My example was from around college with a Disney adult (I know) who was adamant that Pocahontas shouldn't be counted in the Disney princess line up.
That fixation set an alarm bell in my liberal brain, but I didn't want to think it was racism at the time. But the fixation on using technicalities (not technically a princess in the western monarchy sense) like in this case was just reaching to exclude a category of people in a way that was socially acceptable.
I can see that unbending view of rules and technicalities to be a red flag. The lack of willingness to take a personal stake in a topic and couching your real thoughts in arbitrary rules has been a clear sign for me to watch out. I see it with boardgames too. The excessive rule-following clues me in to a lot of reactionary behavior.
What about the rest of you? What things turned out to be red flags like that?
Edit - Fast forward to present day and this person is no longer a friend and is big into Q, Trump, and covid denialism.
You ever been on /r/saltierthancrait? I was a pretty frequent user on that sub for the year or so after TLJ came out, because I didn't like the movie (or, frankly, most of the creative decisions Disney made with the franchise). But when I was there I spent at least a quarter of my time arguing with chuds who had elaborate conspiracy theories that proved feminism ruined Star Wars, or that Rian Johnson was some sort of freak who derived sick pleasure out of ruining Star Wars, or that Kathleen Kennedy/Rian Johnson/the Lucasfilm Story group all conspired together to ruin Star Wars because they hate white people.
That sub is still active. There are still people who post there all the time. I did the sensible thing and wrote Star Wars off. I liked it for a long time, I have a lot of fond memories of Star Wars, but I don't think the new management are going to make the sort of creative decisions that would result in stuff I would enjoy. I liked the grand, sweeping tragedy. I feel like, underneath all the kid stuff and the Jungian bullshit, Star Wars was genuinely trying to say something. Even the prequels, as dogshit as those were, felt like a genuine artistic expression. And I just don't feel that in the post-Disney era. They feel like bland corporate products, like all major blockbuster franchises today. Maybe that's just me getting older, maybe movies were always bad and it's only my nostalgia that makes them seem meaningful. But it feels true.
A self-published writer I follow(ed) spent a lot of time there. I thought it was basically a place to hate Star Wars for libs. I enjoyed the first two sequel movies in the theaters but then came to understand that they weren’t really good. The last sequel movie I didn’t even enjoy in the theater. As problematic as they are, Solo and the one about the death star plans were actually probably better. Solo might have been the best if Disney hadn’t fired the directors.