A few years ago, I was on the bus when the girl next to me, whom I considered a friend, decided to comment on my winter hat.
“No offense or anything, but you look really ugly with a hat on,” she said. All I have to say is that she was not being brutally honest; it was just rude.
“Brutal honesty” is not a real thing. It’s only an excuse for people to make insulting comments, use it as a positive trait, or take pride in. Honestly, I have no clue where they get those ideas from.
Transitioning from middle school to high school, I’ve noticed a change in students’ tone in daily interactions with people, and it needs to be fixed.
I’ve come to know many people with this personality, and a majority of them are teenagers. A few times I’ve made excuses for the students, and sometimes I’ve even heard other kids make excuses for them.
“Oh no, I swear she isn’t mean. She’s really cool but just very honest.”
“She doesn’t actually mean it. I promise she’s just joking.”
“That’s just how our friendship is.”
Excuse after excuse because the realization hadn’t hit — the realization that there is a difference between being honest and being straight up mean.
The girl from the hat story? Yeah, she was exceptionally rude. If she had just reworded her sentence slightly, I would have been completely fine.
“Your hat is so cute, but I feel like hats don’t really suit your complexion.”
It definitely sounds a little better than “you look kind of ugly.”
I feel like high school is the climax of all of these brutally honest remarks. Most of the school is trying to figure out who they are as a person. Maybe they try a new fashion style, a new makeup look, or a new haircut. Unfortunately, when this happens, other students start to make those extremely blunt comments. Let’s realize that people have feelings, and I’m sure the insulting words give them no positive emotions.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that students shouldn’t be honest. Honesty is a great trait to have. Tell someone if their lipstick is smudged, if their shirt is on backwards, or if there’s lettuce stuck in between their teeth.
Those comments follow the 5-minute rule; only tell people to change something about their physical appearance if it can be fixed within 5 minutes.
Telling someone their eyes are too close together, their clothing style is bad, or their lips are paper-thin is not honest anymore. It’s disrespect, and an absurd number of kids don’t take note of that.
I’m going to end this with the classic phrase, the truth hurts. Don’t make it worse by saying it in an even more unkind way. Say it in a manner that won’t destroy somebody’s well-being. I hope the “brutally honest” high schoolers realize they aren’t doing any good for other students, for themselves, or for anybody.
Brett B. • Jan 13, 2026 at 8:26 am
I agree with this to an extent- that being that people could definitely reword their phrases to be less blunt on their approach. Though, sometimes what people perceive as blunt is just a person’s natural vocabulary. Like for the example in this paper, “No offense or anything, but you look really ugly with a hat on”. This sentence might have just come more naturally for the person than something like “I don’t think you look good with a hat” and definitely more naturally than a phrase like “Your hat is so cute, but I feel like hats don’t really suit your complexion” because like, nobody talks that way. So basically what I’m trying to say is, if a person wants to be honest and tell another person (hopefully just their friend) that a style is clashing or there’s something off-putting about their appearance, they might not want to take the extra 2 minutes trying to think of a way to reword the sentence to not make their friend, (for lack of a better term,) butt hurt. And personally, I’ve learned to take what people say for their intentions rather than what comes out, based on their personality and what I assume they mean based on what they say. Like for example, if my best buds call me “stupid” after making a silly mistake, I obviously know they were just joshing around and were remarking on the silly mistake I made. Or on the other side of the coin, if somebody who I know dislikes me makes a comment that seems complimentary on the surface, I assume it’s meant in some way to dig at me, like a sort of sarcasm. All in all, I think when somebody is being “brutally honest”, it’s important to know the kind of person they are in general and what their intention with the comment was based on that information. Because for some people, even calling someone stupid or ugly is wholehearted and made with good intentions (especially for high schoolers).