do the script. That tuned out to be Smith, who got so far as a draft.

Sadly, as it dawned on Tarantino that Star Trek would be his final screen work, he backed out:

“[H]e started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films. I remember we were talking, and he goes, “If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it?” And I think that was the bump he could never get across, so the script is still sitting there on his desk. I know he said a lot of nice things about it. I would love for it to happen. It’s just one of those that I can’t ever see happening. But it would be the greatest Star Trek film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a balls-out kind of thing.”

Instead Tarantino decided to make a very different kind of last work: The Movie Critic, which not only finally gives him the opportunity to make a film set in the ‘70s, but may have him reworking the era’s cinematic classics, like Rolling Thunder and Taxi Driver.

Mind you, Tarantino could also back off this “10 films and done” deal. Then he can make Star Trek. Then he can make a 12th film. Then, what the hell, he could make a 13th. Maybe then — just hear us out — he could do a 14th.

(Via Collider)

For over two decades Taraji P. Henson has been an always more than welcome presence in movies and TV, to put it mildly. But what if she suddenly retired? If she did it wouldn’t be because she didn’t enjoy acting. It would be because she’s so incredibly tired of being treated like crap by an industry long infamous for mistreating and underpaying its incredible talent. That’s what Henson said — while in tears — during a recent, heartbreaking interview.

Per The Daily Beast, Henson went on Gayle King’s SiriusXM show, ostensibly to discuss her role as nightclub performer Shug Avery in the new musical movie take on Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. It’s never been easy for Black performers to get their foot in Hollywood’s door, and Henson — despite having a Golden Globe, a SAG award, six Emmy nominations, plus scores of popular entertainments under her belt — said it’s still not easy for her. And he is tired.

“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” she wearily explained. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired.”

Henson said that despite all her paychecks, “the math ain’t mathing,” as she put it. “And when you start working a lot, you know, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do …There’s a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid.”

She described the vicious circle from which she can’t find her way out.

“I’m only human,” Henson said, “and it seems every time I do something and I break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m just tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you, you know? Because what does that mean?”

At this point Henson covered her face, holding back tears. “And if I can’t fight for them coming up behind me,” she said, “then what the f*ck am I doing? … They play in your face, and I’m supposed to smile and grin and bear it.”

This isn’t the first time Henson has broken down trying to explain how exhausted she is with the entertainment industry. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, she also went off:

“I’ve been doing this for two decades and sometimes I get tired of fighting because I know what I do is bigger than me. I know that the legacy I leave will affect somebody coming up behind me. My prayer is that I don’t want these Black girls to have the same fights that me and Viola [Davis], Octavia [Spencer], we out here thugging it out. Otherwise, why am I doing this? For my own vanity? There’s no blessing in that. I’ve tried twice to walk away [from the business]. But I can’t, because if I do, how does that help the ones coming up behind me?”

Listen, Hollywood: Taraji P. Henson should not be crying talking about working with you. She should be telling stories about Michael Ealy’s unfortunate B.O. Fix this.

(Via The Daily Beast)

In a ruling on December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court declared former president Donald Trump ineligible to be included on the state’s primary ballot, citing the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. The ruling prompted a wave of responses, some of which claim that Abraham Lincoln had been “barred from the ballot” or “taken off the ballot” by Democrats in 10 Southern slaveholding states in the 1860 election, which preceded the Civil War.

Unfortunately, thousands of people have “liked” and shared claims like this one:

— (@)

It’s unfortunate because it’s false. While it’s true that no ballots were distributed or cast for Lincoln in those states, it wasn’t because he was barred, banned or taken off the ballot.

Here’s why this claim is inaccurate:

First of all, there was no such thing as “the ballot” in 1860.

---

Generally speaking, a ballot today is an official piece of paper that lists candidates running for a public office and a place to mark which candidate you are voting for. We also say “the ballot” to refer to the list of candidates on that official piece of paper.

That’s not at all what a ballot was in 1860. And there was no “the ballot” the way we think of it today at all.

In Lincoln’s time, a ballot was either 1) a blank paper on which you wrote in the name(s) of who you were voting for or 2) a preprinted piece of paper with the name(s) a specific candidate or candidates handed out by a specific party. There was no ballot that had a list of candidates to choose from like we have today. That kind of “blanket ballot” wasn’t used in U.S. elections until after 1888, when it gradually became adopted.

