In late September 2026, BuzzFeed assembled twenty-three small portraits of entitled behavior into a listicle — a format that has become one of modern media's preferred instruments for turning scattered frustrations into collective recognition. The piece participates in a long human tradition: naming the transgressor, cataloging the offense, and finding solidarity in shared exasperation. That such content finds a ready audience speaks less to any new epidemic of selfishness than to an enduring need to locate ourselves on the right side of the social contract.
BuzzFeed Compiles 23 Examples of Entitled Behavior
The world existed primarily to serve their interests
Mark
So what's actually in this piece? Are these real stories or just made-up examples?
Mimi
They're anecdotal accounts—stories people have shared, presumably from their own lives or things they've witnessed. BuzzFeed presents them as real incidents.
Luke
But we don't know the sourcing. Are these verified? Did BuzzFeed talk to the people involved? We're just taking the storyteller's word for it.
Mimi
That's fair. The listicle format doesn't really allow for that kind of reporting. It's more about pattern recognition—here are twenty-three moments that felt emblematic to people.
Mark
Why does this matter? Why publish this now?
Mimi
It taps into a conversation people are already having about entitlement and selfishness. It validates a feeling a lot of people have—that some folks just don't consider others.
Luke
But does a listicle of anecdotes actually tell us anything about how widespread this is? Or is it just confirmation bias—we see examples that match what we already believe?
Mimi
That's the limitation of the format. It's not making a statistical claim. It's more cultural commentary through example.
Mark
What would make this reporting stronger?
Luke
Context. Why do people behave this way? Is entitlement increasing or just more visible because of social media? Are there generational patterns here, or is this just human nature?
Mimi
Those are bigger questions than a listicle can answer. This is more about holding up a mirror to behavior people recognize.
O Pulso
- BuzzFeed's twenty-three examples land with the satisfying sting of recognition — each one a small, self-contained portrait of someone treating the world as their personal concierge.
- The listicle taps a genuine cultural nerve: widespread frustration with people who move through shared spaces as though other people's comfort simply doesn't register.
- The format's efficiency is also its limitation — complexity gets trimmed away, leaving only the worst moment, stripped of context or cause.
- Readers are invited to validate their own judgments, but the question of whether two dozen anecdotes constitute evidence of a broader pattern goes politely unasked.
- The piece ultimately functions less as social analysis than as a mirror — reflecting cultural anxieties about selfishness and the fraying of basic social consideration back to an audience eager to see them named.
In late September 2026, BuzzFeed assembled twenty-three small portraits of entitled behavior into a listicle — a format that has become one of modern media's preferred instruments for turning scattered frustrations into collective recognition. The piece participates in a long human tradition: naming the transgressor, cataloging the offense, and finding solidarity in shared exasperation. That such content finds a ready audience speaks less to any new epidemic of selfishness than to an enduring need to locate ourselves on the right side of the social contract.
BuzzFeed published a listicle this week cataloging twenty-three instances of selfish and entitled behavior — people who seemed to operate as though the world existed primarily to serve their interests. The format is familiar: a collection of anecdotal accounts, each a small portrait of unreasonable demands, refusal to acknowledge others' needs, or an expectation of special treatment as though it were a birthright.
The listicle serves a particular function in contemporary media. It gathers scattered observations into something that feels like a pattern, giving readers a chance to nod in recognition and say, "Yes, I know someone like this." The language of entitlement has become common cultural currency — used to describe people who expect raises without earning them, treat service workers as extensions of their will, or simply never consider how their actions affect those around them.
But the format also flattens complexity. Each example is presented as self-evident, its badness obvious, with no investigation into circumstance or psychology. Brevity demands that nuance be sacrificed for impact, and a person's worst moment becomes their defining characteristic. Whether twenty-three anecdotes constitute proof of a widespread problem is a question the format doesn't invite.
What's clear is that BuzzFeed identified something its audience wanted — a chance to see their frustrations reflected back, to feel validated in their judgments. In that sense, the piece functions less as journalism than as a mirror held up to cultural anxieties about selfishness and the social contract.
BuzzFeed published a listicle this week cataloging twenty-three instances of people behaving selfishly—individuals who seemed to operate under the assumption that the world existed primarily to serve their interests. The piece is straightforward in its construction: a collection of anecdotal accounts, each one a small portrait of someone making unreasonable demands, refusing to acknowledge others' needs, or expecting special treatment as though it were their birthright.
The format itself is familiar enough. BuzzFeed has built much of its audience on this kind of social documentation—the list that lets readers nod in recognition, share it with friends, and say, "Yes, I know someone like this." The listicle serves a particular function in contemporary media: it collects scattered observations into a coherent whole, suggesting a pattern where individual incidents might otherwise feel isolated.
What makes this particular compilation worth noting is what it reflects about how we talk about behavior now. The language of entitlement has become a common currency in cultural conversation. We use it to describe people who expect raises without earning them, who demand accommodations without reciprocity, who treat service workers as extensions of their will rather than as people doing a job. The twenty-three examples BuzzFeed assembled are drawn from the kinds of stories people share online—moments that stuck with them, interactions that felt emblematic of something larger.
The piece taps into a genuine frustration many people feel: the sense that some individuals move through the world with an unearned confidence, an assumption that their comfort matters more than anyone else's. Whether it's someone refusing to follow basic social rules, making unreasonable requests of strangers, or simply never considering how their actions affect those around them, these are behaviors that register as transgressive in a society that at least nominally values consideration and fairness.
But the listicle format also flattens complexity. Each example is presented as self-evident—here is a person behaving badly, and the badness is obvious. There's no investigation into why someone might act this way, no exploration of circumstance or psychology. The format demands brevity and clarity, which means nuance gets sacrificed for impact. A person's worst moment becomes their defining characteristic.
The piece also reflects something about how we consume social commentary now. Rather than a sustained argument about entitlement as a cultural phenomenon, we get a rapid-fire series of examples. The cumulative effect is meant to feel like evidence, like proof that this is a real and widespread problem. Whether twenty-three anecdotes actually constitute proof is a question the format doesn't invite.
What's clear is that BuzzFeed identified something its audience wanted to engage with—a chance to see their frustrations reflected back at them, to feel validated in their judgments about how other people behave. The listicle succeeds or fails based on whether readers recognize themselves in the accounts, whether the examples feel true to their own experience. In that sense, it's less journalism than it is a mirror held up to cultural anxieties about selfishness and social contract.
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