
Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity' - pradpk
https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/toxic-positivity
======
jedberg
I'm constantly having to remind my wife that she's a good mother. She keeps
seeing all the posts on Facebook from her groups about how some woman made
dinner, built a diorama and made enough to buy a new purse from her side
business all in one day! And she thinks she's a slacker because "all" she can
do is feed the kids and read them a story. I have to keep telling her that
she's only seeing the highlight reel of those other mom's lives, and to stop
trying to compare to them.

~~~
pickle-wizard
This place gets that ways some times. I like reading the comments here, as
there are a lot of insightful comments that I often learn more from than the
article itself.

Though sometimes it feels that if you are not working at one of the FAANGs
making $400k/year that you are a total loser.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_Though sometimes it feels that if you are not working at one of the FAANGs
making $400k /year that you are a total loser._

That's the socially acceptable thing to brag about, but it's absolutely not
"everyone" here. A lot of people downplay it if they don't fit that narrative.

But it's kind of a skin deep thing. HN is vastly more diverse than that.

~~~
pickle-wizard
Of course it is not everyone, but it is a reoccurring theme. Especially in
threads that discuss working at a start up which is a fair number of the
threads around here. Likely it is just a very vocal minority, but still it is
annoying.

~~~
DoreenMichele
People working at a startup are defacto not working at a FAANG company.

It's a "vocal minority" because this is the virtual water cooler for Y
Combinator. They aren't even trying to brag in such cases. They are just
trying to make their life work.

------
headcanon
This article seems more related to social media, but my experience with toxic
positivity at some former workplaces took the form of "Our startup is the
best! We're so much better than all our competitors. Everything they do is
wrong, and we do everything better!", which is a fine attitude to have in
general, until its objectively not true, and I'm afraid to even say anything
for fear of being a "hater".

A "Salesperson" attitude is great when talking to the public or customers, but
when your employees hear one thing from you and see the opposite happening, it
doesn't exactly lend you credibility.

Fortunately, where I work now the leadership is much more objectively-minded.
It probably helps we're building enterprise products and not pushing social-
media hype.

~~~
itronitron
While working in a startup for several years I became fairly practiced at
running everything our CEO said through an internal BS meter and have found it
incredibly useful in every workplace since then.

The spectrum is 'true', 'optimistic', 'possibly true', 'not quite', 'probably
lying', 'lying', 'lying to themselves'. During any company meeting I would
keep a mental tally of how each statement measured up and used that to decide
when I should leave.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_' lying to themselves'_

In my twenties, I concluded that most people lying to me were actually lying
to themselves. They weren't trying to make my life harder or deceive me per
se. It was simply not possible to state the truth to someone else and keep
lying to themselves.

It made social BS vastly easier for me to cope with.

~~~
reificator
An excellent viewpoint, and one that I've found value in as well.

------
ancorevard
...written by Glamour magazine.

Perhaps one of the greatest sinners in this regard actively profiting from
content that leads to covetousness, jealousy, etc. leading to mental health
issues and what not.

~~~
fnord123
I know, right? I get my tips from Teen Vogue:

[https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-to-keep-your-internet-
hi...](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-to-keep-your-internet-history-
private)

(Actually a good article)

~~~
jachee
_Teen Vogue_ has actually been doing some of the best hard-hitting journalism
for the last few years. I'm not even close to ashamed of consuming their
content.

~~~
Applejinx
Yeah they have. Their political coverage puts more mainstream outlets to
shame.

------
moosey
I would propose a corollary in regards to toxic positivity: Even if you are a
happy, positive person, just in general, try to be available for people that
having issues like the author of the article.

I disagree with the writer of the article about how important positive
thinking is. I believe the gap is in how we try to help people become more
positive: a walk and letting people vent a bit is probably far superior to
informing them that they should think positively, and will more quickly lead
to that resilience that, I think, improves quality of life.

For some people, it can be easy to be happy, and letting people know that
their negative feelings have a good reason for existing, I imagine, is
cathartic. Teaching people how to have more emotional resilience would
probably also be valuable.

------
paganel
I wonder if this forced positivity thing isn’t an American thing only (which
is creeping its way through to Europe, I agree). For once I’m happy (no pun
intended) that I grew up and still live in Eastern Europe where you can really
tell how things are and how you feel about them without having to worry about
what other people might think about your thinking.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This is definitely a cultural and social class thing. Poorer and/or more rural
areas of the US are like this too. When I worked blue collar jobs you could
complain about stuff to the people around you, coworkers would post gripes
about stuff on social media and it was fine. Now working in a higher class
white collar workplace I would never do that.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> WALLACE: What do you mean by "the marketing orientation," Dr. Fromm?

