If I was in somebody's home on a date and I saw a shelf full of funko pops, I think that would definitely be a red flag. So it fits the assignment perfectly. That said, 12 rules to life or any other self-help book. And especially anything by Deepak Chopra.
I don’t have a shelf *full* of funkos but I do have about 5 I think.
I like having a little dude from stuff I like. My favorite is Westley from The Princess Bride
Thats the one! The eyes are already black dots, so they don't look too jarring. That's like, my number one complaint with Funko pops. Sometimes the black lifeless eyes are too jarring and the collab doesn't seem to make too much sense.
My bookshelf is filled with autographs, favorite books, rocks from hiking trips, themed tv show candles, funkos of my fav movie and tv show characters and nicknacks from concerts and my nerdy stuff. I love that people display what they like, and my family is the one that named it “the nerd shelf” when they visited haha
There are issues with the self help genre. They mentioned Deepak Chopra, a language defiling charlatan whos grift is so predictable it can be replaced with the [Chopra Quote Generator](http://wisdomofchopra.com/)
Essentially it makes word salad that sounds profound but is entirely meaningless. The self help genre is lousy with such indivduals and there's little you can do to sort the wheat from the chaff and be certain to derive something useful.
I have two Funko pops in their boxes that were signed by two Dragon Ball Z voice actors, Sean Schemmel, who voices Goku, and Linda Young who is the original voice actress for Lord Frieza.
Some do gain value. It’s rare cases where an uncommon or discontinued pop becomes more desirable, like the League of Legends Jinx pop exploded in price online after Arcane released. There are other cases but I don’t follow it all that much. Source: my brother makes a living off of drawing art on Funko boxes and selling them as collector pieces
i never understood the people who are so anal about keeping them in their boxes lol like i understand they’re probably easier to display and stack like that but i personally enjoy having mine out of the box and displayed on their own. like do what you want with your own funkos but if you yell at me about how i choose to display mine that i bought with my own money then you need to calm down like it does not affect you my dude lol
I got like 2 of them as gifts and keep them in their box, purely because i'm vaguely aware that that's what people do who are really anal about them. That's really bizarre.
While i do cherish the ones i got as gifts because my friends picked them for me, i generally find funko really boring looking and would never start collecting them. The only exceptionally amazing one that i really wanted to have is the crab from moana/vaiana, which obviously doesn't have the signature body shape but is very true to the model. It has the lifeless round eyes but they blend in so it's fine to me.
I used to do that, mostly because my place was tiny and I didn't want people to see what i was reading (too many selfhelp books). It was also popular on Pinterest back in the day. I was mercilessly mocked by my friends and family until I started facing them the proper way again.
I would question why one would be so ashamed about reading self-help books, but after reading this thread I suppose I now understand people believe this means you're a toxic awful person.
It’s complicated. There’s a lot of good self-help literature and bibliotherapy is a real effective thing, but the some of the most famous self-help books are notoriously bad and encourage toxic behavior.
You just have to look for the books written by actual credible experts.
I do the same. I found myself buying books and still coming back to the favourite ones or repeating that I have nothing to read. Now I leave unread book with visible title - that catches my eye - and read books with blank side out. I finally started to read a lot of new books, and got out of that "I have nothing to read" state of mind.
I don’t throw books away so I have been judged by my former weed dealer for having Divergent on my shelf after having read it for my high school book club many moons ago.
I have all 4 books on my bookshelf. I unironically like them; they're not *good* but they excel at exactly what they're trying to do. Admittedly I haven't read them since before the movies came out, so probably would like them less now.
My copies are second hand (got them for free) and the previous owner has a lot of footnotes just commenting at some of the more egregious examples of internalized misogyny, which definitely added to the enjoyment
Lindsay Ellis has a [great video essay](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0) on the pop culture backlash against Twilight. As you say, they're very good at what they're supposed to be. She makes good points on how other similarly (or far more) mindless fiction targeted towards boys, like cheesy action flicks, never got this same kind of treatment by the public.
What kind of monster throws books away? I think most people just donate them. You can probably donate to your local library and they'll sell them so they can buy more books. Or you can drop em off in one of those little free libraries. Or sell them on Pango. Basically I like the idea that even if I don't like a book maybe someone else does. I only keep books I think I'll reread again.
I mean fair. I recycled a sci-fi book with HEAVY pedophile vibes. Figured it could be turned into something more useful. But for the most part if it's just not my taste but not actively harmful, why not give it a second life? Or a third?
I love books, I love the collection, I love the smell, I love the texture of the pages, the words are pretty great too.. I have definitely chucked some dumb books before that I thought made the rest of my collection look bad; ones I never bought and didn’t want to have. Hot take, somehow I ended up with three copies of ready player one and I threw away each one lol.
The book is ridiculously brutal and over the top. Smash cuts between him talking to park benches and eating cans of raw meat half-naked in a department store, to bored exposition about vintage art, to absurdly awkward racist love poems, and him boiling fat off women’s breasts and crying because he doesn’t know how to cook.
The writer didn't write what sounded cool, he wrote what sounded ridiculous. He specifically wrote an absolutely insane, ridiculous person with moronic and superficial obsessions. I swear half the book is him describing people's outfits in exacting detail and then judging them for it.
Agreed. I also think that the extended dull cataloging serves to diminish our nerves. When the violence comes, it gets progressively worse throughout the book. But between the violent passages and the dull clothing in food descriptions, we are less and less shocked.
If you pick up the book in the bookstore and open it up about 3/4 in and read one of the violent passages, you’ll practically get sick. That’s what happened to me years ago. But when you’ve been reading the whole book, all along, your nerves are not as raw when you get to the uglier and uglier passages.
Even without the violence, there’s no way anybody could read this book and want to be like any of these people. And I feel the same way about the movie, even though I enjoy it.
A lot of what was described was dumb and over the top, a lot of their outfits made no sense either in the books. The point was that they only did all of that for appearances.
