r/HonestHotTakes • • 9d ago

MOD TAKE [MOD POST] - Updates and Feedback v1

5 Upvotes

Hello hello! Good afternoon and happy Wednesday to all.

Just jumping in with a few quick updates around the sub, along with a request for feedback from all of you: the hot takers who keep this place active, argumentative, occasionally chaotic, and generally worth moderating. Nothing dramatic, just a handful of general updates intended to keep things running a little more smoothly and make the subreddit easier to use, understand, and participate in.

Here's a list of what's been going on:

  • Rules update/clean up

The previous rules provided a great foundation for the subreddit, but some were difficult to interpret or apply consistently. A few overlapped with one another, while others left too much room for confusion in certain situations.

We’ve updated the rules to make them clearer, reduce unnecessary overlap, and better address the issues we most commonly encounter in day-to-day moderation.

  • AutoMod - 10 day account rule

As with any subreddit, we have our fair share of bots to deal with. We also encounter users who, after being banned, create new accounts and return as though nothing happened.

To help address both issues, we've implemented an AutoModerator rule that automatically flags and removes posts and comments from accounts less than 10 days old. While this won't eliminate the problem entirely, it should help reduce spam, discourage ban evasion, and keep discussions genuine and the community running smoothly.

Tangentially related, AutoMod will also now automatically clear reports made against AutoMod’s own post and comment removal messages.

To those of you reporting the robot for doing exactly what we told the robot to do: we see you. The robot also sees you. The robot does not care. evil robot laugh

  • Mod recruitment

We'll be reopening moderator recruitment in the next few days to add a few more people to the team. The subreddit stays fairly active, and bringing on a few additional moderators will help us keep up with reports, removals, and general day-to-day moderation.

The basic requirements are:

  1. Must be at least 21+ years of age
  2. Must have or be willing to get a Discord account as that's where we communicate
  3. Must be willing to meet once a month with the moderator team
  4. Must not have any logged infractions on your account

Newer or less experienced mods are welcome to apply.

  • Hot takers: help us judge the heat

While we welcome feedback at any time, there’s one idea that’s been floating around the mod team that I wanted to put in front of everyone. It has to do with how we determine the “temperature” of a hot take.

Currently, users can choose their own post flair to indicate how spicy they believe their take is. The obvious problem is that this is entirely subjective, and I think we’ve all seen posts labeled as "NUCLEAR hot take" that could comfortably be stored next to the frozen peas. We’ve been discussing whether there might be a fun way to let the community weigh in on how hot or cold a take actually is, rather than leaving that determination entirely up to the person who posted it.

One idea that came up is community voting. Similar to systems used in other subreddits, users could cast a vote in the comments based on our existing flair categories. After a set amount of time, the votes would be tallied and the post would automatically receive the flair the community decided it deserved.

We think it could be a fun way to give everyone another way to participate in the sub. Maybe you don’t have a three-paragraph rebuttal ready, maybe you don’t particularly care enough to argue about it, but you do know that calling that take “hot” is an insult to thermodynamics. Cast your vote and carry on.

Let us know what you think in the comments. If this is something people would like to see, we'd love to get to work setting it up!

In closing, we genuinely value feedback from the community. Even if your thoughts are unrelated to anything mentioned in this post, please feel free to leave a comment on this post and let us know how we’re doing.

Whether you think a rule should be added, removed, or changed, have suggestions for how moderation could be improved, or simply have an idea you think would make the subreddit better, we’d like to hear it. Community feedback helps us understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where we can continue to improve.

Thanks for reading!

Thorvald


r/HonestHotTakes • • Sep 14 '26

Politics are banned!!!

209 Upvotes

If you have to ask if it’s political, it’s political. THIS INCLUDES RACE!!

You people can’t have a civil discussion and I’m only one person and can’t moderate all of you who can’t keep an unkind thought to themselves.

Another note: STOP WITH THE SEXISM!!


r/HonestHotTakes • • 3h ago

hot take, harshly criticise me for it! People always weaponise “white privilege” and “male privilege” while ignoring their own privileges

220 Upvotes

There’s a billion different privileges they could have access to.