Lincoln couldn’t be barred or taken off a ballot when there was no list of candidates on a ballot to begin with.

Secondly, state authorities didn’t issue printed ballots. Political parties did.

Today, ballots are non-partisan documents issued by state or local governments. That was not the case in 1860. According to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the only things state election laws in the 19th century typically specified about ballots were the paper size and thickness a ballot should be and the size of type to be used on it. The rest was left to candidates, parties and party operatives to decide.

And they did. Political parties and newspapers that supported specific parties printed and issued ballots with their all of their candidates’ names on them to make partisan voting super simple. As the History Channel reports, “By the mid-19th century, state Republican or Democratic party officials would distribute pre-printed fliers to voters listing only their party’s candidates for office. They were called Republican and Democratic ‘tickets’ because the small rectangles of paper resembled 19th-century train tickets.”

If you wanted to vote for a party’s candidates, all you had to do was take the ticket they gave you to the ballot box and drop it in. Otherwise, you used a blank ballot and wrote in who you wanted to vote for.

Third, voting in the mid-19th century wasn’t exactly safe, and it also wasn’t secret.

Voting wasn’t a confidential thing at this point in history. Preprinted party ballots had distinguishing marks, party symbols and candidate portraits on them and they were often printed on colored paper, making who you were voting for quite conspicuous. (For example, Virginia’s Union party ballots in 1860 were pink, so if you dropped off a pink ballot, everyone at the polling place knew who you voted for.)

Elections in the mid-19th century were particularly contentious among the voting populace as well. Election day rioting and violence was common, claiming the lives of 89 Americans in the mid-1800s. The slaveholding South was already a tinderbox and tensions between the North and South were high—imagine trying to print and issue ballots for the anti-slavery-expansion Republican party when both election violence and violence against abolitionists was commonplace. What newspaper or printer in those Southern states would take that risk?

Fourth, issuing ballots in those states would have been a waste of resources for Lincoln and the Republicans, and they knew it.

Let’s remember that the Republican party—Lincoln’s party—was literally founded to combat the spread of slavery, the institution for which the antebellum South was willing to split the country in two. The official party was only a few years old when Lincoln was nominated. There was no support for Republican politics in the South, much less any party infrastructure in place there.

Since writing on a blank ballot or submitting a preprinted party ballot was how people voted in 1860, there would have been no point for the Republicans to print and issue ballots in the southern slaveholding strongholds. Lincoln knew he was considered persona non grata in those states and had no hope of winning Electoral College votes there against the three other candidates running, so he focused his campaign on the north and west. It simply would have been a huge waste of resources to issue ballots in states he couldn’t possibly win. (As it turned out, Lincoln received no votes in any of the states that would soon form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he received a whopping 1% of the vote.)

So to sum up, while it’s true that ballots were not distributed for Lincoln in the 10 slaveholding states mentioned and he didn’t receive any votes there, it’s not true that those states barred or removed Lincoln from the ballot. In 1860, there was no such thing as a ballot with multiple candidates to choose from, candidate-specific ballots were issued by political parties and not state governmental authorities, and Lincoln and the Republicans simply didn’t bother to try to distribute ballots in the states where they knew he didn’t stand a chance.

In a ruling on December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court declared former president Donald Trump ineligible to be included on the state’s primary ballot, citing the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. The ruling prompted a wave of responses, some of which claim that Abraham Lincoln had been “barred from the ballot” or “taken off the ballot” by Democrats in 10 Southern slaveholding states in the 1860 election, which preceded the Civil War.

Unfortunately, thousands of people have “liked” and shared claims like this one:

— (@)

It’s unfortunate because it’s false. While it’s true that no ballots were distributed or cast for Lincoln in those states, it wasn’t because he was barred, banned or taken off the ballot.

Here’s why this claim is inaccurate:

First of all, there was no such thing as “the ballot” in 1860.

---

Generally speaking, a ballot today is an official piece of paper that lists candidates running for a public office and a place to mark which candidate you are voting for. We also say “the ballot” to refer to the list of candidates on that official piece of paper.