> FROMM: I mean by that, that our main way of relating ourselves to others is
> like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange
> our own personality - or as one says sometimes, our "personality package" \-
> for something. Now, this is not so true for the manual worker. The manual
> worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his
> smile. But, what you might call the "symbol pushers" \- that is to say, all
> of the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate -
> to use a better or nicer word - manipulate men and signs and words. All
> those today have not only to sell their service, but in the bargain, they
> have to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions.

\-- Erich Fromm,
[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/from...](http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/fromm_erich_t.html)

------
xrd
There is science to suggest that negative talk can influence your mental
health in deleterious ways. Words do create a reality to some extent, great or
small.

There is no science (at least none that I know of) that indicates that someone
telling you this fact helps you get out of this mode of being.

Therein lies the rub.

~~~
headcanon
Mind over matter is definitely a thing, but where it becomes toxic is if you
choose to ignore problems in order to keep the good vibes going, and could
lead to a worse outcome than if you kept an objective mind. Reality distortion
fields only work if they actually influence reality, and not just your
perception of it.

With that said, I have a friend who is in a depression rut. He hates his job
but believes any other job will be just as bad (he's definitely wrong), and
seems to refuse to take steps to improve his situation, because his negativity
keeps him from taking action.

So ultimately its just a balance.

~~~
bena
I think people think confuse pessimism with acknowledging negative things.

Being happy won't stop your house from burning down. It's fine to acknowledge
that your house is burning down. What you can't do is sit on the floor and cry
about it. You have to believe you can handle the situation. By getting out,
getting the fire department, etc.

Optimism is the belief that no matter what happens, you can handle it. Not
that everything is good. Optimism is a "short memory".

