Hobbies are small windows into our real selves, aren’t they? They reveal our quirks, our obsessions, and sometimes, let’s be real, a side that makes us go, “Hmm.” Most are absolutely harmless think knitting or trail walking but certain hobbies are really blowing their sirens screaming, “Run away!” I mean, who hasn’t met somebody whose default behavior made them wonder what in the world was going through their head? It’s those moments that reveal more than polite conversation ever will.
It just so happens, we’re not alone in feeling that way. A recent online forum spilled all the tea on behaviors that raise some serious eyebrows, and many of them went from quirky to downright distressing. We’re talking behaviors that indicate controlling tendencies, desensitization, or an uncertain moral compass. If you have an activity that puts the shakes in strangers, it may say more about you than you know. Read with a willing but tactful mind some of these are side-splitting, some are disturbing.
So buckle up, buttercups! We’re on a wacky, sometimes cringeworthy tour of the first half of the things people confessed they absolutely judge you for doing. I’ll provide the examples, the responses, and what provoked each to raise alarm bells amongst the audience. There’s laughter, side-eyeing and some “Seriously?” moments. It’s your advance warning primer for enjoyable activity that suddenly looks highly un-fun when you see it done by someone else.
1. Finding Joy in Kid Beauty Pageants
Let’s start with one that gives me the ick every time: beauty pageants for kids. I’m not the only person who sat through those “toddlers in tiaras” programs and felt quite uncomfortable. The image of wee tiny tots wearing tons of makeup, hair extensions and sequins prancing under hot lights reads more like parents pursuing status on their kids. Online, people called this out as a massive red flag: it seems to be a sign of parental projection and pathological prioritization of looks over childhood development and play.
- Projection of parents’ dreams onto children rather than fostering interests
- Places looks over inner qualities at vulnerable age
- Can encourage unattainable body ideals and low self-esteem later on
- Tends to prioritize competition, control and external validation highly
This obsession can harm kids emotionally and socially, teaching them that value equals appearance. When a parent frames their child as a performance object, the child’s autonomy and identity can be stunted. I’ve seen comments that cut straight to the point: people imagine the parent hovering and controlling for life. That’s not support it’s a takeover. If someone brashly enjoys watching or promoting these pageants, consider it something more than an unusual hobby; it is a stark behavioral sign.
2. Going Out of Your Way to Splash Pedestrians
Now here’s a “hobby” that’s less unusual and more sadistic: deliberately soaking pedestrians driving. Come on, who likes to get strangers wet on a rainy day? Everyone on the internet agreed: this is petty sadism disguised as playful mischief. The stories are evocative drivers stalking for puddles, making it their goal to soak people out with shopping items or children. That kind of intentional humiliation speaks poorly of someone’s ability to empathize and to humiliate others for laughs.
- Seeks useful unease for strangers as a performance of entertainment
- Shows absence of empathy and pleasure in others’ suffering
- Has the tendency to progress from pettiness into worse anti-sociality
- Shows a state of mind which makes light of other people’s dignity entirely
These small cruelties hint at greater ones: someone who delights in small cruelties can be capable of much worse when no one is watching. If they gloat, they’re proud of the harm caused. When I hear about puddle-seeking drivers, I don’t chuckle I mentally put them on my list of drivers to avoid. It’s a character test: people who actually delight in others’ suffering are people to avoid.
3. Making Eyeless Collages
Get ready: there are some “art projects” that are in fact creepy removing the eyes of women from magazine photos and pasting them into collages is a recurring suggestion. Others on the net reacted with horror, and rightly so. While some admitted that it began as a stultified office prank, the trend is possessive and controlling at best, psychotic at worst. Taking eyes out of faces is symbolically deleting identity; it’s not careless crafting, it’s abnormal behavior that suggests underlying emotional or control problems.
- Symbolically deletes identity, turning photos terrifyingly anonymous
- Is often driven by jealousy, fixation or unhealthy control desire
- Blurs over into behavior that disturbs others profoundly from innocent crafting
- Often triggers concern about emotional balance and relationship health
This is not an avant-garde art comment; it’s a warning sign. If someone collects or displays work that involves cutting up faces, especially eyes, it’s a warning that they’re struggling with boundaries or empathy. I’d handle that as an open line for discussion that needs to be followed up carefully carefully, and keeping personal safety in mind. It tells you something important about how that person sees others: as objects, not as people.