-Pretty privilege
-Height privelage
-Weight privilege
-Age privilege
-Wealth privilege
-etc

This is all to say that reducing the value of people’s opinions because of their skin colour or sex is pretty stupid (some would call it racist/sexist).

Because ultimately you can be white, or a male and still be less privileged than someone else.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 10h ago

If abortion becomes illegal in every country it should be illegal for the father to run away

424 Upvotes

If abortion becomes illegal in every single country it should also be illegal for men to run away from fatherhood unless there’s a good reason like the mother has full custody because the father was a pos. People argue that a fetus is a human being, but at the same time will forget that once the baby is born they are a living breathing person with thoughts, feelings and a conscience who will grow up to contribute to society. Not to mention how important it is for a child to have 2 parents, parents contribute to a child’s cognitive development and ultimately show a child how they should be treated, which is much harder for 1 parent to achieve on their own. A father shouldn’t run away from his responsibilities and being around his children might make him realise what he has


r/HonestHotTakes • • 4h ago

serious hot take Everyone cares about looks, anyone who denies this is lying

77 Upvotes

Everyone is attracted based on physical attraction. There are other aspects that can add to it but the core mechanism of attraction is physical attraction.

Sapiosexuals are liars. No sapiosexual would sleep with a really ugly person just because they happen to be intelligent. But even if they would, it would be because they have a thing for ugly people.

Physical attraction is attraction. It's innate, it's the basis of sexuality and romantic love. People who say they don't care about looks, or worse, say anyone who is attracted to others based on physical features is a problematic fetishist - people who say these type of things are manipulative liars playing language games to subjugate naive and well-meaning people.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 15h ago

serious hot take "I'm ok with giving up privacy because I have nothing to hide" is an alarmingly submissive opinion.

530 Upvotes

I keep seeing this sentiment in so much discourse: flock cams, your LG tv uploading your voice recordings, intrusive apps being forced on your phone for school or work or whatever. There's an endless list.

They're okay with it. The way they see it, since a lot of companies have data on us already, what's a little more? I know that, so why wouldn't you want to protect the small amount of privacy you have left? The level of conditioned resignation it takes to form that opinion is genuinely mind boggling.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 5h ago

Being a successful man means respecting women and also not overly caring what they think

50 Upvotes

I'm fairly traditional. Not everyone will see things my way and that's fine. For myself I live by a pretty important set of rules regarding women.

Be gentle. Be respectful. Listen to what they say. Let what they say give me pause and think. Don't restructure my entire life around bending over backwards for them.

Yes, if it's within my power to not make a woman uncomfortable with a small gesture that doesn't inconvenience me too much? Why not be a good person and do it.

No, if the inconvenience is too high, I won't. My life does not revolve around making women (or men) comfortable.

Women should have a reasonable expectation of safety in our society. Not attacked, harassed, and the like. No, society does not owe them the absolute feeling of safety in public spaces.

Example. I'm walking down a road. It's evening. A woman is walking in front of me. Do I go to the other side of the street? Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. My life does not revolve around making this woman comfortable. I weigh my inconvenience against discomfort. Maybe I do sometimes if I have energy left at the end of the day to care. Maybe I don't if I don't. Will she go and talk about 'the creepy guy who stalked her'? Maybe. I will never see her again. What do I care.

I listen to women. In person and online. If there's small adjustments I can make, I make them. If there's demands for big adjustments, I consider and don't always make them. That's life.

Same for dating (for you unmarried dudes that are afraid to approach). Some women online say 'don't approach, she's trying to have a good time'. Some women say 'a respectful approach is fine'. I fall in the latter camp. Approach. If she gives a no, back the fuck off. If she goes home and tells a story about 'the creepy guy who approached' what do you care? You're not going to see her again. Any women who say 'don't approach' ignore. You're looking for a partner and your entire life does not revolve around making women the most comfortable they can possibly be. A respectful approach with a 'back the fuck off' on a rejection is acceptable.