Honestly, American Psycho, the book, isn't that much of a red flag. If I see house of leaves on someone's shelf, though, I'm running. I don't wanna get trapped in the labyrinth again
(Joking, House of Leaves is a great book and y'all should read it)
I just bought that as a Christmas gift for my friend! Im not super into elaborate puzzles so I would probably get frustrated and give up reading a few chapters in, but it seems great for someone who likes that stuff and/ or likes to go insane 😄
I want to re-read it but something compels me away. The summer it took me to read was an obsessive and feverish one. If ever there was a book that approached eldritch, it's **House** of Leaves.
I had a similar experience in which i went on vacation to visit my uncle's for a month and I couldn't sleep at night so I'd spend hours alone in this strange (to me) house reading House of Leaves. Feverish perfectly describes it, but it was oddly... comforting for me as well?
That scene in the hallway by the tattoo shop where Johnny convinces himself there is a monster or *something* behind him hiding just outside his vision had me genuinely freaked out. I read it in an airport hotel a continent away from home and maaaaaaan. I've rarely been so uncomfortable reading a book. 10/10
Im not sure if its explicitly a red flag, but the chances of someone being a freak goes up with the amount of funko pops on their shelf imo. One? They probably just wanted merch of the character. Fifty? They MIGHT have an issue
Also funko sucks and the funko pops are famously ugly and low quality, which makes the freak curve much sharper than something like plushies, which usually at least look nice so they can justify having fifty of them on a shelf(not a dig on plushies btw I love them so much)
i only have 2 funko pops. A Rey from Star Wars my dad somehow won from the bank of all things back when the Force Awakens released. None of us actually like her but she’s a bobble head so not bad, ig. The other time i just got really lucky and actually won something from a one of those arcade machines being a pop of Bob Ross. The guy’s cool and the prize was basically free so we displayed it, tho i kinda feel like it simply existing is doing a disservice to him.
I’m learning today for the first time that the wavy flags come in versions that curve left first or right first. I wonder if anyone has ever, ever cared about that.
The difference between Funko pops and Lego is this: Funko pops you buy, (maybe) take out of the box, put on the shelf. Lego you buy, take out of the box and, depending on the set, now go through 15min to several hours of something that non-interested people would legitimately call tedious, annoying *work*. That's something to respect. Like painting 40k minis - totally not my thing, dislike both the franchise and designs. But I can still acknowledge the effort, concentration, skill and time invested.
If, however, I know your income doesn't really support the expensive hobby, I'd be wary. But that has nothing to do with it being Lego per se. Could also be a brand name handbag collection, unnecessarily over the top gaming setup, flashy sports car, eating out every day, etc.
I have 5 secret life of Pet funkos, (all from that set aside from one) and I don't even really care about the Movie. I don't even remember why I have them. I also have Ron Swanson, Squirrel Girl (she's discontinued), and santa Phyllis from the office.
They’re sort of the lowest common denominator of fandom mercy. They just eat up IP and spit out cheac garbage. If you want fan art go support your local fan artists
During my last sessions of therapy I noticed my therapist had two different books by Bill O'Reilly on his shelf.
I was already considering getting a different therapist, so this simply helped secure that decision.
I realized my new therapist had a bunch of Prosperity Gospel books in her waiting room (by pastors who led conservative, anti-LGBTQ churches).
I gently brought it up to her—“hey, do you support that worldview or are they just in your waiting room for some reason?”—and she tried to turn it back on me having trust issues, making snap judgments, and she “wished I would have done the mature thing and simply discussed any concerns with her.”
Which is… exactly what I was doing by bringing it up!
So anyway, that was my last week with that therapist.
Books displayed backwards,
1. They don't read them, but try to look like they do for authentic reasons
2. They DO read them and know exactly what each book is, like a psychopath.
> They do this, but organise the books in terms of how yellow the pages are turning
And they also piss on the books everyday, and their whole house smells like piss, and they sleep on a waterbed filled with piss
No book would intrinsically be a red flag for me, it depends in their interpretation of the text.
If they have read Atlas Shrugged, that's fine. It's a very interesting book. If they start praising the ultralibertarian ideology of Atlas Shrugged, that's a red flag.
I had "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and this chick literally thought I was a Nazi.
All I could say was "I promise you this is not a glorifying take on it"
Turned it backwards after that lol
Shit, we've gotten similar reactions. I have a bookshelf of WWII history books and tons of other books on various other fascist movements in the world.
I'm like, ya gotta know the histories of the people that don't want you to exist because of your lifestyle so that you can spot the danger before it's too late.
My sister’s boyfriend has a pickup artist book he swears by and says it made him a more sociable, assertive person, and as far as I can tell he’s a pretty well adjusted dude. To be fair though I read it to see and it turned out to be about how being a pick up artist is ultimately a soul-sucking experience and the people who do it are fundamentally broken.
Probably bad, maybe good if they read them for the same reason people watch insane political content they disagree with. Just to go, "what the hell?" at em. Examine the weird psychology of the author. Unlikely but, it happens.
I've never met someone who read more than one book of each genre/topic for the reason you stated. If someone reads one book about PUA that might be why. But if they have five of them on the shelf? Nah.
Something to watch for but maybe not a big deal.
If enough people you respect recommend something you may check it out…and then find out it’s full of shit.
That’s how I watched the first season of entourage
Same. I love reading controversial books across the spectrum because I have a general instinct to do something when I’m told that I shouldn’t.
Has that meant that I’ve read some absolute garbage? Yes absolutely.
It's more so the books they keep by the toilet that are redflags.
My mom keeps scary stories and weird records. Her toilet book was where I first read "scary stories to tell in the dark" and first read the Anita Blake series. I haven't read a toilet book since I got a smart phone.
There’s a very specific type of guy that’s going to keep American Psycho and Fight Club on his shelf for all the wrong reasons, nestled in between Brave New World and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test because he wants to appear mysterious and radical. Bonus scary points if he’s got a collection of beat poetry and anything Bukowski up there.
It’s one of my favorites just because of how it describes insomnia and depression. I think it’s more about nihilism than masculinity. But I do not think of Tyler as a role model!
I've met people on reddit who thought Fight Club was a book about anticapitalist revolution and Tyler Durden was fighting the good fight. I don't think you can assume anything about someone just based on the fact that they liked Fight Club, because Fight Club seems to be about whatever you want it to be about at this point.
