On the last day of 2020, singer and songwriter Naya Ford posted a video on TikTok, asking her followers the question: "What's something that people glamorize that's actually just extremely toxic?"
At the end of the TikTok, Naya started things off with an answer of her own about people who look for a very particular quality in their potential partners: "When people say, 'I want a significant other [who] is rude and mean and not friendly to anybody.' Girl, no one's gonna cheat on you. It's okay."
The post immediately blew up. Not just Naya's fans, but folks from all walks of the platform started sharing their take on the subject.
#1 Vouching For Friends - No Matter What
"Vouching for your friends no matter what, even when they’ve done something bad. Like, if my friend cheats on their partner, and they expect me to lie for them if their partner calls me and asks where they are, I’m not lying for you and your [bad] behavior.
If your partner knows me well enough to have my phone number and ask where you are, why would I want to participate in lying to them? Obviously there are worse things, but it’s a no for me."
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113points
Naya said she came up with the idea for the now-viral TikTok accidentally. "We're in a time period where tons of things are romanticized especially on social media, so I just thought shedding some light on the truth behind those things would be an interesting conversation," she told Bored Panda.
"I chose [my own answer] because where I live that's actually a very common quality people want in a partner, don't ask me why. But there's this fear that if they're friendly to the everyday person that means they’re just bound to cheat on you," Naya explained.
The singer is shocked at the attention her TikTok has received. "I didn't make the video with any real intent behind it and that's the beauty of TikTok—it can reach people who feel the way you feel and gives people room to get some stuff off their chest."
"Apparently, I'm not the only one who finds certain things toxic but also that the word toxic is definitely a matter of perception. Two completely different minds can have opposing opinions on the same thing that is toxic but I found it cool to see both ends of the spectrum. The comment section became real informative really quickly. It was awesome," Naya concluded.
#2 Youtube Couple Pranks
"YouTube couples who do pranks — they’re so obvious that they’re doing pranks, and they just get more and more extreme with...embarrassing each other on camera."
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109points
Mental Health America (MHA), the nation's leading community-based nonprofit dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness and promoting mental health in general, highlights that certain people and situations in life can trigger us to feel bad about ourselves or engage in destructive behaviors.
According to the organization, identifying the toxic influences in our lives and taking steps to create boundaries or a new life without them can improve mental and physical health over time.
#3 Romanticizing Heartbreak
"The way that we romanticize getting our heart broken and then forgiving and getting back together with the person who broke our heart. That dumb notion of ‘you always hurt the one you love’...If somebody cheats on you, lies to you, manipulates you, that is called emotional abuse. And there’s this media depiction that all it takes is the right grand gesture and then everything is resolved — it will never happen again, and you should forgive them. I’m not saying redemption isn’t possible because every situation is different, but that’s not romantic — that’s called work.
And if I have to watch one more gosh darn movie where we sympathize with the person who did the abuse, and we look to the person who was abused asking them to forgive them to suit our romantic narrative. ... It is not glamorous, it is not romantic; it is abuse, and we need to stop idolizing it."
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106points
People can be toxic too. We've all met that person — the one who constantly leaves you feeling worse off after interacting with them. It can be a manipulative family member or a co-worker who won't stop complaining about every little thing.
But keep in mind: this term isn't grounded in psychology and doesn't have one simple definition.
That being said, if you have a hard time dealing with someone toxic in your life, it's helpful to start by pinpointing problematic behaviors, rather than simply labeling them as being toxic.
#4 Gender Norms
"Gender norms. Blue is for boys, pink is for girls. Girls show emotion, men do not. Women are feminine, men are masculine."
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105points
Barrie Sueskind, a therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in relationships, shares some key signs of toxicity: self-absorption or self-centeredness, manipulation, and other emotional abuse, dishonesty and deceit, difficulty offering compassion to others, a tendency to create drama or conflict.
If these sound familiar, you can read fire up this article on how to respond to this type of behavior.
#5 Having Kids
"Having kids. No wait. It's not toxic in its entirety. There are aspect in it that are really toxic hear me out. Having children is glamorized and prioritize over very necessary pieces of actually raising children. People are not addressing their past traumas, they not addressing their stability, mentally, physically, financially. All of these thing are taking a back seat to an idea bringing children to this world and having a baby shower, and having a gender reveal, Both the children and parents are forced in this reality that they can't recreate their favorite TV show family. The life is very real but having children are glamorized and the kids will group with not addressed traumas and repeat the cycle."
Report
103points
#6 Diet Culture
"Diet culture and the idea that your value and morality is tied to how much you weigh."
101points
#7 The Broken Men "Can Only Be Healed" By Women Trope
"The idea that broken men can only be healed through the love and labor of a woman. This perpetuates the idea that men cannot find healing or support from anybody except for women — which means that they don’t seek it from their friends, they don’t seek therapy, they don’t have connections outside of their [female] partner to support them. This obviously puts a huge burden on women to care for men, heal them, rehabilitate them. That same energy is not given to women.
Also, if you want an example, I recommend looking at almost any movie targeted to teenage girls that is about a ‘bad boy’ (the pure, loving ‘good girl’ heals the wounds of the tortured ‘bad boy’ trope)."
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94points
#8 Wine Culture
"Wine culture. Especially mom wine culture. "The reason mommy drinks." "Mommy juice." And look I am guilty of it too. I used to make jokes about it until I realized I actually had a problem. We're grown women. It's not cool to joke about drinking every day. It's alcoholism."