That’s not at all what a ballot was in 1860. And there was no “the ballot” the way we think of it today at all.

In Lincoln’s time, a ballot was either 1) a blank paper on which you wrote in the name(s) of who you were voting for or 2) a preprinted piece of paper with the name(s) a specific candidate or candidates handed out by a specific party. There was no ballot that had a list of candidates to choose from like we have today. That kind of “blanket ballot” wasn’t used in U.S. elections until after 1888, when it gradually became adopted.

Lincoln couldn’t be barred or taken off a ballot when there was no list of candidates on a ballot to begin with.

Secondly, state authorities didn’t issue printed ballots. Political parties did.

Today, ballots are non-partisan documents issued by state or local governments. That was not the case in 1860. According to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the only things state election laws in the 19th century typically specified about ballots were the paper size and thickness a ballot should be and the size of type to be used on it. The rest was left to candidates, parties and party operatives to decide.

And they did. Political parties and newspapers that supported specific parties printed and issued ballots with their all of their candidates’ names on them to make partisan voting super simple. As the History Channel reports, “By the mid-19th century, state Republican or Democratic party officials would distribute pre-printed fliers to voters listing only their party’s candidates for office. They were called Republican and Democratic ‘tickets’ because the small rectangles of paper resembled 19th-century train tickets.”

If you wanted to vote for a party’s candidates, all you had to do was take the ticket they gave you to the ballot box and drop it in. Otherwise, you used a blank ballot and wrote in who you wanted to vote for.

Third, voting in the mid-19th century wasn’t exactly safe, and it also wasn’t secret.

Voting wasn’t a confidential thing at this point in history. Preprinted party ballots had distinguishing marks, party symbols and candidate portraits on them and they were often printed on colored paper, making who you were voting for quite conspicuous. (For example, Virginia’s Union party ballots in 1860 were pink, so if you dropped off a pink ballot, everyone at the polling place knew who you voted for.)

Elections in the mid-19th century were particularly contentious among the voting populace as well. Election day rioting and violence was common, claiming the lives of 89 Americans in the mid-1800s. The slaveholding South was already a tinderbox and tensions between the North and South were high—imagine trying to print and issue ballots for the anti-slavery-expansion Republican party when both election violence and violence against abolitionists was commonplace. What newspaper or printer in those Southern states would take that risk?

Fourth, issuing ballots in those states would have been a waste of resources for Lincoln and the Republicans, and they knew it.

Let’s remember that the Republican party—Lincoln’s party—was literally founded to combat the spread of slavery, the institution for which the antebellum South was willing to split the country in two. The official party was only a few years old when Lincoln was nominated. There was no support for Republican politics in the South, much less any party infrastructure in place there.

Since writing on a blank ballot or submitting a preprinted party ballot was how people voted in 1860, there would have been no point for the Republicans to print and issue ballots in the southern slaveholding strongholds. Lincoln knew he was considered persona non grata in those states and had no hope of winning Electoral College votes there against the three other candidates running, so he focused his campaign on the north and west. It simply would have been a huge waste of resources to issue ballots in states he couldn’t possibly win. (As it turned out, Lincoln received no votes in any of the states that would soon form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he received a whopping 1% of the vote.)

So to sum up, while it’s true that ballots were not distributed for Lincoln in the 10 slaveholding states mentioned and he didn’t receive any votes there, it’s not true that those states barred or removed Lincoln from the ballot. In 1860, there was no such thing as a ballot with multiple candidates to choose from, candidate-specific ballots were issued by political parties and not state governmental authorities, and Lincoln and the Republicans simply didn’t bother to try to distribute ballots in the states where they knew he didn’t stand a chance.

Social media trends can often put overwhelming attention on a specific subject, turning it into a cultural obsession. There are a lot of examples when it comes to relationships and mental health. Social media is filled with armchair therapists who feel the need to diagnose everything as a psychological or physical disorder.

The problem is that there is often a giant chasm between the way that people who are trained in the world of mental health and psychology use these terms and the way they are bandied about online.

Take the term “gaslighting,” for example.

