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Gen Z and Millenials reveal their red flags, and here are the folks who aren't getting dates

Young people are very specific about what they want in a partner.

red flags, green flags, joe rogan
via Mikhail Nilov/Pexels and SofieKay/TikTok

A woman into Tarot cards and a lady shocked her boyfriend likes Joe Rogan.

The numbers are stacked against young men when it comes to finding love on dating apps. They outnumber women 2 to 1 on the platforms, making the competition pretty tough. A new study finds that they’ll make things even harder for themselves if they admit to listening to the "Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in their profiles.

A new poll by Change Research surveyed 1,033 registered voters between 18 and 34 to ask about their political leanings and dating preferences. It discovered that women's biggest red flag when looking for a relationship is a date revealing they’re a MAGA Republican, with 76% of women saying it’s a turnoff. The second biggest red flag for women is people who “have no hobbies” (66%), and the third is those who say “All Lives Matter” (60%).

Fifty-five percent of women say it’s a big turnoff for potential partners to listen to the Rogan podcast. They also have a problem with people who “refuse” to see the “Barbie” movie (53%).

When it comes to men between the ages of 18 and 34, the biggest turn-off is people who identify as “communist” (64%), and they also have problems with those who have no hobbies (60%) as well as MAGA Republicans (59%).

Other turnoffs for men include being interested in astrology (41%) and saying “All Lives Matter” (41%).

Interestingly, people with no hobbies are a big red flag to people of both men and women. The common assumption is that people with no real hobbies or interests will rely on their partners to bring fun into their lives. Also, a lack of hobbies can mean a person lacks passion and may not have many personal goals.

When it comes to having too many hobbies, both men and women agree that it isn’t a big problem. The poll found that only 8% of women believe that having too many hobbies is a red flag and 6% of men agreed.

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Red flags in relationships graphic.

via Change Research

When it comes to green flags in a relationship, both men and women overwhelmingly agreed that they are very interested in potential partners who read. Ninety-five percent of women and 91% of men saw reading as a green flag. So, if you’re crafting an online dating profile, you may want to show some photos of you reading a book or list some of the books you’ve read recently.

They also agree that they are interested in people who research the best deals and rates before buying things. Eighty-eight percent of women listed being a smart consumer as a green flag, and men were close behind at 85%. Men (63%) and women (51%) also agreed it’s a green flag when someone looks better in person than in photos online.

change research, dating red flags, dating green flags

Green flags in relationships graphic.

via Change Research

Those of you looking to be in the dating pool during the upcoming presidential election should know there is a discrepancy between the genders regarding political affiliation among the 18 to 34 crowd. Although most people in this age range are moderate to liberal politically, there is a significant difference between genders.

This article originally appeared on 9.14.23

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Adorable Golden Retriever absolutely loses it when he runs into his vet at a bar

No one has ever been this excited to see their doctor.

@cosmo_andtheoddparents/TikTok

He wuvs his vet.

Not every dog might jump with joy after seeing their vet out in public. But for Cosmo the Golden Retriever, it was practically Christmas all over again when he spotted his own vet, Dr. Jones, at a brewery.

In an adorable clip posted to TikTok, we see Cosmo in pure, unadulterated bliss as he snuggles with an equally happy Dr. Jones, who, considering he’s still in his scrubs, might have just gotten out of work to grab a quick pint.

Watch:

@cosmo_andtheoddparents When you run into your vet in public #goldenretrieversoftiktok #vetlife #animallovers #petparents #goldenretriever #goldenretrievers #doglife #dogmom #dailyfluff #charlestondogs #doglover #charlestondog #brewerydog ♬ original sound - Cosmo

Ugh, the cuteness is too much to handle! People in the comments could barely contain their secondhand joy.

“He looked over like, “Mom, do you see who this is?” one person wrote, while another said, “What in the Hallmark movie? Adorable!!”

One person even joked, “Did we all check the vet’s hand for a wedding ring? (Said as a married woman. Looking out for you all, or something.)”

According to Hannah Dweikat, Cosmo’s owner, the two actually share quite a history. She tells Upworthy that when Cosmo was but a wee pup, he “gave a scare” after eating a Sago Palm seed, which are highly toxic to dogs, from a plant in their backyard, which of course resulted in him being rushed to the animal hospital and staying there over the weekend.

While that’s every pet owner’s worst nightmare, and certainly a scary situation for the poor fur baby, Dweikat says that “the calm and patient demeanor” of Dr. Jones and his staff put Cosmo at ease. And because of this, “Cosmo has always loved going to see his friends—especially because they give him lots of treats and snuggles.”