Life is discomfort.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 18h ago

serious hot take women arent dressing for you and assuming so is crazy

355 Upvotes

​

the constant assumption men seem to have that women are dressing for THEIR attention or interest is so bonkers insane to me.

I attend pilates, which are classes of all women. almost every woman wears the exact same thing there as she would in any other gym, some even dress slightly lighter/in tighter clothes than typical because they feel MORE comfortable in a closed area with only women. if women were dressing for mens attention, why would they be wearing the exact same outfits to workout with other women?

On top of that, why would women go to womens only gyms if they were apparently dressing for an excuse to be stared at? please think with your head and not your duck for 2 seconds, thank you


r/HonestHotTakes • • 14h ago

hot take, harshly criticise me for it! Women and men who complain about how "every (man/women) I have been with does <insert complaint>" should take accountability for partner selection

171 Upvotes

I see this CONSTANTLY, much more often on women oriented subs, but it's the same on men's subs, especially red pill or whatever. But again, honest hot take, much more often on women's subs

"I'm sick of men just wanting to experience me"

"I'm sick of men not contributing to the relationship"

My dude, YOU decided to enter into a relationship with these men. Maybe it's time to take a long, hard look at your partner selection, or think about if you may be attracted to and pursuing men who are not actually good long term matches.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 1h ago

Gen Z IS sensitive and way too comfortable.

• Upvotes

I am apart of Gen Z myself and I whole heartedly believe that our generation is full of snowflakes. For context I am a female who is a democrat, as well as a bisexual person. The only reason I'm putting that on here is because I don't want people to read this and automatically assume I'm some asshole who's in their 40's coming to shit on gen z, feminists, and the lgbtqia+.

Anyways, in this day and age our generation gets labeled as "snowflakes" a lot. When I first heard this term I didn't understand it, and thought it was just old people talking out of their ass. But now that I've taken a step back to look at our generation as a whole, they're right. We get too offended way too easily. It's so normalized for us to say "You're doing that because I'm of my gender." and "You're doing that because I'm [insert race]" or "You're homophobic." It's so common to see people using their gender, sexual identity and/or their race as leverage to prove a point. Like, no the store clerk isn't asking you to leave because they're homophobic, they're asking you to leave because you just shoved shit in your pocket.

With the sexism thing, yes misogyny is real and I have experienced it firsthand. But just because women have experienced sexism, doesn't mean that it makes it right for us to be sexist towards men. I've heard so many of my friends and other women say "Women are better than men." Which is so stupid, because those same people identify as feminists. Which, being a feminist means you believe all genders are equal. Just because you've encountered a man who is a piece of shit, doesn't mean all men are pieces of shit. Personally, I have recognized that one person or one group doesn't represent all people of that category and I think everybody in the world should live like that or else we're going to end up having more stereotypes than we do people.

Same thing for racism. People care way too much about their race nowadays. I think it's stupid to let your race identify you. Okay, you're Asian? You're also an artist, a dad, a husband, being Asian has nothing to do with who you are. I believe it's the same for African American people, Hispanic people, and any other race. You shouldn't identify yourself with your race, you should identify yourself with what kind of person you are and how you treat others.

All of that to say, I think as a whole we should all chill out a bit. Instead of viewing everything as some motivated passive aggressive comment that has something to do with whats in our pants, the color of our skin, or who we're attracted to, we should look at it as a rude comment. Not everything is motivated, some people are just assholes.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 11h ago

casual hot take When people say "real communism hasn't been tried" they mean hypothetical utopia

70 Upvotes

My last post that had generated a lot of good discussions was taken down because my title just said I didn't like something, which I'm told is not a hot take. So I'm rephrasing it to be the controversial opinion that the mods said it needed to be to stay up.

It seems like any time communism is brought up someone says "that wasn't real communism" or "real communism hasn't been tried."

Real is what happens in the real world. There has never been a communist country that lived up to to the hypothesis put forward by Marx of what communism would become. But a hypothetical communist country is by definition not a real one. Real is what happens in the real world, after the test to prove or disprove the hypothesis. You don't get to look at the real outcome and say "it doesn't match my hypothesis therefore it's fake." And we've had a lot of "experiments" in the 20th century.