“Indeed, ‘gaslighting’ can be added to the list of words that have spilled over from clinical psychology into popular nomenclature,” Alia Hoyt writes at HowStuffWorks. “While increased understanding of mental health issues is generally a good thing, it falls decidedly flat when terms like gaslighting, ADHD, OCD, and such are grossly misused. All three have become popular slang terms for feelings and experiences that are nowhere near what the terms mean.”

---

When every bad partner is elevated to being a narcissist or a gaslighter, personal quirks are symptoms of autism, and bad days become episodes of depression, the world starts to become a lot more frightening.

That’s why a recent post on Reddit by NotABigFanOfDucks was so refreshing. They asked people on the forum, “What isn’t nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe?” and received nearly 10,000 responses where people tamped down the sensationalist nature of social media.

Here are 11 things that aren’t “nearly as bad” as social media would have us believe.

1. Working through relationship problems

“Yeah, the relationship shouldn’t be a constant struggle that outweighs the good but not always sprinkles and sunshine. We are all human, including you and the people you date.” — LocuraLins

2. Dads are welcomed in parks

“As a father, taking my daughters to the park. Nobody ever thought I was a predator or looked at me suspiciously. If anything, most people gave me positive vibes because they liked seeing a father actively involved. Nor was it strange to see other men.” — BobbyTwoSticksBTS2

“100%. As a man, I get way more credit for doing anything with my child than her mother does from random strangers. The bar is so low for us lol.” — TeddyOne

3. Not all bad partners are abusive

“I mentioned an ex being emotionally immature and someone said he’s a covert narcissist. Not every relationship conflict is a sign that someone is abusing you.” — Xain_the_idiot

“When did we start using ‘narcissist’ to describe someone exhibiting literally ANY undesirable behavior? It gets on my nerves so bad. Not everyone is a narcissist, FFS. Some people are just your everyday, run-of-the-mill di**head.” — NapsAndShinyThings

“This is my big beef. Not everything needs a label to validate it. People can be an a**hole without being a narcissist. Some people are just incorrect sometimes. They’re not trying to gaslight you.” — I_Poop_Sometimes

4. Mental health

“Oh my god, I am so utterly exhausted by the new crop of armchair psychologists we now have to deal with, thanks to TikTok. Everyone has ADHD, on top of severe anxiety and depression, which are, in turn, caused by terrible past traumas. But you’re a badass warrior for simply waking up each morning!” — KryssCom

“My cousin-in-law has OCD and was arrested because she, at the age of 12, took on three officers trying to force her to go to school, but she had to go home because her number of steps wasn’t a multiple of 5, so if she didn’t walk back home and do it she honestly believed her perfectly healthy mom would die. She believed this enough to fight three police officers. At the age of 12. I was recently talking to someone who said they had OCD, and I asked them ‘what their compulsion is’ and they said, ‘I like to keep my room tidy,’ and I said, ‘Is it tidy right now?’ and they said no, and then got upset when I told them that’s not OCD. When I showed them the DSM-V, they told me, ‘It’s a spectrum.’ Not everything is on a spectrum. You’re neurotypical, and that’s OKAY.” — Throwaway_Consoles

5. 9 to 5 jobs are evil

“The ‘9 to 5 cubicle job.’ As someone who thought he’d do manual labor and retail bulls**t their entire life, I love my office job.” — DabbinOnDemGoy

“This is a big one. Office jobs can feel depressing at times and some are worse than others, but I’ve been a line cook and a landscaper for years at a time and I’ll take my current office job. Nothing against line cooks or landscapers, but those are REALLY tough jobs to maintain for decades. Very tolling on the body, brain and soul.” — AfetusnamedJames

6. Wrong ideas about introversion and extraversion

“Introverted and extroverted don’t really mean what most people think they mean. It means people who recharge their energy by either being around others or not. If you’re an introvert, you ‘recharge’ alone, if you’re an extravert, you recharge by being around others. This is why you can see socially adept introverts and socially awkward extroverts. It has nothing to really do with confidence in social settings, but whether or not they energize you.” — LilyHex

7. American life

“Life in America. We absolutely have our problems, but so do all countries. Reddit loves to compare the most awfully designed suburb of a terrible city with, like, downtown Stockholm lol.” — Narcadia