Cosmo and Dr. Jones’ buddyship has also blossomed thanks to proximity, as Dweikat only lives down the street from the clinic. “Which means we get to see Dr. Jones and his staff out in public at times and Cosmo takes every chance he can get to say hi,” she explains. This time, however, she was able to capture it all on video. Yay for us!

What makes a good vet?

While not every vet, however gifted, will be able to elicit this type of reaction from their patients, having a calming presence like Dr. Jones is certainly a good sign for pet owners to be on the lookout for when shopping around for their own vet. But that’s not the only quality a good vet needs. According to Saint Matthews University, a vet also needs to have high stamina (both physically and mentally), as well as an ability to tolerate unpleasant situations (you can’t faint at the sight of blood or vomit), a high level of emotional intelligence (maybe all doctors should possess this skill, but especially those who work with animals), adaptability, a sense of enthusiasm, and finally, excellent communication skills.

Dr. Jones seems to have these attributes in spades, and his patients clearly love him for it. None so much as Cosmo, obviously.

By the way, if you’re in need of even more content featuring this precious pup, you can follow Cosmo on both TikTok and Instagram.

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Samuel L. Jackson's forgotten past as a student activist who held MLK Sr. hostage resurfaces

Before he was famous he was a student demanding better for Black education.

Samuel L. Jackson|Wikimedia/Rev. Martin Luther King Sr.|Wikimedia

Samuel L. Jackson's forgotten activist past of holding MLK Sr. hostage

Samuel L. Jackson has become a household name over the last few decades. A person would have to work extraordinarily hard to avoid knowing who the award winning actor is after his long movie career. Whether you know him for his foul mouthed rants in Pulp Fiction, his skills with his purple light saber in Star Wars: Episode 1–The Phantom Menace or as the gnarled Nick Fury in various Marvel films, you likely don't know much about his earlier years.

Jackson was born in 1948, and while he was born in Washington, D.C., he was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his mom and her parents. Given the year in which he was born, much of his education took place during segregation. Growing up in this environment understandably led to a lot of internal rage that Jackson found hard to articulate as a child. While his grandfather was there to help him navigate injustices, it was a lot for him to take on.

"I had anger in me. It came from growing up suppressed in a segregated society. All those childhood years of ‘whites only’ places and kids passing you on the bus, yelling, ‘Ni**er!’ There was nothing I could do about it then. I couldn’t even say some of the things that made me angry—it would have gotten me killed," Jackson explained to Parade Magazine in 2005.

black and white photo of a storefront that reads "WHITE ONLY. Maids in uniform accepted."File:New Orleans - Whites Only - Maids in Uniform Accepted.jpg ...commons.wikimedia.org

But it was the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that pushed Jackson into radicalization. At the time, he was a student at Morehouse College, a historically Black college (HBCU) in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. King laid in state at Spellman, the sister college and Jackson attended his funeral. He then flew to Memphis to protest, which further motivated his political radicalization at the time.

"I was angry about the assassination,” he shared with Parade in 2005, “but I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something different—not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence.”

large red-brick building with trees and green lawnFile:Graves Hall, Morehouse College 2016.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

In 1969 while still a college student, Jackson and several of his classmates decided to hold the Morehouse College Board of Trustees hostage until they met their demands of changing the governing structure and including classes on Black studies. One of the members of the board was none other than Martin Luther King Sr.

When he took the board of trustees hostage, he had no interest in what Morehouse had to offer. "Morehouse was breeding politically correct negroes,” Jackson says in the book detailing his life, Bad Motherf*cker (2021). “They were creating the next Martin Luther Kings. They didn’t say that because, really, they didn’t want you to be that active politically, and they were more proud of the fact that he was a preacher than that he was a civil-rights leader. That was their trip: they was into making docile negroes."

gif of Samuel L. Jackson saying, "WHAT?!"Samuel L Jackson What GIF by Coming to AmericaGiphy

Yes, Samuel L. Jackson once held Martin Luther King Jr.'s father hostage before eventually lowering him down out of a window when he began experiencing chest pains. The rest of the board members remained hostages until they agreed to meet the students' demands, which they did. To absolutely no one's surprise, Jackson was expelled after pulling that stunt, but that didn't stop his streak of radicalization. He quickly became familiar with the more extreme faction of the Black Power Movement where he found himself purchasing guns and ending up on the FBI's radar.