4. Running a Multi-Level Marketing Boss Babe Scam
Oh, the infamous “boss babe” MLM grind half enthusiasm and half warning signs. I get the hustle culture appeal, but when something becomes a hobby is constantly recruitment and product-pushing, it’s no longer enjoyable and turns predatory. Cyber commentators noted MLM addiction as a specific issue: it turns social relationships into sales pipelines, forcing friends and relatives into investment in dubious business plans. That ongoing recruitment energy destroys relationships and makes exploitative financial relationships respectable behind an entrepreneurial sheen.
- Pressures friends into buying products and recruiting for the downline
- Makes profit the top priority over actual enjoyment or community bonding
- Compensates insecure income with high-level recruitment effort
- Creates manipulative power relations in the form of empowerment rhetoric
If the main product of a hobby is sales quotas and recruit lists, that isn’t passion it’s lifestyle disguised as a job. If the individual is continually selling you things or asking you to “join my team,” take it as a warning sign. It is a social boundary issue and an ethical one: profiting from friendship in the guise of commission is exploitative. Leisure is intended to be shared; MLMs have a tendency to commodify it and turn it stressful.
5. Being a Facebook Group Administrator
Running a Facebook group can serve a purpose or be a power trip. In posts I’ve read, members complained about admins who become petty tyrants, mollycoddling rules with an intensity that says more about their desperation to wield power than care for community. Stopping trolls is a drag and sometimes justified, but when the hobby is micro-managing and policing, it usually becomes an ego project that shuts out rather than welcomes.
- May result in heavy-handed moderation rather than sensible debate
- Can turn into control instrument rather than community care
- Admin role tends to perpetuate attitude and build intolerance over time
- Tends to draw in members who enjoy policing other people’s behavior excessively
I sympathize with moderators who deal with trolls, but the pathological admin who takes pleasure in banning members? Red flag. A well-run group permits civil discussion; a dominant admin strangles it. If a member brags of having admin privileges or takes pleasure in deleting members, that’s a personality clue. Sound leadership is measured and fair-minded; the rest is insecurity masquerading as power.
6. Horse-obsessing
Horse girl” culture can be beautiful until it consumes. Enjoyment of life with horses is beautiful, but when all social interaction, social calendar and self-definition reference horses, it shrinks one’s world to a small thing. Internet postings made light of it but also showed how this activity isolates: the time, money and one-track dedication it demands leave little room for other pursuits, other relationships or flexibility of plans.
- Intense dedication can monopolise time, money and social circles
- May prioritise the hobby over balanced relationships and wider interests
- Creates an insular identity that’s hard to share with others
- Can limit life flexibility due to high commitment and costs
I love passion, but where a hobby overshadows the whole of a person’s life, warning signals begin to sound. Horses take cash and time, and that’s fine provided the owner’s whole life is not devoted to the stable. A good passion enriches life; an excessive passion narrows it. If one is speaking of horses as if they’re the only pretty thing in existence, look for balance elsewhere in their life.
7. Into Family Vlogging
Family vlogging can be wholesome-looking until invading privacy. Documentation of kids day-in, day-out for views turns family life into material, at times without a child’s willing consent. The general wisdom online was harsh: monetizing and broadcasting a child’s personal life is exploitative. It trades off a child’s future autonomy for present clicks, and that ethical cost is one that many will find extremely disquieting.
- Leverages family life often without children’s involvement or permission
- Blurs public/private boundaries with long-term potential harm to children
- Encourages performative parenting for likes not actual connection
- Dictates opinion and brand endorsements in a child’s best interests
I get the desire to share memories, but childhood must be made up of moments that are not documented and are only for the family. When one treats his or her child as a content item, it exposes one to exploitation and identity crises in adulthood. If one’s pastime is exploiting his or her family for opinions, it’s time to inquire for whom and at whose expense.