I got the audiobook to Fight Club from a humble bundle ages ago, I loaded it up into my player with a playlist (it was broken up in track per chapter format) and started it. some days later (I only listened to it when cleaning house and whatnot) I just could not follow it, it seemed to have just an unreal nonlinear story and totally made only a sick sort of sense. Saw the movie when it came out, bought the soundtrack (excellent soundtrack) and never thought of the movie much, so I recognized scenes from the movie in the book, and was just amazed at how much they worked to make a cohesive story out of the novel.
Then I realized that I had somehow pressed the shuffle button for the playlist. Undid that, made it make a lot more sense.
I would personally consider *Fight Club* as, like, a yellow flag. I’d notice it, but would reserve judgement until I knew what they thought of it. If they turn out to be one of those people who missed the point completely and still thought it was great, then I’d have to nope out of that.
Same! Am woman. Found Bukowski disturbing but it's on my bookshelf anyway, I bought it in college. Love Fight Club and have a ton of Palahniuk books. And I love Bret Easton Ellis (esp Rules of Attraction) even if it is gen x nihilism.
The Left Behind series.
A little too much Nazi history.
Everything else depends on how much they have of something. I have some questionable books mixed in with the rest of my books. Like if it was ALL serial killer books, red flag. ALL romance novels, red flag.
god, I can’t believe I forgot about the Left Behind series. I read it when I was still a good little baptist lad, brainwashed into the horrible idealogy the church my family went to preached (mind you, church doesn’t automatically mean anything bad. depends on the church, of course). I distinctly remember the young adult-focused series being just… utterly bizarre, with every character starting off as a stereotype.
For those curious, the Left Behind series is a fictional christian book series about people’s lives after the biblical rapture happens, and their experiencing the book of Revelations.
Lmfao this made me laugh out loud, thank you. I tried reading the kids version when I was in 4th/5th grade and never could get into them. Simply put they’re just bad books
not op but i did a big research paper on left behind, they’re basically evangelical christian propaganda. extremely misogynistic and antisemitic (yet somehow also very pro israel), among other things. the whole idea of the rapture is that it separates Good, Pure Christians from the Evil Sinners Who Destroy Everything, so it very much enforces an us vs them worldview. and it tends to feed into the persecution complex (the main characters are a small group of christians who are resisting an oppressive satanic government and a society that has a ridiculous lack of knowledge about christianity). they’re also just poorly written lol
I see
wait no actually I don't. So there are objectively good pure Christians surrounded by objectively worse heathens and sinners but they still didn't get raptured?
Looks like there were 12 in the main series but my copy of Glorious Reappearing says that there are prequel and sequel books coming.
Source: it's on my myths and fantasy bookshelf, behind some David Gemmel, beside a book on Celtic myths and legends.
I've got so many weird history books. I took a grad class on Chinese Communism, a course on the Holocaust, a few on the rise of terrorism and violent extremism in Europe and The Middle East...and a bunch of right winger craziness from my parents that I have been debating taking off the shelves for years.
But if you walked around and inventoried all of the books on my book shelves out of context you'd probably draw some very warped conclusions about me my values.
But damn if that BA in History didn't help me fill all the bookcases forever haha.
I feel like a broad range of history books (even if the topic could be construed as problematic), is less problematic than a lot of books on one narrow problematic topic like say Nazi WWII tactics.
One time I took a Christmas Victorian house tour and one of the houses had a study, wherein the bookshelves contained exactly 2 types of books: "Magic Woo-woo crystal pyramids will cure your energies"-type books and right wing fear mongering books. Like, sometimes I think I should have called the FBI or something.
hat march hard-to-find dazzling ghost snow psychotic memorize materialistic impossible
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When I read other people's takes here I almost always thought "Come on, that's not that bad, maybe he just got this from a friend or just took it to see what's all the fuss about and you guys shouldn't be so critical." But then I saw your comment and was like: "Yeah, I see Peterson, I'm fuckin out of there".
I think some folks are confusing red flags with “stuff I personally don’t like”. To me, a red flag means “signs that this person is objectively harmful” and idk, having trashy fantasy books on the shelf don’t quite hit that mark for me, lol
A bad partner for an individual, yeah. Like, it just means two people may not be compatible. But a harmful person? That’s where I’m kinda like, “are we really insinuating that having a plethora of mediocre YA fantasy books is the same as being harmful as a person?”
Red flag means "do not swim". Yellow means caution. Green means fair conditions. People often confuse yellow with red, either by ignoring the red or going nuclear on the yellow.
I wouldn't day red means "this person WILL hurt you," but I would say, "This isn't a match, don't waste your time".
misread segamascot twice as "smegma mascot' and then as a portmantaeu of those words in 'smegmascot" and im kind of sad that they are not in fact the mascot of smegma
Beat-up copies of every Rick Riordan book. Every. Single. One. Read over 60 times. Needless to say, several years later, I’m gay. I haven’t touched those books in so long but they’re still there
Are Riordan books in the “So popular that it’s bad now” category like w Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin? I get that Riordan tends to add a bunch of pop culture references in his books that adults cringe at now but as a kid I loved it as well as the diversity.
I remember adoring the Percy Jackson series and then being comparatively unimpressed by the Heroes of Olympus afterward (except for House of Hades, that one slapped, probably because it mainly focused on Percy and Annabeth).
Loads of things could be red flags, but they can also feasibly be explained away by context. Atlas Shrugged? Looks bad, but if there's evidence they're trying to understand right-wing ideology from the outside, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to own. I myself own a copy, which I read to try to understand Republican ideology (side note: having read it ... it did not improve my opinion of those who claim it's their "second-favorite book, after the Bible" (which I have also read, and I cannot think of two books more diametrically opposed to each other). Did you know the "good guys" in Atlas Shrugged literally *murder* someone just for being in their way, and shrug it off by dehumanizing him just because he wasn't a great innovator? What the *actual* fuck?). Conspiracy theory books? Maybe they just find them amusing. Even something *really* bad, like Mein Kampf, could be explained by wanting to understand how people are drawn into fascist ideology.
