It used to be that red flags were simple. Your date/new friend/father-in-law is rude to service industry workers, they use 3-in-1 shampoo conditioner bodywash, or their toilet paper orientation preference is “under,” and you knew you were in danger.
Now? If you still say “YOLO”, enjoy astrology memes, or — heaven forbid — buy Funko Pops and consider them investments, congratulations: you’re apparently toxic and one step closer to being featured in a true crime podcast and/or five-part TikTok series (like and subscribe!) It seems modern-day society has reached a point where everything fun is a red flag. And I, unfortunately, am a walking semaphore of them.
Somewhere along the way, “red flags” stopped being about identifying dealbreakers and started being about assigning moral failings to hobbies. Dating apps didn’t help. Profiles went from “looking for someone kind, funny, likes dogs” to “don’t swipe right if you play Wordle every day, have Snapchat, or occasionally clap when the plane lands.” And social media added a full tank of 87 octane to that fire. TikTok gave us “red flag,” “green flag” and my favorite – the “beige flag,” which in layman’s terms means “this person is weird and not in a sexy way.”
Now every harmless preference is dissected, analyzed and publicly shamed. It’s enervating. You can’t even say you like “Grey’s Anatomy” anymore without someone screeching, “Oh, so you have no personality.” Okay, Brance, your TV is about to clock-in 17,264 hours of SportsCenter. Fuck off. So let me get this out of the way: yes, I like things. Yes, some of them are rudimentary. And yes, apparently that makes me hazardous.
For example, I love sending a good GIF and will sprinkle “lol” into my texts like it’s punctuation. People will say that makes me sound like a millennial, but have you ever tried relaying some not-so-great, slightly awkward news via iMessage? I like my blows like I like my chairs: cushioned.
I’m also an amateur birder. My “fieldwork” does not extend beyond the radius of my house, but I’ve gotten shockingly good at identifying Florida backyard birds by their chirp. And yes, I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to imprint on crows for 3.5 years. (They don’t love me back yet; it’s complicated.) And if you really want to roll your eyes, I’m a sucker for an interspecies friendship story. Donkey besties with a rescued bison? A golden retriever raising raccoon babies? Inject that into all my veins, please.
By these standards, I’m apparently waving the biggest scarlet banner in history. And yet — brace yourselves — I’ve managed to hold down a job, pay my taxes and even maintain relationships without burning the world down with my amber and rose-scented toxicity. The truth is, we’ve turned “red flag calling” into a sport. It’s the newfangled equivalent of a shit-talking roundtable. Only now, instead of whispering, we’re publishing listicles about how “owning more than one cat is a red flag” (which, by the way, is a direct attack on my two-cat household).
We love it because it makes us feel superior. If someone else is a red flag, then by default, we’re a green flag, right? Wrong, dawg. Because the moment you call out someone else’s red flag, someone’s ready to call out yours. It’s a vicious, never-ending pyramid scheme of judgement. Case in point: years ago, I got chewed out for saying the viral “Walmart Yodel Kid” was an asshole. And you know what? I stand by it.
His ego was way bigger than his dumb hat. But the backlash? Woof. Folks acted like I had kicked a puppy in front of a kindergarten class. Turns out that was my red flag: not enjoying a child warbling into viral fame. It’s like we’ve forgotten that we’re allowed to dislike things without being accused of felony battery against the culture. Somewhere, someone is still peeved for not worshiping a kid whose entire “career” was built on doing the exact thing your dad yelled at you to stop doing in the middle of the Publix check-out line.
Also, I’d like the record to reflect that I would never kick a puppy, and I may or may not have absolutely envisioned punting a douchey 5-year-old for the game-winning field goal. At some point, we’re all going to run out of acceptable hobbies. You’ll be left with nothing but eating string cheese in the dark and listening to the sounds of whales — which will probably also get labeled a red flag by a Gen Z influencer.
“Oh, you like Orca sounds? So you’re emotionally unavailable and probably a Virgo.” We’ve turned joy into a diagnostic tool. We’ve made quirks into indictments. And for what? So we can feel like a licensed psychologist while doomscrolling Instagram Reels? Here’s my hot take: maybe the real red flag isn’t people liking Creed or drinking Fireball on the rocks (full transparency: I’m having a hard time not labeling the aforementioned Creed and cold Fireball as RF’s).
Maybe the real red flag is the obsession with labeling everything. The fact that you love Disney World, or “Dancing with the Stars,” or whatever your cringe passion is, says less about your toxicity and more about your ability to feel delight. And let’s be real: delight is in short supply these days.
So yeah, I love GIFs, backyard bird gossip and watching videos of a pigeon becoming BFFs with a Macaque monkey. If that makes me a walking red flag — then stitch me into the flagpole, baby. Because at the end of the day, the only real red flag is pretending you don’t like anything at all.
Sabrina Ambra is a co-host of Real Radio 104.1’s “News Junkie” program and stand-up comedian.