------
jbattle
The next article this website wants me to read is "Literally everyone is
wearing this Mango suit on social media RN". I actually don't know much about
this particular magazine, but one wishes that as an organization they would
have more self-awareness about the mixed messages they send.

~~~
MockObject
> Literally everyone is wearing this £39 Topshop dress on Instagram right now

> So many people are wearing this Zara blouse on Instagram right now

> All your favourite Instagrammers are wearing this high street range right
> now

It's as if they're waiting for readers to notice the belabored joke.

------
mbostleman
So on the other hand there is a toxic negativity that seems to reign in pop
culture where people's impression of many things in society in general are on
the pessimistic side of what real data shows. I wonder if this tendency
towards toxic positivity in social media is some kind of equal but opposite
effect that acts as a balance.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't think they balance out. I think they're orthogonal. Note that pop
culture negativity is mostly about how _society_ sucks; per ineedasername's
comment, the protagonist finds love or some other _individual_ positivity.
Social media "toxic positivity" is also about individuals having it good, not
about the society doing good.

Both phenomena taken together create this negative outlook, "the world sucks
and I personally suck". But this negativity is also what drives engagement, so
there's no incentive to stop it - not in works of fiction, and not in social
media.

------
ultrasandwich
Great further reading on this sentiment from academic/philosopher Byung-Chul
Han if you're interested. He makes a pretty entertaining case against
positivity in his book "The Burnout Society."

"...Because Otherness is disappearing, we live in a time that is poor in
negativity. And so, the neuronal illnesses of the twenty-first century follow
a dialectic: not the dialectic of negativity, but that of positivity. They are
pathological conditions deriving from an excess of positivity."

[http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/12/Han_Bur...](http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/12/Han_Burnout.pdf)

------
mpweiher
For a more in-depth look at this, I heartily recommend Barbara Ehrenreich’s
_Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America_

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Thank you for this- was trying to think of that book. The positivity culture,
in my view anyway, was the far-reaching soft-spoken herald of a growing
fascism in our work cluture. It is not hard to see why it would need hardcore
deployment in these times.

------
kaycebasques
On a personal note, I find occasional honest negativity to be endearing,
refreshing, and stress-relieving. Back when I had the good fortune to visit
Ireland, I went to comedy clubs to get a feel for local culture. I stumbled
upon this hilarious musical comedian who sang a song [1] about how hard life
is, yet no one talks about it.

It's easy to overdo it, though. Negative people are draining.

[1] [https://youtu.be/S59FMm2wMUk](https://youtu.be/S59FMm2wMUk)

------
growlist
I find LinkedIn/contemporary corporate culture to be horrifically infested
with this pollyannish nonsense. Sometimes we still need to be able to call a
spade a bloody shovel.

------
MrTonyD
I don't like all the toxic positivity that has been growing in the workplace.
This has changed a lot since my early days in Silicon Valley. My impression is
that different countries have different "power distance" \- a measure of
submission to authority.

As the workforce has changed, with more hiring from "high power distance"
countries, there are more "yes men" enthusiastically agreeing to anything that
any incompetent executive wants.

Of course, the executives like this, and promote those who are "easy to get
along with" and who are happy to "implement their vision". But I think history
will show that this is one of the things which has contributed to the culture
decline in Silicon Valley - from producing useful products to producing
maximum profit regardless of any contribution to society. Right now, for
example, I'm at yet another company with several incompetent managers who are
supported by technical "yes men". They know that we are making idiotic
technical decisions, but they would never openly disagree.

------
PavlovsCat
> _They next song is a playdoyer for sadness, because I think that grief or
> sadness belongs to the emotions of humans, and that therefore one has to
> have the right to display this emotion openly and publically. Sometimes I
> was asked after concerts why my songs don 't sound really optimistic. I
> thought about that for a long time and then I consoled myself with the fact
> that we live in the age of division of labour, and the rest is made by
> nearly all my other colleagues. I further believe that grief or sadness in
> certain situations and conditions can be a very productive emotion, because
> when a lot of people are sad about the same things, then maybe at one point
> they can also get angry together, and then something can change._

\-- Bettina Wegner,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpIjg0UhxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpIjg0UhxE)

------
DaniloDias
This “toxic positivity” concept is best avoided if you are a leader.

We are herd animals. Feelings and attitudes are contagious. If you want to
lead, you should always ask: “Does sharing this help the herd?”

Be positive. It is encouraging and inspiring. Don’t be dishonest with your
positivity.

------
terryschiavo22
It's not that complaining is inherently bad, it's that it tends to be
uninteresting and unstimulating.

Yes, I know the sky is rainy grey today. It does nothing for either of us if
you point that out for the fifteenth time. On the other hand, if you compare
the sky to a giant peeing elephant, then we're now engaged intellectually at
least a little bit.

Personally, I don't complain unless I can come up with an interesting way to
spin my complaint.

------
veryworried
So much of the life coaching industry reeks of this crap. Follow any
20-something “life” coach these days and you’ll probably be treated to a
stream of flowery feel good quotes that remind you to stay positive at all
times.

Eventually these little hits of positivity aren’t strong enough and some seek
out expensive coaching services that give you much larger dosages of the same
shit while you pretend to work through your problems.

------
MockObject
On the other hand, kneejerk cynicism is the easiest and most cliched method of
appearing sophisticated, but even more toxic.

------
werber
I think there's a lot of power in telling someone that whatever they're going
through sucks and you can't do anything about it, but you'll listen to them
bitch to get some relief. Being told to be positive can feel like a polite way
of saying shut up, I don't care, keep that to yourself.

------
RandomInteger4
I'd rather see this so called "toxic positivity" than people patting each
other on the back and reinforcing their depression and mental health issues as
though it were an identity or something to form a community around.

It sounds harsh, but there are so many counter productive behaviors people
engage in while meaning well with regard to mental health issues on social
media. One I see often is that people are effectively embracing
catastrophizing as some sort of rebellious act of defiant need for other
people to acknowledge their distorted view of reality.

Don't get me wrong either. I'm not looking at this from an outsider
perspective. I've been there. I've been dealing with on and off depression and
anxiety for the past several years. I've managed to claw myself out of it, but
am able to accept that how I acted while there was not healthy for me. I have
to take full responsibility for my behaviors and the bridges I've burnt.

All that being said, this article reads like someone waist deep in the throes
of "Acknowledge my depressed reality!"

~~~
byproxy
I definitely relate to what you're saying, but finding a community of like-
minded down-n-out individuals can be somewhat therapeutic in itself. Assuming
you're all able to laugh about it, that is.

[http://www.mytinyphone.com/uploads/users/uzueta/387840.jpg](http://www.mytinyphone.com/uploads/users/uzueta/387840.jpg)

------
DoreenMichele
Potentially of interest as well:

 _Her Facebook life looked perfect. How social media masks mental illness
(2015)_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691000)

------
paulpauper
We've all been in situations where no amount of positive thinking will change
anything, and it's unhelpful because it fails to acknowledge the trying
situation felt by the sufferer at hand and comes across as preachy and
moralistic, except rather than admonishing someone for not going to church,
it's for not exuding 'positive vibes', but also it's sometimes perceived as
insincere and a way to absolve one's guilt for not doing more to help. This
backlash explains the online appeal of Jordan Peterson, who is like the anti-
Tony Robbins.

------
jvagner
Real Talk.

------
oceanghost
Insincere positivity is toxic. Positivity itself, when pure, is what powers
the universe.

------
tracyshaun
The author of this article seems to be a slave to her emotions and hasn't yet
realize she can choose the emotional responses to the events in her life.
Endometriosis is an awful awful awful thing to experience, but she seems to be
confusing her own emotional choice about that condition and the inane
platitudes those around her try to give to her. "Be positive" isn't toxic...
it's just annoying when you think you don't have a choice about how to feel.

