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Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

glamourmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#21

Post by pklem »

headcanon wrote: post #13

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 "Salesperso…

I honestly find that this form of complementing to be toxic in general. I've heard too often "Other people are , but you are !" I generally appreciate the complement part when a comment like this is directed towards me, but the comparison to other people is not necessary. You don't need to put others down to build others up.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#22

Post by dsfyu404ed »

zwieback wrote: post #15
jedberg wrote: post #2

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 tho…

Soon after our first was born my wife asked her moms group: 'is four in the afternoon too early to have a beer?'. They answered: 'Oh, no, we've discussed it extensively and three o'clock is fine.' Nothing wrong with being an ambitious mom but you need to pick the right support group and it's probably not instagram.

One of my hobbies tends to attract a fairly rural and blue collar crowd (or at least more rural and blue collar than Reddit and HN) and the requirements of the hobby mean that you probably have your shit together at least a little bit. The "everything else" sub-forum on our forum is so good at giving life advice that it's become a running joke. This sounds like exactly the kind of answer their wives would give. That said, they'll bite you back real hard if you act like a jerk.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#23

Post by 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.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#24

Post by itronitron »

headcanon wrote: post #13

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 "Salesperso…

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.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#25

Post by fnord123 »

ancorevard wrote: post #6

...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.

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

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-to-keep-your-internet-hi...

(Actually a good article)

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#26

Post by dsfyu404ed »

paganel wrote: post #20

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.

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.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#28

Post by pixl97 »

headcanon wrote: post #13

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 "Salesperso…

"Bioware Magic"

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#29

Post by seppin »

headcanon wrote: post #13

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 "Salesperso…

Silicon Valley in general has mandated positivity to the point that if you ware honest about anything, you are labeled "negative" and shunned.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#30

Post by pickle-wizard »

jedberg wrote: post #2

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 tho…

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.

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