24 Toxic Things We Should Stop Normalizing

1. “Look at this adorable 4-year-old using a walker! So inspirational!” “Awww, this guy asked a deaf girl to prom!” “Watch this group of guys playing tackle football with a guy with Down syndrome!!” “Check out this amazing blind kid walking down a street! Next level, yo!”

2. Teachers giving up their Sick Days for some other teacher can have days off for Cancer Treatments.

3. Toxic positivity. Like when someone's having a really hard time and you tell them to stay positive or try to look at the bright side. [Screw] you Jenny, my grandma died.

4. Family vlogging

5. Proposing in front of a crowd. Puts a lot of pressure on the person being proposed to.

6. Beauty Pageants

7. Any viral story about some kid selling [stuff] to pay for a relatives healthcare.

8. Corporations who spend $50 million on ads to tell you about the amazing $1 million they spent on a charity program.

9. Asking babies to hug and kiss people

10. All those fake animal rescue videos on YouTube.

11. Badgering people to have kids. No, I’m not going to magically change my mind when I meet the right girl.

12. Instagram "influencers" promoting their "amazing" healthy lifestyles but in reality mostly staged/photoshopped and exacerbating mental illness, body issues, anxiety in young people.

13. Using your child for likes on social media, that's creepy I never understood why would any parent do that

14. Touching women’s bellies when they’re pregnant. You don’t go around patting a penis to congratulate it on its successful ejaculation. Damn.

15. Teachers working overtime/sacrificing for their students/fundraising for anything/etc. Most news articles that hit national headlines about teachers are toxic af. "student raises money for his former teacher found living in a car" "principal works 2nd job to help homeless students have clean clothes and food"

16. Supporting someone no matter what choices they make. You can love someone to the ends of the earth, that doesn’t mean they will 100% be right all of the time, no matter how much you love or admire them.

17. Glorifying feeding animals into obesity

18. Asking your child "Who's your boy/girlfriend?" any time they interact with someone of the opposite sex.

19. Youtube kids channels. The ones aimed at older audiences are literally better for a child than the kids ones.

20. Repeatedly professing your love for someone after they tell you that they aren't interested. The idea that you can "make" someone love you back if you just keep trying is rooted in toxicity, but romanticized in countless films and TV shows.

21. Hustle culture.

22. Crowdfunding for medical costs, kids having lemonade stands to pay for cancer treatment, etc.

23. School fundraisers. If the government can't give schools enough funds, then everything is wrong.

24. "We're all just one big family!" If anyone tells you this in a workplace setting, run. They're only like a family in the sense of the most toxic parts of one that exploit you.