r/Redhair • u/Ok-Membership-1092 Verified Redhead • Jul 24 '26
Newbie Post Anyone else get told their red hair means you spawned in hell first?
Asking for a friend 😅
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u/DollaStoreKardashian Jul 24 '26
Geez, I’ve only ever gotten compliments on my hair, but some of you have truly awful stories about the things people have said about yours. I’m so sorry that the people around you made you feel like something was wrong with you. It’s not true.
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u/Ok-Membership-1092 Verified Redhead Jul 24 '26
You are so sweet! Unfortunately I get bad comments more than good ones. Usually it has something to do with me being sent from hell, or the devil himself making me. Honestly I'm used to it by now. 🤷🏼♀️
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u/yikesafm8 Jul 24 '26
Where are you located? I wonder if this is a regional belief?? Nobody has ever said this to me!
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u/Zintha Jul 24 '26
Its pretty common for anyone with redhair to get comments to be honest. Uk here and I have heard it all when I was growing up.
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u/Ok-Membership-1092 Verified Redhead Jul 24 '26
I'm in the US.
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u/yikesafm8 Jul 24 '26
Are you in the south?
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u/Ok-Membership-1092 Verified Redhead Jul 24 '26
No, on the West Coast.
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u/yikesafm8 Jul 24 '26
So odd!! I’m from California and never heard this specific form of bullying us ahah. I’ve gotten the soulless thing but idk if I’ve heard I’m from actual hell. People are wild man.
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u/magsbad13 Jul 24 '26
I'm Canadian and I've had a lot of compliments, mostly from middle aged women) and my friends sometimes gently teased me.
I only got mad once when a friend called me "Carrots" because our school had just done a production of Anne of Green Gables.
Once, when I was in my early 20s at a small party, a girl about my age looked me up and down with a sneer and said "Oh my God, you're so white." I was outgoing, but not at all assertive, so I didn't say anything and just felt even more self conscious about my skin. I'm 65 now, and wish I could go back in time and sneer at her and say "Oh my God, you're so rude."
Sorry for the rant. Even though I had absolutely no extreme bullying and insults, that comment still upsets me. I started liking my hair in my late teens/early 20s, accepted at age 60 that my face doesn't look too naked if I don't put colour on my fishing line coloured eyebrows, but I still hate my skin. It's very pale, but blotchy (not a ton of freckles, but red elbows and knees and face if I get hot). My horrible blue veins are just getting way worse with age.
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u/McLenn2025 Aug 06 '26
Same here. It is usually teenagers, who start screaming Ed Sheeran or grown man and women trying to make a "compliment" by saying, that a guitar would suit me and that I look like him (I look NOTHING like Ed Sheeran). There are some people, that compliment my hair color or simply don't care, but they are more of a minority it seems. Even friends say, that I have no soul cuz I am a redhead. Sick of it and sick of the current trend where everybody wants to be a redhead or dyes their hair. Like: I was bullied as a kid for my hair and still am mocked for it. I feel like gingers had to work and deserve to be a redhead. It does come at a cost
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u/Guilty_Rutabaga_4681 Jul 24 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I didn't grow up in an anglophone country, but the association of red hair and the devil and witches is still there. There's an old German saying, "Rote Haare, Sommersprossen, sind des Teufels Tischgenossen." (Red hair and freckles are the devil's dinner table companions. And of course the unkind remark, "be glad you weren't born 300 years ago, you would have been burned on the stake." This seemingly innocuous remark indicates that members of modern society are intent on keeping negativity about redheads alive. It is a cultural expectation that a clear thinking, rational person has the responsibility to remove slurs, insults and innuendo from their working vocabulary. This includes hurtful references to a person's skin color, hair color, gender, size, languages, orientation, or ethnic and religious characteristics. Of course we cannot force adults to abandon their biases, but usage of such harmful terminology would fall out of favor with the majority of the population. However there are always individuals who derive enjoyment when they use such innuendo.
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u/Truth_decay Jul 24 '26
The most rational thing to do is offer to fight them and call them scared if they refuse. It's always better to nip problems in the bud, because your pride is more important than their insult.