It would be like someone saying "well we've never seen a country where zero government regulation led to free markets self regulating away all anti consumer practices, therefore real capitalism has never been tried." (yes, this is me also saying that "reap capitalism hasn't been tried" folks are wrong as well, by pointing out the absurdity of claiming capitalism is only when there is economic anarchy)

I mean, heck there's literally a fallacy called "no true Scotsman" about this. And yet I'm regularly told that communism is the most scientific, rational system ever.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 9h ago

NUCLEAR hot take Men, women, and all human beings in between are amazing :D

45 Upvotes

People are generally kind and nice to interact with! We all have a life story. We should love and empathize with everyone :D


r/HonestHotTakes • • 7h ago

serious hot take Genuinely it's time to mute this sub, too much gender wars bs recently has been going on.

25 Upvotes

And I recommend this to everyone, at least until elections.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 5h ago

serious hot take Referring to AI/LLMs as 'Super Intelligence' makes you sound unintelligent and like a Trump supporter.

18 Upvotes

This evening, my university had an event with a guest speaker in our Department of Economics (of which I am an undergraduate student). While the guest speaker and the department chair were having a conversation on stage, naturally, the subject turned to the prevalence of AI/LLMs and the speaker began to refer to it as 'super intelligence.'

The first time it was said, it felt abrasive. I sat up in my chair a little bit.

Then the two of them just... kept saying it! And it kept bothering me!

I remember when Trump announced that he wanted people to start referring to AI/LLMs as 'super intelligence,' my only thought was "this is ridiculous, it sounds stupid, and nobody is going to do this." Why is this catching on with these evidently serious and successful people?


r/HonestHotTakes • • 6h ago

People who speed in towns often don’t understand math.

22 Upvotes

I get that on a long trip, going fast saves a lot of time. In town, it generally just means you wait at red lights longer because here they are timed.

Where I live, speed fines are doubled in school zones. The school zone is 1/10th of a mile long. Maybe a $350 ticket for going 15 over.

At 20 MPH (the speed limit) that is 18 seconds to cross.

At the absurd speed of 200 mph, it’s 1.8 seconds.

The odds are REALLY high you’ll have to stop or get stuck in traffic in that school zone.

No matter how fast you go, you can likely only shave 16 seconds. How big of a hurry is that?

TL/DR speeding only makes mathmatical sense on open roads.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 7h ago

serious hot take The mods of this subreddit is biased against women

21 Upvotes

Any posts criticizing men is quickly removed. Meanwhile there’s at least 5 women hating vent posts on the front page. They allow politics when it’s shitting on women.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 1h ago

Tipping for a service you’ve yet to receive is a scam

• Upvotes

DoorDash is the biggest offender. I’m supposed to set a tip before I received food? I remember tipping well for an order and it’s just some guy, and they don’t care, at all. And it’s subpar service on a good tip. That’s rightfully upsetting.

So you’re dammed all ways with the drivers. You don’t tip up front, good luck getting your order. You change the tip after because they were genuinely awful? It’s kind of scummy, even if it’s deserved.

No winning here. Tipping at a restaurant? Ok. Haircut? Fine. That makes sense. Doordashers are the lowest skilled with the most entitlement, and I’ll say it even though I drove for DoorDash during covid.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 8m ago

blurring/covering newborns faces online is pointless

• Upvotes

I am all for children’s safety online, I really despise family bloggers/vloggers especially. You should definitely hide a child’s face. But there’s no point if it’s a newborn. They don’t need it for ‘privacy’ because all newborns look the same. A creeper in the world wouldn’t see any child and recognise them from their newborn photo.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 28m ago

Your kink doesn’t belong in public

• Upvotes

The only public places where your kink or sexuality should be expressed are places that are expressly designated for that, such as BDSM/kink conventions, sex clubs, etc.

But your pet play bullshit doesn’t belong in the grocery store or the park. There are dozens if not hundreds of non-consenting people who are going to see you preforming a sexual activity when you bring your kink to those places. And yes, by preforming your kink you are preforming a sexual activity. Even if it’s just being on a leash.