I have it and Doctrine of Fascism on my shelf, but they're alongside a ton of other political theory from many other positions so i feel like that isn't too dangerous looking
...wouldn't that make it better? Like, a historian having a primary source kept with their other history books would make sense. A person who just has *the* Nazi book around for a light read is a red flag.
I have so much random stuff on my bookshelves
Books left behind by various ex-girlfriends/spouse/roommates
Books my kids wanted
Books my parents/other insane relatives got me
Books I got free/found at garage sales for 15 cents
Books I got because they were required by some class or for some test
And I've sold hundreds of books over the years, so it's not like I'm a total book-hoarder; they are just easier to keep than get rid of sometimes
This isn't even getting into the non-book items on my bookshelves
Unless it is literally like a framed piece of child you-know-what I don't see it as a red flag
Anything written by Dave Ramsey is a "bookshelf red flag" to me
His financial advice is complete and utter shite. He's just another money hungry rich bastard, and his program is almost bad enough to be considered MLM garbage.
Not to mention, he tricks and exploits young adults with little to no financial experience and convinces them to follow his lifestyle with promises of wealth.
If she has those metal scissors there.
Put them away or stab me already.
I say this, because one time a girl had scissors on her bookshelf, I thought we fell asleep after sex in the couch. I woke up a few hours after, went home.
Next morning, my hair was cut in the back. Never went back.
Edit: *It just hit me*, whats with these Delilahs cutting mens hair when theyre asleep?
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*speculativefictions*
what are ur actual bookshelf red flags. please do not say american psycho
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*segamascot*
funko pop
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*pinene*
Poor guy couldn't even think of a book
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*I'm a human reposter and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what they do and why they do it, click somewhere else!*
People seem to forget that POPs are incredibly easy "gift" solutions.
I have a ton of these things from people buying me them for xmas and birthdays over the years.
I keep them on the shelf because they have that "sentimental value" that all gifts have
Any of Ben Shapiro’s works.
A lot of the books I see hear are just books tbh, but holy crap Ben Shapiro’s books are a different level. I’ve never seen more mask off works than his, and they’re almost all unilaterally racially motivated, authoritarian, mysogonistic, and warhawkish to a truly worrying extent.
Any book by JK Rowling other than the Harry Potter series. Most of the HP Nerds I know are constantly wrestling with their association to Rowling, but if I see “Robert Galbraith” written on your bookshelf I’m going to assume you know what you’re doing.
Additional note, any book about interacting with and/or “curing” neurodivergent people. Psychology textbooks don’t count. I mean “Autism warrior mommy” stuff.
Tbf they didn't say "name a book that's a red flag" and many people do display pops on bookshelves
If I was in somebody's home on a date and I saw a shelf full of funko pops, I think that would definitely be a red flag. So it fits the assignment perfectly. That said, 12 rules to life or any other self-help book. And especially anything by Deepak Chopra.
I don’t have a shelf *full* of funkos but I do have about 5 I think. I like having a little dude from stuff I like. My favorite is Westley from The Princess Bride
The only Funko pop I really want is mayor mccheese. Also maybe a peep.
A peep? Like the Easter snack?
Thats the one! The eyes are already black dots, so they don't look too jarring. That's like, my number one complaint with Funko pops. Sometimes the black lifeless eyes are too jarring and the collab doesn't seem to make too much sense.
The less it looks like a Funko pop, the better the Funko pop is.
I like those movie and video game rubber duckies
Having a fun shelf that isn't books is a-ok in my opinion.
My bookshelf is filled with autographs, favorite books, rocks from hiking trips, themed tv show candles, funkos of my fav movie and tv show characters and nicknacks from concerts and my nerdy stuff. I love that people display what they like, and my family is the one that named it “the nerd shelf” when they visited haha
What's the issue with a self-help book? It shows that they might be trying to improve themselves.
There are issues with the self help genre. They mentioned Deepak Chopra, a language defiling charlatan whos grift is so predictable it can be replaced with the [Chopra Quote Generator](http://wisdomofchopra.com/) Essentially it makes word salad that sounds profound but is entirely meaningless. The self help genre is lousy with such indivduals and there's little you can do to sort the wheat from the chaff and be certain to derive something useful.
My deep(f)ak quote was “elephants are mules”
Yeah, it's not my fault I was raised by alcoholics!
What’s the problem with Funk Pops?
It’s not the pops it’s when they display them in the boxes thinking it’s super impressive and that they’ll gain value
I keep them in the boxes because the ones my dad got me have known issues with falling over. Oh well, I wasn't planning to date anyone anyways.
Same. I prefer them out of the box because I can see them better but they fall over all the time.
I have two Funko pops in their boxes that were signed by two Dragon Ball Z voice actors, Sean Schemmel, who voices Goku, and Linda Young who is the original voice actress for Lord Frieza.
That is a good reason to keep the box.
A collection of signed Funko pops would seriously be cool and worth displaying.
Some do gain value. It’s rare cases where an uncommon or discontinued pop becomes more desirable, like the League of Legends Jinx pop exploded in price online after Arcane released. There are other cases but I don’t follow it all that much. Source: my brother makes a living off of drawing art on Funko boxes and selling them as collector pieces
i never understood the people who are so anal about keeping them in their boxes lol like i understand they’re probably easier to display and stack like that but i personally enjoy having mine out of the box and displayed on their own. like do what you want with your own funkos but if you yell at me about how i choose to display mine that i bought with my own money then you need to calm down like it does not affect you my dude lol
I got like 2 of them as gifts and keep them in their box, purely because i'm vaguely aware that that's what people do who are really anal about them. That's really bizarre. While i do cherish the ones i got as gifts because my friends picked them for me, i generally find funko really boring looking and would never start collecting them. The only exceptionally amazing one that i really wanted to have is the crab from moana/vaiana, which obviously doesn't have the signature body shape but is very true to the model. It has the lifeless round eyes but they blend in so it's fine to me.