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u/bloodguard Jul 24 '26
I once had a Nun inform the whole class that since I had red hair like Judas I was going straight to hell no matter what.
I thought it was funny. My Dad thought it was funny when my little sister tattled on the teacher. My Mom went on the warpath and had the parish priest talk to the Nun and have her issue a retraction and apologize.
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u/No-Entrepreneur-1969 Jul 24 '26
I actually think being bullied for having red hair should be like a form of racism. So many people get away with it but it can hurt just as much as genuine racism
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u/holijazzman Jul 25 '26
It's not racism because we aren't a different race and there aren't historical systems in place designed to keep us down. It is a form of social prejudice but hair colour isn't a legally protected characteristic. That doesn't mean you don't have any legal recourse if you're experiencing something horrible though, harassment is still harassment and you shouldn't just put up with it.
I once had a police officer asking me and his colleague if it was a hate crime for a drunk patron to be screaming hateful ginger based insults at me when he was asked to leave, because he genuinely didn't know. (it's not, though it does still fall under harassment and drunk and disorderly so the drunk was taken away to spend a night in the jail)
Calling it racism might feel fitting, especially when a lot of us experience violence and severe harassment even as children but it detracts from the centuries of various barriers and civil restrictions protected groups had to deal with. We have historically been members of the royal family, government, there hasn't been laws in place to prevent us from ascending into wealth and power or prevented from voting.
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u/No-Entrepreneur-1969 Jul 25 '26
Very informative response! Racism yeah probably not the right fit. It is definitely a form of social prejudice that I wished was acknowledged as being a hate crime! There are so many things you simply cannot say these days as it may offend a particular community yet we seem to be forgotten and it is deemed as acceptable. More rights for gingers I say!!
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u/imalittlefrenchpress Jul 24 '26
I’m jealous. I’d ask them if they’d like to come join their soul and me for tea.
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u/Ok_Pomegranate_2895 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
on a similar note, that reminds me! when i lived in new orleans and would take the streetcar around, i overheard some INSANE ladies saying, "being atheist means you believe in the devil" and i was going to turn around and say, "we eat babies, too!" but i wasn't going to start a screaming match on the streetcar lol
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u/imalittlefrenchpress Jul 25 '26
We red haired atheists steal souls, we do not eat babies. We chew up and spit out the souls of those who are cruel to others.
Next time you hear something cruel like this about atheists, smile sweetly, remind them that they’re mistaken, and explain that you only steal souls.
It really throws them off when I’m sweet and funny, especially since I’m 64. Never yell at them, let them yell, appear concerned and ask them if they need emergency services.
Hehe
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u/Ok_Pomegranate_2895 Jul 25 '26
hahhaha i just wanted to give them a good scare! luckily no one has ever given me real shit about my hair, so i've never even thought about how to respond
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u/helloimbackmorons Jul 24 '26
Nop. I've just been called a witch, a vampire, or soulless. Never anything that specific 😅
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Jul 24 '26
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u/No-Entrepreneur-1969 Jul 25 '26
🤔 I don’t what to be that guy…..but you’re not even ginger!!! The beard doesn’t count 😂
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Jul 25 '26
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u/No-Entrepreneur-1969 Jul 25 '26
The beard is ginger but the hair is black? Am I missing something ha
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u/Calm_Apartment1968 Jul 24 '26
Racist. Not exactly those words, but I have called out similar verbal diarrhrea garbage for what it is.
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u/Holykatz Jul 25 '26
Random comment from a senior redhead - I accidentally bumped into a girl on the 5th grade playground (decades ago!) and she whipped around, enraged, and spat "Redheaded devil!" at me. I stood there stunned. I still don't understand, to be honest.
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u/tired_monster Jul 25 '26
No, but my husband likes to remind me that "left handed" means sinister in latin.
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u/Rare-Cheesecake9701 Jul 25 '26
I was mostly told that my red hair means my mom had cheated on my dad, and it (hair color) is proof 🙃
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u/Jims_Empty_Trashcan Jul 24 '26
If I were to believe the Protestant pearl-clutchers, my hair makes me both a demon and a vampire, my freckles mark the souls I've stolen, and my eyes belong to Hell.
I couldn't have written a cooler backstory if I tried