Petplay is by far the worst offender bc petplay ppl seem to have 1,000 reasons as to why their kink specifically deserves to be allowed in public spaces where non-consenting individuals are made to be a part of their sex act. But this goes for any form of kink or activity that brings you sexual pleasure. It does not belong in public and you should be considered a sex offender for bringing in people who don’t consent to your bullshit.

There are non-private places where practicing kink is acceptable, online and in person. It’s totally fine to participate in fetish or kink culture there. But in random, non-designated spaces, there will be tons of people who do not want to participate in being a part of that activity, even as a bystander/onlooker. Just because you aren’t actively assaulting them, or forcing them to do sexual things to you, doesn’t mean they aren’t uncomfortable with the situation.

And it seems to be the same people who are all woke when it comes to consent (which isn’t a bad thing—consent needs to be discussed and taught to prevent purposeful or accidental breaches of consent) who suddenly feel the need to become incredibly defensive and call you things like “prude” or “homophobic” because you said that them wearing a buttplug furry tail while their partner walks them on a leash at the mall is most likely violating someone’s consent and inadvertently causing sexual harassment.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 15h ago

serious hot take if you watch the “teen” porn category you are a disgusting pedo and you would go younger than 18 if you were legally allowed to

60 Upvotes

i mean im not gonna type multiple paragraphs i said what i said but the older men who enjoy this type of porn are disgusting creeps and i think they would go for underage girls if it was allowed. i dont think any teen should be making porn content even 18 and 19 year olds and i feel like any teen who does that is being groomed. i searched “girls” on reddit trying to find a womens community and all the first things that popped up were porn subs, which is misogynistic on its own but the first one was “teen girls” lewd subreddit. do so many people seek that content that its the first thing to pop up? disgusting


r/HonestHotTakes • • 6h ago

lukewarm take spoilers are needed regardless of how old the media is (if you’re commenting it on a irrelevant post) Spoiler

9 Upvotes

ok idk if my title makes sense, so for example—

commenting that a character dies in x movie, while the post was about y movie and the deaths in it.

this is fine, of course,…but they didn’t provide a warning and it was something I wanted to really watch but didn’t have access to. sucks knowing what character will die & completely ruins the twist of finding out authentically.

all in all, comment whatever about whatever, just for the love of everything on planet earth, say you’re gonna spoil it!!!! also lukewarm take bc I’ve seen many different perspectives on this. not sure which flair.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 7h ago

This sub has become a karma farm

10 Upvotes

Basically all the posts here are just here to drive engagement and farm karma.

For a real hot take: violence in movies should have a higher rating than sexual content.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 9h ago

casual hot take Uber/Lyft drivers shouldn't wear strongly scented cologne/perfume

17 Upvotes

I'm currently in an uber. The driver is absolutely marinated in nasty cologne. It's hot in here, and his driving is very abrupt and jerky. Getting so nauseated. 🤢 Surprisingly it's not yet bothering my very sensitive-to-scents rhinitis (yet)

Why do people need to douse themselves in this shit? Especially if your job is being in a small enclosed space with people all day.


r/HonestHotTakes • • 13h ago

The next big internet problem isn't fake news. It's fake people

36 Upvotes

Maybe I'm overthinking this but I feel like we're focusing on the wrong thing with AI, everyone is worried about fake pictures and fake news. Meanwhile we are deff getting to a point where someone can copy your voice or pretend to be you online or on calls and most people wouldn't have a clue.

I used to think a video call was enough to know who I was talking to lol. Now I'm reading about people getting scammed by voices that sound like their own family members, the weird part is we still use phone numbers and email addresses as if they prove anything.

Am I being paranoid or are we heading toward a future where nobody trusts anyone online?


r/HonestHotTakes • • 12h ago

serious hot take Posting videos of your children publicly online for content is child abuse.

27 Upvotes

If you use your children as puppets for your content, it should be considered low level child abuse.

Especially if it’s videos of the kids in emotional distress.