“Thank you for reminding this American who gets sucked into pessimism too often. There are some accelerating trends likely to make us such before anyone in the mainstream sees it coming, but all the hysteria around the little things seems to be pushing people further toward disastrous reactions to overblown problems. We could all use a little more ‘it ain’t that bad.'” — PM_ME_UP_PEWP

8. Upward mobility

“The ability for a person to work hard and improve their quality of life over time.” — TooMuchMapleSyrup

“The ‘I will never succeed because society has set me up to fail and therefore I will no longer try’ attitude is so prevalent and so unhealthy.” — One-Zero-Five

“This might be a selfish and nihilistic way to think but when I see people with that mentality, I think how much easier it will be for me to succeed because I’m willing to work hard and improve over time. It’s like when people are willing to place themselves near the bottom of the ‘pecking order’ (standard deviation, bell curve, however, you see it), it’s easier for me to rise to the top.” — Duhblow7

9. Being a parent is fun

“Being a parent! Raising a whole human from scratch is freaking exhausting, yeah, but kids are also hilarious, sweet, fun, loving, weird, quirky, and awesome—all of which massively and unequivocally outweighs hardship.” — Amoryjm

“I really regret listening to people who talked about how hard it would be. Stressed about it so much leading up to it. Not enough people talk about how much f**king FUN being a parent can be.” — Knvn8

10. May-December romance

“Age gaps in relationships. Not saying they’re all okay but a lot of Reddit seems to believe they are all inherently abusive.” — Hollowdisaster

“Exactly. What’s the point in having an age of consent and then getting upset when two people above that age are both … consenting? People on here love to get upset over things that have nothing to do with them. It’s weird.” — Anonymous_Seaotter

11. Rejection

“Suffer the pain of rejection or the pain of regret. I’ve never regretted approaching a woman, but I still remember regretting not approaching them.” — 65AndSunny

“Also, being sensitive to rejection does not mean you have ADHD.” — Trcomajo

Social media trends can often put overwhelming attention on a specific subject, turning it into a cultural obsession. There are a lot of examples when it comes to relationships and mental health. Social media is filled with armchair therapists who feel the need to diagnose everything as a psychological or physical disorder.

The problem is that there is often a giant chasm between the way that people who are trained in the world of mental health and psychology use these terms and the way they are bandied about online.

Take the term “gaslighting,” for example.

“Indeed, ‘gaslighting’ can be added to the list of words that have spilled over from clinical psychology into popular nomenclature,” Alia Hoyt writes at HowStuffWorks. “While increased understanding of mental health issues is generally a good thing, it falls decidedly flat when terms like gaslighting, ADHD, OCD, and such are grossly misused. All three have become popular slang terms for feelings and experiences that are nowhere near what the terms mean.”

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When every bad partner is elevated to being a narcissist or a gaslighter, personal quirks are symptoms of autism, and bad days become episodes of depression, the world starts to become a lot more frightening.

That’s why a recent post on Reddit by NotABigFanOfDucks was so refreshing. They asked people on the forum, “What isn’t nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe?” and received nearly 10,000 responses where people tamped down the sensationalist nature of social media.

Here are 11 things that aren’t “nearly as bad” as social media would have us believe.

1. Working through relationship problems

“Yeah, the relationship shouldn’t be a constant struggle that outweighs the good but not always sprinkles and sunshine. We are all human, including you and the people you date.” — LocuraLins

2. Dads are welcomed in parks

“As a father, taking my daughters to the park. Nobody ever thought I was a predator or looked at me suspiciously. If anything, most people gave me positive vibes because they liked seeing a father actively involved. Nor was it strange to see other men.” — BobbyTwoSticksBTS2

“100%. As a man, I get way more credit for doing anything with my child than her mother does from random strangers. The bar is so low for us lol.” — TeddyOne

3. Not all bad partners are abusive

“I mentioned an ex being emotionally immature and someone said he’s a covert narcissist. Not every relationship conflict is a sign that someone is abusing you.” — Xain_the_idiot

“When did we start using ‘narcissist’ to describe someone exhibiting literally ANY undesirable behavior? It gets on my nerves so bad. Not everyone is a narcissist, FFS. Some people are just your everyday, run-of-the-mill di**head.” — NapsAndShinyThings