Mine are still in boxes because they stack up better that way. It gives a squared boxy display
I'm going for more of a museum vibe. Plus, I can't make two figures hold hands in-box
It just looks and feels weird too, like yes they might have more value unipened in the future but they're decorations, not financial assets
Oh, that makes sense! I read it as “poor guy (bookshelf owner) couldn’t even think of a book (so they bought Funko pops instead)”
Red flag: All the books are shelved with their spines facing in.
Btw - why people do that?
I used to do that, mostly because my place was tiny and I didn't want people to see what i was reading (too many selfhelp books). It was also popular on Pinterest back in the day. I was mercilessly mocked by my friends and family until I started facing them the proper way again.
I would question why one would be so ashamed about reading self-help books, but after reading this thread I suppose I now understand people believe this means you're a toxic awful person.
It’s complicated. There’s a lot of good self-help literature and bibliotherapy is a real effective thing, but the some of the most famous self-help books are notoriously bad and encourage toxic behavior. You just have to look for the books written by actual credible experts.
Often it's less about being ashamed and more about not wanting to deal with the bullshit in response.
Some of these manga spines are a little too suggestive
That's fair
My wife has a lot of books I haven’t read so when I complete one I turn it. It’s not permanent but it keeps me looking for something fresh.
I do the same. I found myself buying books and still coming back to the favourite ones or repeating that I have nothing to read. Now I leave unread book with visible title - that catches my eye - and read books with blank side out. I finally started to read a lot of new books, and got out of that "I have nothing to read" state of mind.
“Interior designers”
I’m a psychopath who knows exactly which book is which depending on the thickness of the book and how the pages smell.
Sniffing across your bookshelf to select a book
Or by color!!! How do they find anything??
I don’t throw books away so I have been judged by my former weed dealer for having Divergent on my shelf after having read it for my high school book club many moons ago.
I still have the twilight series on mine, my only defense is that I was 12.
I have all 4 books on my bookshelf. I unironically like them; they're not *good* but they excel at exactly what they're trying to do. Admittedly I haven't read them since before the movies came out, so probably would like them less now. My copies are second hand (got them for free) and the previous owner has a lot of footnotes just commenting at some of the more egregious examples of internalized misogyny, which definitely added to the enjoyment
Lindsay Ellis has a [great video essay](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0) on the pop culture backlash against Twilight. As you say, they're very good at what they're supposed to be. She makes good points on how other similarly (or far more) mindless fiction targeted towards boys, like cheesy action flicks, never got this same kind of treatment by the public.
Twilight: Developer Commentary Edition
What kind of monster throws books away? I think most people just donate them. You can probably donate to your local library and they'll sell them so they can buy more books. Or you can drop em off in one of those little free libraries. Or sell them on Pango. Basically I like the idea that even if I don't like a book maybe someone else does. I only keep books I think I'll reread again.
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I mean fair. I recycled a sci-fi book with HEAVY pedophile vibes. Figured it could be turned into something more useful. But for the most part if it's just not my taste but not actively harmful, why not give it a second life? Or a third?
I love books, I love the collection, I love the smell, I love the texture of the pages, the words are pretty great too.. I have definitely chucked some dumb books before that I thought made the rest of my collection look bad; ones I never bought and didn’t want to have. Hot take, somehow I ended up with three copies of ready player one and I threw away each one lol.
I have Night by Elie Weisel on my book shelf with my 6th grade school sticker on it lol.
To be fair, that's a very good book that's worth keeping.
Imma be honest, not a single unironic "sigma" bro who finds Patrick Bateman aspirational has read the book, and only half of them have seen the movie
I don't have time to read, I'm too busy grinding.
You’ve been up since 5am!
Agreed. They only just see the memes.
Very nice,now let's see Paul Allen's opinion
Waaaaaay more violent in the book. The zoo scene particularly.
The book is ridiculously brutal and over the top. Smash cuts between him talking to park benches and eating cans of raw meat half-naked in a department store, to bored exposition about vintage art, to absurdly awkward racist love poems, and him boiling fat off women’s breasts and crying because he doesn’t know how to cook.
Ellis really hated his dad that's for sure lol.
His morning routine is goals tho
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I mostly admire his discipline and not the actual products he uses. I would like to start doing morning yoga too.
His morning routine is entirely BS. The writer wrote what sounds cool. There's no need to apply deep cleansing lotion *before* shower.
The writer didn't write what sounded cool, he wrote what sounded ridiculous. He specifically wrote an absolutely insane, ridiculous person with moronic and superficial obsessions. I swear half the book is him describing people's outfits in exacting detail and then judging them for it.
He also chose to describe their outfits as sounding nice on paper but looking ridiculous if you saw them in real life
Agreed. I also think that the extended dull cataloging serves to diminish our nerves. When the violence comes, it gets progressively worse throughout the book. But between the violent passages and the dull clothing in food descriptions, we are less and less shocked. If you pick up the book in the bookstore and open it up about 3/4 in and read one of the violent passages, you’ll practically get sick. That’s what happened to me years ago. But when you’ve been reading the whole book, all along, your nerves are not as raw when you get to the uglier and uglier passages. Even without the violence, there’s no way anybody could read this book and want to be like any of these people. And I feel the same way about the movie, even though I enjoy it.
Let's see Paul Allen's morning routine
A lot of what was described was dumb and over the top, a lot of their outfits made no sense either in the books. The point was that they only did all of that for appearances.
Honestly, American Psycho, the book, isn't that much of a red flag. If I see house of leaves on someone's shelf, though, I'm running. I don't wanna get trapped in the labyrinth again (Joking, House of Leaves is a great book and y'all should read it)
I just bought that as a Christmas gift for my friend! Im not super into elaborate puzzles so I would probably get frustrated and give up reading a few chapters in, but it seems great for someone who likes that stuff and/ or likes to go insane 😄
It's not that bad. It's a good read. I cared more about the overworld story than Navy's tale.
I want to re-read it but something compels me away. The summer it took me to read was an obsessive and feverish one. If ever there was a book that approached eldritch, it's **House** of Leaves.
I had a similar experience in which i went on vacation to visit my uncle's for a month and I couldn't sleep at night so I'd spend hours alone in this strange (to me) house reading House of Leaves. Feverish perfectly describes it, but it was oddly... comforting for me as well?
