America’s Hot Takes on Reddit’s Top Controversial Opinions

There’s nothing that ignites a heated debate more than a controversial opinion, but we’re not talking about pineapples on pizza or if “Friends” deserves the hype it gets anymore. Instead, we set out to uncover the latest and niche unpopular opinions that’ve been creating some buzz online these days. Out with the old, in with the new! 

To unveil this year’s current controversial opinions, we headed to Reddit’s /unpopularopinion/controversial thread and assembled the 15 most upvoted opinions in 2023. From this, we conducted a nationwide survey to measure whether Americans agree or disagree with these contentious views. Here’s what the nation has to say.

Key Findings:

• 74.7% of Americans unite in agreement on the unpopular opinion that “you’re not vegetarian if you eat fish.”
• Americans were almost evenly split on two statements: “there’s no valid reason to hate Meghan Markle or Prince Harry” and “Seinfeld isn’t as funny as people make it out to be!” 
• 89.8% disagree with a majorly unpopular opinion: “sitting on the beach is a waste of a vacation.”

Top (un)popular opinions Americans stand by

Reddit is well-known for their directness and honest opinions, but do you know who else is famous for their passionate views? Americans. Here are some of the unpopular Reddit opinions that a significant majority of Americans solidly agree with.

Over 15.7k Redditors and 74.7% of survey respondents united in agreement that “you’re not vegetarian if you eat fish.” This may seem obvious to some, but the pescatarian diet has blurred the lines for many. One Reddit user even commented “True! I worked with a guy who ate fish but no other meat (well, except eggs) and he said he won’t eat anything with a neck.” Clearly his co-worker has never watched Finding Nemo as “fish are friends, not food.”

Taking a health-conscious stance, 61.1% also agree that “cigarettes should be banned”. Yet with 30.3k upvotes on Reddit, there’s been a lot of back and forth in the thread. While many Redditors support the idea of banning cigarettes, others argued against prohibition, stating “ban banning things”. Surprisingly enough though, past and current smokers chimed in and also agreed with the majority of Americans on their stance.

United States of America? More like Divided States of America

Here ye, here ye – “there’s no valid reason to hate Meghan Markle or Prince Harry,” says 56.4% of Americans. The original poster (OP) wrote “they’re allowed to share their thoughts about the royal family…it feels like a hate train people are joining because it’s popular.” This sentiment seems to resonate with slightly more than half of the nation. However, the opinions were closely divided, as one Redditor jokingly remarked, “Harry, is that you? What have we told you about seeking validation on social media?” – representing the 43.6% who do see a valid reason to maintain negative feelings towards the once royal couple.

“Hello Newman”, sorry to break it to you but a little over half (52.9%) of the country thinks “Seinfeld isn’t as funny as people make it out to be!” The OP reveals their struggle to find entertainment with the show and states, “I’m currently at the beginning of season six after kind of torturing myself through the first five…I don’t know what all the hype is about and how it could be unbelievably successful.” The defense of this controversial opinion, however, argues, “the people under 30 don’t get it either because the show is driven by human interactions.” Fair enough.

(No) Thank you, next! Unpopular opinions that remains unpopular

One thing about us, Americans, is we have a strong fondness for comfort aka leisurewear and pajamas. However, an OP clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and sparked a debate, declaring “pajamas are stupid and unnecessary tradition.” An astounding 84.7% of respondents strongly disagrees, with over 14.1k Redditors ready to defend pajamas’ honor. One user pointed out, “not sleeping in pajamas isn’t the problem, the problem is who the hell sleeps in jeans in bed on purpose.” Touché.

Do you sea what this OP seas? An overwhelming 85% of Americans oppose this unpopular opinion: “seafood is disgusting”. OP goes on to rant that “they look good, but the texture, the taste, and the overall experience of eating them, it just disgusts me”. A curt, but not harsh, response of “sorry your palate sucks” perfectly encapsulates the general belief shared across the nation. 

“Sitting on a beach is an absolute waste of a vacation,” says no one ever – oh wait, except for one Redditor who clearly doesn’t know how to vacation properly. A whopping 89.8% of Americans disagree entirely with the very unpopular opinion. Despite the mass disagreement, the thread accumulated 11k upvotes of indifferent responses. The top comment stated, “people enjoy vacations differently, when you plan your own you can do what you want…I can only stand it as long as there’s things to do or beer in the cooler.” It seems that cold beer on the beach is a solution for OP! 

In the end, Reddit and America never fails to provide us with intriguing hot takes. If you’re seeking some icebreakers for future social events or, dare we suggest, first dates, look no further than our very own curated list of the current top 15 most controversial opinions.

Methodology

In July 2023, we delved through Reddit’s /unpopularopinion thread and refined our search to only ‘controversial’ and ‘this year’ posts. To uncover the 15 most controversial and unpopular opinions, we only gathered posts with at least 10k upvotes. After careful curation, we surveyed 1,500 U.S. residents to analyze if they agree or disagree with such views.

The average age of respondents was 38.6 years old. The representative sample comprised 49.5% male, 48% female, 2.1% non-binary, 0.3% transgender, and 0.1% other.

Fair use

Feel free to use the data or visuals on this page for non-commercial purposes. Please be sure to include proper attribution linking back to this page to give credit to the authors. 

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