Some behaviors once seen as warning signs are now celebrated, here’s why we’ve changed.

I Realized We’ve Made These Red Flags Socially Acceptable Without Even Noticing

Red flags aren’t quirky. They’re dangerous.

Photo by Amanda Vick on Unsplash

Several weeks ago, while waiting in line for coffee at a shop in Bangalore, I encountered something troubling. There was a woman in some very stylish activewear filming herself on her phone, and tears were rolling down her face.

Her camera angle was selected, light checked, and expression composed as she pressed record on her phone again. Meanwhile, everyone else around her pretended they didn’t notice her tears.

I thought about this for days, not due to her grief, we all have grief moments, but rather because she had actually decided to brand it as content. To monetize it. And no one flinched.

This moment prompted a question that nagged me incessantly: when did we go from red flag behavior to getting so normalized that we just scroll past it?

I have lived in two homes, India and the United States, studied abroad, came back home, and what I noticed was scary: in any location, certain disturbing behaviors are now displayed as personality traits, or worse, admirable…