8. Competitive Eating
Now this one may sound fun at first who hasn’t seen someone gorge on absurd amounts of food for kicks? But after the shock value, competitive eating rapidly becomes disturbing. On the internet, people refer to it as a bizarre combination of excess and spectacle, one that values excess over well-being. It’s no surprise: forcing your body to store impossible quantities of food isn’t only repulsive; it’s dangerous. The activity usually indicates a disconnect from simple self-care, shrouded in inappropriate pride for endurance that is on the verge of being punitive.
- Prioritises excessive consumption over healthy or conscious eating practice
- Treats the body as a vehicle for shock instead of nourishment
- Normalises unhealthy food relations and public display
- Translates discomfort and risk into entertainment for rapid attention grabs
There is a distinction between relishing food and fighting to destroy it. Too many such battles mythologize bingeing and self-violation in lights and catcalling cheers. When an individual imagines belly ache as victory, something’s dreadfully wrong. The ugly aspect isn’t just physical it’s psychological too. Competitive eating diminishes pleasure into spectacle, and reverence for food into applause for hurting oneself. Seeing it’s one thing, but being proud to be doing it? That’s when alarm replaces amusement.
9. Taxidermy as a “Fun” Hobby
I know what you’re thinking yes, taxidermy can be an art form. But let’s be honest: keeping preserved animal bodies in your home “for fun” crosses into uncomfortable territory for most. The hobby is skinning, stuffing, and posing animals that are dead, and it’s not on everyone’s list of things to do in their free time. On the internet, this was at the top of people’s list of what disturbed them, especially when someone gets too excited about doing it or displays their work everywhere.
- Allows touching of animal corpses for decoration or personal entertainment
- Marries artistic appreciation with fascination with death
- Will most likely cause unease on the basis of morals or ethics
- Could reflect control fixation or death collection tendencies
There. A. Thin. Line. Between. Art. And. Mor. B. I. T. Y. Talented taxidermists see it as artistic preservation, but others see warning signs in the aestheticisation of death. When a person aestheticises it or says it’s “beautiful,” stop for a second and ask yourself why. Nothing is wrong with appreciating nature, but creating. The. Dead. Decor?. That reveals something more profound about a person’s comfort with control, stillness, and dominance over life itself.
10. Hypnosis on Strangers, Amateur
This one creeped me out playing with hypnosis on strangers as some kind of “party trick.” Naturally, naturally, some people do it in earnest for therapy or fun, but using hypnosis to control or humiliate others? That’s where it gets aggressively into red-flag territory. Online commentators condemned it as “psychological pickpocketing.” It’s not curiosity it’s about control, especially when done without apparent permission or training.
- Exploits altered mental states for entertainment or personal advantage
- Often lacks genuine consent or professional ethical understanding
- Encourages dominance over others disguised as harmless curiosity
- Creates imbalance of trust and leaves participants vulnerable emotionally
Playing with someone’s mind for laughs isn’t clever it’s coercive. I’ve seen clips of people frozen mid-laugh or confessing things while hypnotised, and it feels invasive. If a person enjoys that sense of manipulation, it hints at darker motives. Empathy and power rarely mix comfortably. Anyone whose “fun” depends on someone else losing autonomy should never be trusted with your confidence or your subconscious.
11. Collecting Clown Dolls
I don’t care how “vintage” or “rare” they might be clown doll collections are creepy period. Sure, collectors say it’s because it’s nostalgic, but to the rest of us, it’s nightmare fuel. The giant faces, frozen grin and glassy stares make people cringe for a reason: they obscure where silly becomes spooky. Online, they were calling this the creepiest hobby of all, not because it’s evil, but because it glorifies familiarity with things that scare nearly everyone else.
- Represents comfort with fear and uncomfortable imagery in daily life
- Frequently based on nostalgia but seen as disturbing to others
- May imply fascination with manipulation through fear and discomfort
- Emphasizes emotional desensitisation to others’ reactions of unease
When a collector insists “they’re not scary once you know them,” I have to wonder who’s reassurance that is. Having dozens of fixed-grinning dolls staring out from shelves doesn’t exactly come across as “safe space.” It’s the kind of hobby that makes other people’s homes look like sets from horror films. Okay, it’s not actually dangerous but it’s a pretty good bet that their definition of “cosy” will be different from yours.