"But then one day, my mom showed up and put me on a plane to L.A. She said, ‘Do not come back to Atlanta.’ The FBI had been to the house and told her that if I didn’t get out of Atlanta, there was a good possibility I’d be dead within a year. She freaked out," Jackson said.

gif of man wearing FBI shirt getting out of dark carCbs Police GIF by Wolf EntertainmentGiphy

Thanks to his mother's swift intervention, instead of being on America's Most Wanted, he honed his new found acting craft and became a sought after Hollywood star. After spending some time in Los Angeles, he was able to get re-enrolled in Morehouse which allowed him to graduate with a degree in drama to use his art for political commentary on a larger scale. Recently, he used his acting skills to play "Uncle Sam" at the Super Bowl Halftime show with Pulitzer Prize winning rapper Kendrick Lamar, a role reminiscent of his character in the 2012 film, Django Unchained

The halftime show itself was layered with meaning and Jackson's role was no exception. Throughout the performance Jackson, donning the infamous red, white and blue Uncle Sam costume, interrupts Lamar's performance attempting to correct his behavior. The idea is for "Uncle Sam" to reinforce respectability politics on Lamar and his dancers which is something Black American's have a long history dealing with.

The character is in stark contrast to Jackson's past behaviors and his personal politics in real life, which makes his role as Uncle Sam that much more nuanced. It could also be seen powerful critique of how some Black activists evolve into becoming the enforcer of rules they once fought against. Kahlil Greene, a Peabody Winner known for his concise breakdowns and analyses of US culture on his TikTok page 'Gen Z historian' shares his take on the significance of Jackson's role during the halftime performance.

@kahlilgreene Uncle Sam-uel was built different … How has it been discussing this performance online 👇. Also comment “newsletter” to get that article! 🛑I need your help to keep creating free educational content!🛑 In order of impact, you can support my work by: - Following this account - Subscribe to my Substack newsletter (link in bio) - Saving this post (it really is a boost) - Sharing this on your story - Commenting one thought that sparked in your head - Tipping me on Venmo (TheGenZHistorian) or Cashapp ($kahlilgreene00) - Of course, liking this post! Thank you so much, let’s continue to uncover Hidden History 🔍! #hiddenhistory #genzhistorian #kahlilgreene ♬ original sound - Gen Z Historian

"Now decades later the same man who fought against the establishment is now embodying it as Uncle Sam in the Super Bowl performance. That's a full circle moment, because on one hand we should know that Jackson does not represent the ideals of this character in his real life, but on the other hand it forces us to ask what happens when revolutionaries grow older and sometimes become representative of the same establishments that they once fought against, " Greene says. It's definitely interesting to know his past and see him play such a controversial symbol of American history, and viewers definitely got the point.

Jackson no longer practices his activism through taking hostages, but he is using his global platform as a Hollywood actor in revolutionary ways.

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The world's greatest mentalist reveals 5-second trick to never forget someone's name

It's fun, weird, and will make people like you way more.

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The longer I'm alive, it seems the more people's names that I have to remember. With two kids in school, sports, and other activities, I find myself trying to keep track of dozens of different friends, teammates, siblings, coaches, teachers, and of course, parents. It makes my brain hurt! Lately I've had half a mind to start a spreadsheet so I can start remembering Who's Who.

In order for that to work, I've got to find a way to stop people's names leaving my head immediately after I'm introduced. I know I'm not the only one who does this. It's like people say their name and it just zips right into one ear and out the other! And for that, I went looking for tips when I stumbled upon a good one from a unique sort of expert.

Derren Brown is one of the most famous mentalists in the world, so he knows a thing or two about people. Mentalists are a special breed of magician that focus on tricks and illusions of the mind.

They do things like hynopsis, mind-reading, and impossible predictions. There's trickery, involved, of course; but mentalists are also masters at reading people and have to employ advanced memory techniques to keep track of information they learn during their shows.

In an interview with Big Think, Brown revealed some of his favorite memory hacks; including his 'party trick' to never forget a person's name.

Giphy

The secret is to create a link between the part of your brain that stores information like names, and the visual part of your brain that is more easily accessed.

"You find a link between the person's name and something about their appearance, what they're wearing, their face, their hair, something," Brown says. "You find a link with something that they're wearing so if they're called Mike and they've got big black hair you think, 'Oh that's like a microphone' so I can imagine like a big microphone walking around or if they've got a stripy T-shirt on you imagine a microphone with those stripes going around it.

"And it's the same process later on in the evening you see them, you look at the stripes and you go, 'Oh that's Mike. Oh yeah that's Mike. The hair, why am I thinking the hair is like a big microphone? Oh yes, of course, they're called Mike.'"