“This is my big beef. Not everything needs a label to validate it. People can be an a**hole without being a narcissist. Some people are just incorrect sometimes. They’re not trying to gaslight you.” — I_Poop_Sometimes

4. Mental health

“Oh my god, I am so utterly exhausted by the new crop of armchair psychologists we now have to deal with, thanks to TikTok. Everyone has ADHD, on top of severe anxiety and depression, which are, in turn, caused by terrible past traumas. But you’re a badass warrior for simply waking up each morning!” — KryssCom

“My cousin-in-law has OCD and was arrested because she, at the age of 12, took on three officers trying to force her to go to school, but she had to go home because her number of steps wasn’t a multiple of 5, so if she didn’t walk back home and do it she honestly believed her perfectly healthy mom would die. She believed this enough to fight three police officers. At the age of 12. I was recently talking to someone who said they had OCD, and I asked them ‘what their compulsion is’ and they said, ‘I like to keep my room tidy,’ and I said, ‘Is it tidy right now?’ and they said no, and then got upset when I told them that’s not OCD. When I showed them the DSM-V, they told me, ‘It’s a spectrum.’ Not everything is on a spectrum. You’re neurotypical, and that’s OKAY.” — Throwaway_Consoles

5. 9 to 5 jobs are evil

“The ‘9 to 5 cubicle job.’ As someone who thought he’d do manual labor and retail bulls**t their entire life, I love my office job.” — DabbinOnDemGoy

“This is a big one. Office jobs can feel depressing at times and some are worse than others, but I’ve been a line cook and a landscaper for years at a time and I’ll take my current office job. Nothing against line cooks or landscapers, but those are REALLY tough jobs to maintain for decades. Very tolling on the body, brain and soul.” — AfetusnamedJames

6. Wrong ideas about introversion and extraversion

“Introverted and extroverted don’t really mean what most people think they mean. It means people who recharge their energy by either being around others or not. If you’re an introvert, you ‘recharge’ alone, if you’re an extravert, you recharge by being around others. This is why you can see socially adept introverts and socially awkward extroverts. It has nothing to really do with confidence in social settings, but whether or not they energize you.” — LilyHex

7. American life

“Life in America. We absolutely have our problems, but so do all countries. Reddit loves to compare the most awfully designed suburb of a terrible city with, like, downtown Stockholm lol.” — Narcadia

“Thank you for reminding this American who gets sucked into pessimism too often. There are some accelerating trends likely to make us such before anyone in the mainstream sees it coming, but all the hysteria around the little things seems to be pushing people further toward disastrous reactions to overblown problems. We could all use a little more ‘it ain’t that bad.'” — PM_ME_UP_PEWP

8. Upward mobility

“The ability for a person to work hard and improve their quality of life over time.” — TooMuchMapleSyrup

“The ‘I will never succeed because society has set me up to fail and therefore I will no longer try’ attitude is so prevalent and so unhealthy.” — One-Zero-Five

“This might be a selfish and nihilistic way to think but when I see people with that mentality, I think how much easier it will be for me to succeed because I’m willing to work hard and improve over time. It’s like when people are willing to place themselves near the bottom of the ‘pecking order’ (standard deviation, bell curve, however, you see it), it’s easier for me to rise to the top.” — Duhblow7

9. Being a parent is fun

“Being a parent! Raising a whole human from scratch is freaking exhausting, yeah, but kids are also hilarious, sweet, fun, loving, weird, quirky, and awesome—all of which massively and unequivocally outweighs hardship.” — Amoryjm

“I really regret listening to people who talked about how hard it would be. Stressed about it so much leading up to it. Not enough people talk about how much f**king FUN being a parent can be.” — Knvn8

10. May-December romance

“Age gaps in relationships. Not saying they’re all okay but a lot of Reddit seems to believe they are all inherently abusive.” — Hollowdisaster

“Exactly. What’s the point in having an age of consent and then getting upset when two people above that age are both … consenting? People on here love to get upset over things that have nothing to do with them. It’s weird.” — Anonymous_Seaotter

11. Rejection

“Suffer the pain of rejection or the pain of regret. I’ve never regretted approaching a woman, but I still remember regretting not approaching them.” — 65AndSunny

“Also, being sensitive to rejection does not mean you have ADHD.” — Trcomajo