Being a ginger is hard; I can tell you this from 18 years of experience. It’s estimated around 1-2% of the world’s population has natural red hair. We hear the same jokes over and over again and usually they’re rather offensive. As a redhead, it’s hard to not go through life and hear snide comments about your ginger hair.
These are ten things every ginger is sick and tired of hearing:
1. “Aren’t gingers supposed to go extinct, like, really soon?”
Nope. We are not going extinct. Red hair is a recessive gene, which means that you need to get a redhead copy of the gene from both your mother and your father to have red hair. This also means that there are many people in the population carrying one copy of the gene, so, even if a recessive gene is actually deadly (which red hair definitely isn’t), it’s still almost impossible to completely breed it out of a population.
2. “You have no soul!”
Yes, please, continue to use an episode of “South Park” to deem an entire population of people sociopaths. I love this joke, really, it never gets old, even after hearing it at least once a week for my entire life. This is a good one to avoid completely.
3. “FIRE CROTCH”
Good one! I would recommend not bringing this up either.
4. “Do you ever go outside?”
Yes, I do go outside. Being from Long Island, I’m often at the beach, so yes I do go outside. Unlike you however, I produce significantly more vitamin D. As redheads, pale skin allows us to absorb more sunlight than other people, which allows our bodies to create more vitamin D. So no, I will not die if I go outside, and it’s frustrating being compared to vampires all the time.
5. “Do the curtains match the drapes?”
This is probably the most offensive thing you can ask a redhead, so please, if you really can’t figure it out for yourself, just use Google. You wouldn’t ask anyone else this question, so don’t ask redheads, it’s personal.
6. “OMG! Is that your natural hair color?”
Well, what does it look like? Yes, it is my natural hair color and I’m sure you don’t normally ask brunettes or blondes this question.
7. “Where did you get that color!?”
Hm, I don’t know, my parents? Again, people of any other hair color are rarely asked this question. If you took biology at any point in your life you should really be able to understand that red is a natural hair color.
8. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like *insert celebrity redhead*?”
Yes, plenty of people have told me I look like said person. But the only thing we have in common is our hair.
9. “Would you ever dye your hair?”
I don’t know, would you? There is definitely something more interesting to talk about, so please just don’t ask this one.
10. “Are you guys related?” (referring to you and your ginger friend)
No. My other friends who happen to be gingers are not my relatives. I definitely wouldn’t ask if you and your brunette friend are relatives.
While it may seem strange that some of these questions are offensive, as gingers we get these all the time, so after a while it gets a little old. So for future reference, try to avoid asking a ginger these questions because, most likely, they’ve already heard it twice this week. We get that our hair is unique and interesting, but it’s something we get judged for every day, so sometimes we prefer it’s just left out of the conversation.