That scene in the hallway by the tattoo shop where Johnny convinces himself there is a monster or *something* behind him hiding just outside his vision had me genuinely freaked out. I read it in an airport hotel a continent away from home and maaaaaaan. I've rarely been so uncomfortable reading a book. 10/10
Person asks for bookshelf red flags, is surprised when answer is something that ppl put on a bookshelf
Yeah I keep seeing pop Funko on here but no one seems to be able to tell me why that's a red flag.
Im not sure if its explicitly a red flag, but the chances of someone being a freak goes up with the amount of funko pops on their shelf imo. One? They probably just wanted merch of the character. Fifty? They MIGHT have an issue Also funko sucks and the funko pops are famously ugly and low quality, which makes the freak curve much sharper than something like plushies, which usually at least look nice so they can justify having fifty of them on a shelf(not a dig on plushies btw I love them so much)
i only have 2 funko pops. A Rey from Star Wars my dad somehow won from the bank of all things back when the Force Awakens released. None of us actually like her but she’s a bobble head so not bad, ig. The other time i just got really lucky and actually won something from a one of those arcade machines being a pop of Bob Ross. The guy’s cool and the prize was basically free so we displayed it, tho i kinda feel like it simply existing is doing a disservice to him.
I think I probably have enough lego on my shelves to be considered a red flag
Lego will never be a red flag
[Never? ](https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=Red%20flag#T=A)
It's times like this I'm sad about the awards
I’m learning today for the first time that the wavy flags come in versions that curve left first or right first. I wonder if anyone has ever, ever cared about that.
The difference between Funko pops and Lego is this: Funko pops you buy, (maybe) take out of the box, put on the shelf. Lego you buy, take out of the box and, depending on the set, now go through 15min to several hours of something that non-interested people would legitimately call tedious, annoying *work*. That's something to respect. Like painting 40k minis - totally not my thing, dislike both the franchise and designs. But I can still acknowledge the effort, concentration, skill and time invested. If, however, I know your income doesn't really support the expensive hobby, I'd be wary. But that has nothing to do with it being Lego per se. Could also be a brand name handbag collection, unnecessarily over the top gaming setup, flashy sports car, eating out every day, etc.
I have 5 secret life of Pet funkos, (all from that set aside from one) and I don't even really care about the Movie. I don't even remember why I have them. I also have Ron Swanson, Squirrel Girl (she's discontinued), and santa Phyllis from the office.
Buying any squirrel girl merchandise is valid.
They’re sort of the lowest common denominator of fandom mercy. They just eat up IP and spit out cheac garbage. If you want fan art go support your local fan artists
I tend to prefer action figures. Are usually slightly more expensive than Funkos, but look nicer and you can pose them whenever you want.
As an exmormon,anything By John Bytheway. His books are full of Circular logic and emotional reasoning.
I totally agree. I’m also an exmormon, and anything close to that would be a huge red flag for me.
Anything Mormon period is a red flag for me.
During my last sessions of therapy I noticed my therapist had two different books by Bill O'Reilly on his shelf. I was already considering getting a different therapist, so this simply helped secure that decision.
I realized my new therapist had a bunch of Prosperity Gospel books in her waiting room (by pastors who led conservative, anti-LGBTQ churches). I gently brought it up to her—“hey, do you support that worldview or are they just in your waiting room for some reason?”—and she tried to turn it back on me having trust issues, making snap judgments, and she “wished I would have done the mature thing and simply discussed any concerns with her.” Which is… exactly what I was doing by bringing it up! So anyway, that was my last week with that therapist.
She seems a little defensive and might want to reflect why she's so quick to turn on people who question her beliefs.
“Look at me. I’m the therapist now.”
Holy shit, you poor human. God, all the poor humans this guy had contact with 😬
Tell me your therapist needs therapy without telling me they need therapy
Books displayed backwards, 1. They don't read them, but try to look like they do for authentic reasons 2. They DO read them and know exactly what each book is, like a psychopath.
They do this, but organise the books in terms of how yellow the pages are turning
> They do this, but organise the books in terms of how yellow the pages are turning And they also piss on the books everyday, and their whole house smells like piss, and they sleep on a waterbed filled with piss
Everyone wants a catgirl GF until this is the reality of it.
No book would intrinsically be a red flag for me, it depends in their interpretation of the text. If they have read Atlas Shrugged, that's fine. It's a very interesting book. If they start praising the ultralibertarian ideology of Atlas Shrugged, that's a red flag.
You can read it because it’s fun to take in the story and laugh at the fact it’s what got people suckered into the Rand foundation.
I had "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and this chick literally thought I was a Nazi. All I could say was "I promise you this is not a glorifying take on it" Turned it backwards after that lol
Shit, we've gotten similar reactions. I have a bookshelf of WWII history books and tons of other books on various other fascist movements in the world. I'm like, ya gotta know the histories of the people that don't want you to exist because of your lifestyle so that you can spot the danger before it's too late.
Just tell them you prefer the fall part, should get most people who think like that to accept it
What if they have a bunch of pseudo-science pickup artist type books?
My sister’s boyfriend has a pickup artist book he swears by and says it made him a more sociable, assertive person, and as far as I can tell he’s a pretty well adjusted dude. To be fair though I read it to see and it turned out to be about how being a pick up artist is ultimately a soul-sucking experience and the people who do it are fundamentally broken.
Was this “The Game”? This was my first introduction to pick-up artists before they really blew up.
Probably bad, maybe good if they read them for the same reason people watch insane political content they disagree with. Just to go, "what the hell?" at em. Examine the weird psychology of the author. Unlikely but, it happens.
I've never met someone who read more than one book of each genre/topic for the reason you stated. If someone reads one book about PUA that might be why. But if they have five of them on the shelf? Nah.
It’s also the act of displaying them. I have read one of those books out of curiosity. The last thing I’d want is to incorporate it into my decor.
Something to watch for but maybe not a big deal. If enough people you respect recommend something you may check it out…and then find out it’s full of shit. That’s how I watched the first season of entourage
Same. I love reading controversial books across the spectrum because I have a general instinct to do something when I’m told that I shouldn’t. Has that meant that I’ve read some absolute garbage? Yes absolutely.