Report
90points
#9 Society And Social Media’s Obsession With Relationships
"By no means am I saying that relationships are toxic, but what I am saying is that society and social media’s obsession with relationships — yeah, that’s not healthy at all. It’s as though everyone is more focused on the cute pictures, the matching outfits, and being able to say you have someone than actually accessing and considering ~who~ you have.
Daniel Sloss said it best...: It’s people out here trying to force things that shouldn’t be forced with one another because they would much rather have somebody than nothing at all. Like...there are really couples out here who don’t need to be together, should NOT be together, but they stay together because their cute couple pics go viral. And the obsession promotes the idea that being single is a flaw. It’s getting weird!"
88points
#10 The Modeling Industry
"The modeling industry. I’m surprised to this day, it’s still glorified. It’s such a toxic industry, people get away with so [many] atrocious things in that industry because they have power and control over your work, your body, and so many other things that you renounced when you started your career as a model.
Like, they don’t prepare you to be objectified, sexualized, and preyed on by predators. Played by people you trust, told that you’re not good enough, [and] expected to be of a standard that you will never attain. Jeopardizing your self-worth and mental health at their expense for them to make money off you. It’s such a problematic industry that we need to stop glamorizing it...
Please don’t...be something you're not and let people (who don’t care about you) dictate what you should (or shouldn’t) be in this industry. If you start out, do you."
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79points
#11 Bloggers Morning Routine
"Bloggers who have the perfect morning routines with their kids and they cut up all the little lunch into bento box with the love notes and a shaped apple with an octopus and their house is cleaned and they are dressed. The moms are dressed their hairs are brushed, they have make up. Where are you going, where are you going and then their kids are in perfect outfits and then they go out of the door like that. No, it doesn't work that way, that's toxic, it's a lie"
76points
#12 Being "Obsessed" With Your Significant Other
"The idea that you guys need to be obsessed with each other when you’re in a relationship...Apparently we have to text each other every day — all day long — and if we don’t text back within a reasonable amount of time, or we don’t explain why we didn’t text back, then all of a sudden that means we’re not into you anymore. If you’re not texting each other, then you’re probably on FaceTime until your phone dies or on FaceTime until you fall asleep. And some people like to be on FaceTime while they’re asleep, which is kinda weird...
Basically dedicating all your time to your significant other — that’s kind of unhealthy. ‘Cause imagine you dedicated so much time and energy to a relationship that you had nothing else going on in your life. You’re gonna feel so broken if that relationship fails, because you got way too attached."
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67points
#13 Beauty Standards
"Any beauty standard. It’s too much."
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63points
#14 Being "Blunt"
"Y'all please because imma need y'all to listen to this one real quick. One of the biggest pet peeves of mine and it comes a lot in friendships and is the reason why a lot of my friendships have ended is that people will try to pass off being a complete a-hole as them being "blunt" and my thing is I get the whole "I like to tell how it is" type of thing BUT there's a difference between telling people how it is and completely bringing everyone around you and I thing a lot of people get that mixed up. And what really bothers me is that a lot of people won't see the wrong in them doing this. And then they have the nerve to be surprised when no one wants to be around them. Like sis maybe if you didn't point out all my insecurities."
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60points
#15 Impulse Shopping
"Impulse shopping isn't a problem. It's a symptom of a deeper problem."
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52points
#16 Working Two Or Three Jobs
"Working two or three jobs just to survive and make ends meet so you don't even have time for your family."
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50points
#17 Mental Health Issues
"Mental health issues. Having a mental issues is not a little quirk of personality, no that's not it. And it's the same people that get upset when people don't take their mental health seriously but when you treat is as a quirk who is gonna take it seriously. Those people that literally sit their and brag about having depression, oh yeah I haven't cleaned my room in a week because I have depression, oh yeah I haven't showered in like a couple of days because I have depression. Like OKAY see therapist."
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48points
#18 Presenting A "Perfect" Marriage
"The perfect marriage that you think you have, that you post all over social media. You’re trying to set some kind of standard that’s impossible. Marriage is hard; it’s not always fun. It takes patience and work and compromise. And if you have issues in your marriage, you’re not broken — you’re normal. Because no one in marriage is perfect."
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38points
#19 Trying To Change Someone
"People who think it's a goal or make it their mission to change someone. Not only is that a waste of your both their time because in my personal opinion people don't change they become what they were supposed to be. In some instances you can help somebody to help who they are or whatever but at the end of the day they did it themselves, honestly I don't think you get to take that credit. You are taking their moment of self discovery or their self-love and acting like it's your responsibility, or that you're the reason for it. Not saying that you can make somebody happy, but at the end of the day happiness with oneself must be found by oneself. They have to to realize that they're happy you can't make it happen. So to think that you can change someone, their attitude, their style, whatever you can possibly to all that but it's not gonna do as much good as you think. At the end of the day you are turning them what you want them to be instead of who they're meant to be and that's selfish."
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38points
#20 Taking People For Granted
"For me, it’s people who think that caring the least is cool and [that] it gives you an upper hand over people who care about you. That’s so toxic. If you value them and want them in your life, show up for them in your way — in the best way you can. But don’t treat people less than just because you know they care about you and they’ll be there for you. Don’t [take them for granted] because you think they’ll always be there, because one day you’ll wake up and they won’t be. And let’s care about people who care about us, and let’s show up for each other."
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37points