Microphone Mike! Any sort of alliteration based on a physical characteristic will work. Stripey Steve, Tall Tim, Green Gene. The more interesting and unique, the better you'll remember.

There is one catch with the technique: You have to actually listen and pay attention when someone tells you their name!

"So, you do have to listen that's the first thing when they say the name," Brown says. "Normally the very moment where someone is giving you their name you're just caught up in a whole lot of social anxiety anyways you don't even hear it, so you have to listen."

Using someone's name when you talk to them has tons of benefits. It conveys respect, friendliness, and intimacy. When you're on the receiving end and someone you've just met uses your name, it just feels good! It feels like it matters to them that they met you.

"And then at the end [of the party] you get to go around and say goodbye to everybody by name and everyone thinks you're very charming and clever," Brown quips.

Listen to the entire, fascinating interview here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Brown's name-remembering technique is tangential to an ancient philosophy called the "Method of loci".

The method involves attaching things to be remembered (numbers, tasks, facts) to specific places that are easy to visualize in your head. Imagine taking a brain-walk down the street you live on and all the objects or places you might see there. The mailbox, the gnarled tree, the rusty fire hydrant. This memory method asks you to visually associate one thing you want to remember with each item or location. The more strange and visual the image you can create, the better! Brown uses the example of trying to shove a sparkling-clean shirt into his mailbox, reminding him to do his drycleaning.

When you need to recall the item, you just take a little walk in your head down the street.

(Did you know that there's a World Championship of Memory? Most of the best competitors use a version of this technique.)

Giphy

The name hack isn't so dissimilar. You're attaching an intangible, abstract thing (a name) to a specific visual image you can see in your head and even in the real world. But that's just one way of getting better at remembering names! There are all kinds of tips, hacks, and methods you can try.

Some people swear by repeating the name immediately after hearing it. "Hi, my name is Jake." "Hi, Jake, nice to meet you!" (Just don't say someone's name too frequently or you risk coming off a bit slimy.)

Others use a technique similar to Brown's loci idea, but instead of a visual, you lean on things that are already deeply engrained in your memory, like rhymes or free-association. or even celebrities. Mary - had a little lamb. Jake - the Snake. Daisy - flowers. Tom - Cruise.

Another trick (that I've definitely used before) if you do forget someone's name? Introduce them to someone you know! "Hey, this is my wife, Sarah." The person was almost always introduce themselves using their own name, and then you get a second chance at remembering it.

A lot of the best advice really comes down to being intentional about remembering when you're introduced to a new person. Whatever mental gymnastics you choose to do with the name, the mere fact that you're thinking about it with such focus immediately after is a big part of why these 'tricks' help names stick.

It feels really good when someone cares enough to remember your name, so it's definitely worth putting in a little effort of trying to instill that feeling in others.

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Surprising 16-year-long ADHD study reveals opposite of what researchers expected

The findings shed new light on how we might one day understand and manage ADHD.

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There's still so much to learn.

Our understanding of ADHD has come a long way in just a few short years. Though it wasn't even formally recognized as a medical condition until the 1960s, by the time the 90s rolled around, diagnoses and stimulant prescriptions were extremely prevalent. Today, diagnoses and treatment are a lot more thoughtful and individualized, and there are more options for treatment and therapy. Even with all these advancements, though, we still have more to learn.

A new long-term study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has proven to be an excellent next step in getting a better understanding of the disorder.

Researchers studied 483 participants who were diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and continued to assess them for a period of 16 years. The study's authors wanted to get a sense of how ADHD symptoms might change over time.

What the researchers found surprised them. In most participants, symptoms of ADHD fluctuated greatly over the years. What surprised them even more were the environmental factors that seemed to play a role in those fluctuations.


a close up of a human brain on a white backgroundUnderstanding our brains is an ongoing process. Photo by BUDDHI Kumar SHRESTHA on Unsplash

Researchers expected that greater life demands—like more responsibility at work, a heavier workload at school, major life changes, etc.—would exacerbate ADHD symptoms. What they found was the opposite.

It makes sense that a person that struggles with inattention or hyperactivity might have more trouble focusing when they have more "going on" and more distractions to pull them in different directions. It was a huge surprise to the researchers that, actually, people's ADHD symptoms seemed to ease up when life got hectic.

“We expected the relationship between environmental demands and ADHD symptoms to be the opposite of what we found,” study author, professor, and clinical psychologist Margaret H. Sibley explained. “We hypothesized that when life demands and responsibilities increased, this might exacerbate people’s ADHD, making it more severe. In fact, it was the opposite. The higher the demands and responsibilities one was experiencing, the milder their ADHD.”