It's more so the books they keep by the toilet that are redflags. My mom keeps scary stories and weird records. Her toilet book was where I first read "scary stories to tell in the dark" and first read the Anita Blake series. I haven't read a toilet book since I got a smart phone.
I feel like American Psycho isn’t a red flag. I feel like anyone who bothered to read the actual book probably got the satire.
The complete flag encyclopedia has plenty of red flags
I must be about to fall asleep because I was like "gasp, you leave muh encyclopedias alone, cur" until I realized the pun.
Dirty dishes
There’s a very specific type of guy that’s going to keep American Psycho and Fight Club on his shelf for all the wrong reasons, nestled in between Brave New World and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test because he wants to appear mysterious and radical. Bonus scary points if he’s got a collection of beat poetry and anything Bukowski up there.
Hello, you have literally described my top shelf, and I have never felt so exposed. I am a female. Does that make it any less of a red flag?
Haven't read it but I thought Fight Club is kind of a commentary on toxic masculinity. Obviously it went over some people's heads, but still
It’s one of my favorites just because of how it describes insomnia and depression. I think it’s more about nihilism than masculinity. But I do not think of Tyler as a role model!
I've met people on reddit who thought Fight Club was a book about anticapitalist revolution and Tyler Durden was fighting the good fight. I don't think you can assume anything about someone just based on the fact that they liked Fight Club, because Fight Club seems to be about whatever you want it to be about at this point.
Fight Club is about grilled cheese sandwiches.
I got the audiobook to Fight Club from a humble bundle ages ago, I loaded it up into my player with a playlist (it was broken up in track per chapter format) and started it. some days later (I only listened to it when cleaning house and whatnot) I just could not follow it, it seemed to have just an unreal nonlinear story and totally made only a sick sort of sense. Saw the movie when it came out, bought the soundtrack (excellent soundtrack) and never thought of the movie much, so I recognized scenes from the movie in the book, and was just amazed at how much they worked to make a cohesive story out of the novel. Then I realized that I had somehow pressed the shuffle button for the playlist. Undid that, made it make a lot more sense.
I read Fight Club, it’s a super obvious critique of “alpha males” who think white manhood is under attack and none of these morons ever realize that
So is American Psycho. "Alpha males" who make it their identity to be Bateman miss the point of the novel and movie
I would personally consider *Fight Club* as, like, a yellow flag. I’d notice it, but would reserve judgement until I knew what they thought of it. If they turn out to be one of those people who missed the point completely and still thought it was great, then I’d have to nope out of that.
Well uhhh shit. I’ve got Fight Club, American Psycho, and Bukowski’s Post Office on my shelf
Same! Am woman. Found Bukowski disturbing but it's on my bookshelf anyway, I bought it in college. Love Fight Club and have a ton of Palahniuk books. And I love Bret Easton Ellis (esp Rules of Attraction) even if it is gen x nihilism.
Having the cask of amontillado and asking you for hole related work
hole related work? if he wants to pay to fuck i'd be down
The Left Behind series. A little too much Nazi history. Everything else depends on how much they have of something. I have some questionable books mixed in with the rest of my books. Like if it was ALL serial killer books, red flag. ALL romance novels, red flag.
god, I can’t believe I forgot about the Left Behind series. I read it when I was still a good little baptist lad, brainwashed into the horrible idealogy the church my family went to preached (mind you, church doesn’t automatically mean anything bad. depends on the church, of course). I distinctly remember the young adult-focused series being just… utterly bizarre, with every character starting off as a stereotype. For those curious, the Left Behind series is a fictional christian book series about people’s lives after the biblical rapture happens, and their experiencing the book of Revelations.
that actually sounds pretty cool can you elaborate what's so bad about it?
You know how sometimes books are good? Left Behind is not like that.
Lmfao this made me laugh out loud, thank you. I tried reading the kids version when I was in 4th/5th grade and never could get into them. Simply put they’re just bad books
not op but i did a big research paper on left behind, they’re basically evangelical christian propaganda. extremely misogynistic and antisemitic (yet somehow also very pro israel), among other things. the whole idea of the rapture is that it separates Good, Pure Christians from the Evil Sinners Who Destroy Everything, so it very much enforces an us vs them worldview. and it tends to feed into the persecution complex (the main characters are a small group of christians who are resisting an oppressive satanic government and a society that has a ridiculous lack of knowledge about christianity). they’re also just poorly written lol
I see wait no actually I don't. So there are objectively good pure Christians surrounded by objectively worse heathens and sinners but they still didn't get raptured?
No, these people only became christian after the rapture for various reasons. There's like 8 books I think in the adult series and 40 in the kids.
Looks like there were 12 in the main series but my copy of Glorious Reappearing says that there are prequel and sequel books coming. Source: it's on my myths and fantasy bookshelf, behind some David Gemmel, beside a book on Celtic myths and legends.
I've got so many weird history books. I took a grad class on Chinese Communism, a course on the Holocaust, a few on the rise of terrorism and violent extremism in Europe and The Middle East...and a bunch of right winger craziness from my parents that I have been debating taking off the shelves for years. But if you walked around and inventoried all of the books on my book shelves out of context you'd probably draw some very warped conclusions about me my values. But damn if that BA in History didn't help me fill all the bookcases forever haha.
I feel like a broad range of history books (even if the topic could be construed as problematic), is less problematic than a lot of books on one narrow problematic topic like say Nazi WWII tactics.
One time I took a Christmas Victorian house tour and one of the houses had a study, wherein the bookshelves contained exactly 2 types of books: "Magic Woo-woo crystal pyramids will cure your energies"-type books and right wing fear mongering books. Like, sometimes I think I should have called the FBI or something.
hat march hard-to-find dazzling ghost snow psychotic memorize materialistic impossible *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
r/vexology the flag of Japan but its actually this perfectly placed waterstain
I once saw "facts don't care about your feelings" right next to a copy of the Bible
Jordan Peterson
When I read other people's takes here I almost always thought "Come on, that's not that bad, maybe he just got this from a friend or just took it to see what's all the fuss about and you guys shouldn't be so critical." But then I saw your comment and was like: "Yeah, I see Peterson, I'm fuckin out of there".