12. Following True Crime Obsessively
Me too, I’ll admit: I enjoy the odd true crime documentary myself. There’s a huge difference, however, between interest and obsession. When you have every killer’s timeline memorized, each aspect of the killing, and build fan sites for criminals that’s when it crosses the line. The online population largely agreed that too much interest in crime is not just morbid curiosity; it can suggest an unsettling familiarity with violence and trauma as entertainment.
- Normalizes violent behavior through excess exposure and obsession
- Fears desensitizing sympathy for victims’ families and victims
- Promotes parasocial identification with criminals and investigators
- Converts tragedy to light entertainment without respect or contemplation
There is a thin line between voyeurism and sensitivity. Some supporters claim it’s justice or psychology, but most blur that line over into idolising killers. When you start finding crime scenes “interesting,” humankind has lost its way. Genuine true crime should instil sympathy, not sensation. So if someone’s hobby is listening to three murder podcasts for breakfast, it’s time to question whether fascination has gotten the better of compassion.
13. Excessive Pranking
Pranks are amusing but if they are grounded in humiliation or fear, they stop being a joke and become a cruel act. There were some users who recalled “pranksters” who staged fake emergencies or vandalized property “for laughs.” It is this so-called hobby that marks the line of separation between enjoyment and abuse of emotions. It’s an act that’s typically excused by “it’s just a joke,” but the only laughter is from the prankster, never the victim.
- Takes advantage of embarrassment and pain for delight in humor
- Normalises boundary violations in the name of humor
- Tends to mask aggression and control in pretend play
- Might escalate to emotional or physical harm in the long term
Health humor unites us. Destructive pranks tear down trust. I saw someone proposing as a joke in a video once, and their partner was left embarrassed proof that there are many forms of cruelty. Anyone who turns other people’s hurt into their pleasure is not worth your time. The next time someone is bragging about being a “legendary prankster,” remember: real fun never has to leave someone in tears.
14. Recording Strangers in Public
This became a thing a few years back: strangers being filmed by people for some sort of “funny video” or “social experiment.” In theory, it’s harmless; in practice, it’s a breach of privacy and dignity. Most of the subjects don’t even ask. Their embarrassment is harvested into a viral video. Commenters agreed this is a modern indicator of a red flag a sign of disrespect for human boundaries and the idea that something’s content, even discomfort.
- Unwittingly targets for social media growth and clicks
- Undermines respect for day-to-day human decency and privacy
- Demonstrates entitlement to other people’s personal space or experience
- Normalizes behavior of surveillance in the guise of impromptu creativity
Whenever someone smugly says, “I film people for reactions,” it immediately triggers self-absorption. The line between art and harassment is thin, and those who blur it demonstrate lack of empathy. A society that ridicules strangers’ vulnerability is losing its humanity. Filming without permission isn’t art it’s arrogance.
15. Tax-Evading “Financial Hobbyists”
And finally the strangest of all alleged “hobbies”: tax evasion for kicks. Some call it “financial creativity” and what it is to others cheating. Web surfers commented that nothing gets more suspicion instantly than one who boasts about outsmarting the system. Handling illicit money stunts like Sudoku doesn’t make one clever; it makes one dangerous.
- Considers dishonesty as smart and deception as a game of intelligence
- Ignores civic duty while boasting about loopholes exploitation
- Normalises unethical money gaming for selfish gain
- Exudes narcissism hidden behind pseudo intelligence and defiance
Money handling isn’t the problem moral pliability is. I’ve met people who call their scams “bending the rules.” That tells you everything. When cheating takes place as entertainment, honesty’s out the door. A genuine hobby builds character or skill; this one undermines both. Some things pronounce “interesting.” This one screams “avoid at all costs.”
Final Thoughts
Looking at this list, I realize that hobbies can tell us everything about the soul. They reveal to us patience or conceit, kindness or cruelty, depth or emptiness. A hobby should be a mind-clearing delight, not an alarm bell. The next time someone brags about their “odd hobby,” look below the surface. Is it wholesome, kind, and creative or controlling, manipulative, and grotesque?
At their best, hobbies bring us together. At their worst, they reveal who we truly are when nobody’s looking. So pick yours carefully and watch your step around the red flags flapping right next to someone else’s “good time.