I have a 4-year-old with ADHD and the findings totally track for me.

We find it's actually easier to be in perpetual motion sometimes—out running errands, doing activities, visiting friends and family—versus staying put too long. When we're just relaxing at home, that's when she tends to start bouncing off the walls!

Doing nothing or doing very little is not often a restful state for people with ADHD. Typically, people with ADHD experience more background noise than neurotypical brains—so a quiet, seemingly restful environment can sometimes amplify racing thoughts, negative self-talk, and impulsive behavior versus dampening it. Of course, as always in science, you have to be careful assuming causation from the findings.

a boy doing schoolwork at wooden deskQuiet can make it hard to focus. Annie Spratt/Unsplash

It's important to note that the results of the study don't definitively prove that being busy causes a decrease in ADHD symptoms. “This might mean that people with ADHD perform their best in more demanding environments (perhaps environments that have stronger immediate consequences, like needing to put food on the table for a family or pay rent monthly). It also might mean that people with ADHD take more on their plate when their symptoms are relatively at bay," Sibley says. Either way, the correlation is certainly strong and worthy of more study.

In the meantime, the study's authors think the results could be viewed in a hopeful light for people just learning to manage their ADHD. “If you’re a doctor talking with a patient who is first getting diagnosed with ADHD, it’s a huge help for that person to hear the message that, ‘You’re going to have good years and not-so-good years, but things can go really well for you if you can get the right factors in place,'” Sibley said.

We're learning more and more about what those factors are—what might exacerbate symptoms and what types of things can help—and we're starting to get a clearer picture of how people can manage this challenging disorder.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Kayaker in Chile swallowed whole by a humpback whale before it spits him back out unharmed

It's the ultimate form of rejection 🐋

Screenshots via Tribuna Chancay Facebook

Unbelievable video of man swallowed whole by humpback whale

If you've ever seen the movie Pinocchio you likely remember the scene where the wooden boy and his creator Geppetto get swallowed by a whale. Or maybe you've heard the story of Jonah and the whale where the disobedient man is swallowed by a whale after a fisherman threw him overboard. In both stories the people were swallowed whole and eventually escaped the bellies of their fishy captor but the stories seem so far fetched that they're simply unbelievable, until recently.

Adrián Simancas and his father Dell Simancas were kayaking in Bahía El Águila, Chile when Adrián was briefly swallowed by a whale. Yes, these are real people, not cartoon characters. The pair were spending the day together, Dell recording on his phone like any other parent wanting to capture the moment to relive later when he wound up seeing the unbelievable.

Adrián is there one second and the next, a giant whale breaches the surface and just like that the younger Simancas is gone. The terror that likely coursed through Dell's body as he watched his child become a snack for a humpback whale is unimaginable. Thankfully, the terror was brief, within moments of being swallowed, the humpback whale spit the man back out. Maybe life jackets aren't appetizing.

whale tail on blue sea during daytime Photo by Mike Doherty on Unsplash

But obviously, Dell wasn't the only person terrified by the whale's actions. Adrián tells Telefe Noticias, "I felt a blow coming from behind and he lifted me up. I felt a slimy texture on my face and saw dark blue colors with white. I thought I was going to die."

He explains to another news station, Noticias Caracol that even after the whale spit him out he was not sure if he was alive or what happened to his father. It was when he felt the life jacket pulling him to the surface that he realized he had survived the ordeal but still had no idea what happened since the whale came from behind him.

“When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn’t reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia,” he tells The Associated Press.

The 24-year-old and his father are from Venezuela and were only visiting the Chilean Patagonia for an expedition with a boating group. It was thanks to his father, who Adrián says has more paddling experience than him, and the boaters that the man was quickly rescued. Adrián escaped the situation completely unharmed, though it's likely a bit traumatizing to be unexpectedly swallowed by a whale while you're minding your business.

Whale GIFGiphy

Humpback whales are large creatures, weighing around 40 tons and reaching up to 60 feet long, which is about 15 feet longer and 30,000 pounds more than a full sized school bus. But generally humpback whales are not inclined to make humans a part of their charcuterie boards so attacks are extremely rare, their preferred food are actually tiny sea creatures. They eat plankton, krill and small fish, humans simply don't fit into their diet.

In Adrián's case, he was likely swallowed by mistake when the whale was breaching the surface with its mouth open, which is why he was promptly spat out. The moment is certainly something Adrián nor his father will ever forget and when someone thinks he's lying about becoming Jonah for a few seconds, he can simply pull out the video. Now that's what you call a whale of a tale.

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