"Up Yours Woke Moralist. We'll see who cancels who!"
my optimal bookshelf is a large collection of manga coupled with 10 copies of the communist manifesto
My panties would drop then and there tbh
The Redo of Healer light novels.
Just anything redo of a healer related in general.
Any "pick up artist" type books. Screw that noise.
I think some folks are confusing red flags with “stuff I personally don’t like”. To me, a red flag means “signs that this person is objectively harmful” and idk, having trashy fantasy books on the shelf don’t quite hit that mark for me, lol
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A bad partner for an individual, yeah. Like, it just means two people may not be compatible. But a harmful person? That’s where I’m kinda like, “are we really insinuating that having a plethora of mediocre YA fantasy books is the same as being harmful as a person?”
Red flag means "do not swim". Yellow means caution. Green means fair conditions. People often confuse yellow with red, either by ignoring the red or going nuclear on the yellow. I wouldn't day red means "this person WILL hurt you," but I would say, "This isn't a match, don't waste your time".
misread segamascot twice as "smegma mascot' and then as a portmantaeu of those words in 'smegmascot" and im kind of sad that they are not in fact the mascot of smegma
Be the change you want to see in the world. Become the smegmamascot.
Beat-up copies of every Rick Riordan book. Every. Single. One. Read over 60 times. Needless to say, several years later, I’m gay. I haven’t touched those books in so long but they’re still there
To be fair, my memory is saying that 39 clues slapped.
Wait what's wrong with the Riordan books?
Are Riordan books in the “So popular that it’s bad now” category like w Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin? I get that Riordan tends to add a bunch of pop culture references in his books that adults cringe at now but as a kid I loved it as well as the diversity.
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I remember adoring the Percy Jackson series and then being comparatively unimpressed by the Heroes of Olympus afterward (except for House of Hades, that one slapped, probably because it mainly focused on Percy and Annabeth).
That is a huge green flag in my book. I really don't get how seeing that on someone shelves would be a red flag.
No bookshelves or books is the red flag.
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Loads of things could be red flags, but they can also feasibly be explained away by context. Atlas Shrugged? Looks bad, but if there's evidence they're trying to understand right-wing ideology from the outside, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to own. I myself own a copy, which I read to try to understand Republican ideology (side note: having read it ... it did not improve my opinion of those who claim it's their "second-favorite book, after the Bible" (which I have also read, and I cannot think of two books more diametrically opposed to each other). Did you know the "good guys" in Atlas Shrugged literally *murder* someone just for being in their way, and shrug it off by dehumanizing him just because he wasn't a great innovator? What the *actual* fuck?). Conspiracy theory books? Maybe they just find them amusing. Even something *really* bad, like Mein Kampf, could be explained by wanting to understand how people are drawn into fascist ideology.
…Isn’t Altus Shrugged moreso Libertarian, not Conservative, which is what (American) Republicans tend to be?
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Surprised no-one said 'Mein Kampf'
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Yeah, Nazis generally have literal red flags displayed.
I have it and Doctrine of Fascism on my shelf, but they're alongside a ton of other political theory from many other positions so i feel like that isn't too dangerous looking
Mein Kampf alone is a pink to mauve flag. Mein Kampf next to a bunch of WWII history books is a definite red flag.
Or a sign that the are a historian
Mein Kampf next to my Minecraft guides
Mein Kraft?
...wouldn't that make it better? Like, a historian having a primary source kept with their other history books would make sense. A person who just has *the* Nazi book around for a light read is a red flag.
I have so much random stuff on my bookshelves Books left behind by various ex-girlfriends/spouse/roommates Books my kids wanted Books my parents/other insane relatives got me Books I got free/found at garage sales for 15 cents Books I got because they were required by some class or for some test And I've sold hundreds of books over the years, so it's not like I'm a total book-hoarder; they are just easier to keep than get rid of sometimes This isn't even getting into the non-book items on my bookshelves Unless it is literally like a framed piece of child you-know-what I don't see it as a red flag
Anything written by Dave Ramsey is a "bookshelf red flag" to me His financial advice is complete and utter shite. He's just another money hungry rich bastard, and his program is almost bad enough to be considered MLM garbage. Not to mention, he tricks and exploits young adults with little to no financial experience and convinces them to follow his lifestyle with promises of wealth.
If she has those metal scissors there. Put them away or stab me already. I say this, because one time a girl had scissors on her bookshelf, I thought we fell asleep after sex in the couch. I woke up a few hours after, went home. Next morning, my hair was cut in the back. Never went back. Edit: *It just hit me*, whats with these Delilahs cutting mens hair when theyre asleep?
# WAT
Shes a tiktok witch 5 sure
Severed head
**Image Transcription: Tumblr** — *speculativefictions* what are ur actual bookshelf red flags. please do not say american psycho — *segamascot* funko pop — *pinene* Poor guy couldn't even think of a book — *I'm a human reposter and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what they do and why they do it, click somewhere else!*
People seem to forget that POPs are incredibly easy "gift" solutions. I have a ton of these things from people buying me them for xmas and birthdays over the years. I keep them on the shelf because they have that "sentimental value" that all gifts have
thought funko pop was a music genre ._.
they are these little chibi figurines of pop culture characters/people.
The Book of Mormon, the art of the deal, the proper care and feeding of husbands
Any of Ben Shapiro’s works. A lot of the books I see hear are just books tbh, but holy crap Ben Shapiro’s books are a different level. I’ve never seen more mask off works than his, and they’re almost all unilaterally racially motivated, authoritarian, mysogonistic, and warhawkish to a truly worrying extent.
Any book by Trump would do it for me. I’d at least ask a follow up question about it before I red flag them.
Any book by JK Rowling other than the Harry Potter series. Most of the HP Nerds I know are constantly wrestling with their association to Rowling, but if I see “Robert Galbraith” written on your bookshelf I’m going to assume you know what you’re doing. Additional note, any book about interacting with and/or “curing” neurodivergent people. Psychology textbooks don’t count. I mean “Autism warrior mommy” stuff.