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Toxic Positivity

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Re: Toxic Positivity

#121

Post by rfrey »

Kaze404 wrote: post #117
throw__away7391 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the author seems to be firmly anchored in a coastal elite bubble. In particular this phrase: > invalidate someone's lived experience ...is particularly cringe-inducing. These are code words. This is not how any normal human in the English speaking world has ever spoken prior to exposure to a particular brand of (most often quite expensive) education, and let's be clear--that's the whole point. People t…

What? That's a completely normal sentence. I don't understand what in particular triggered this rant full of strawmen.

I have used this exact phrase multiple times, but your parent's "rant full of strawmen" did make me reflect on it. - How is "lived experience" different than "experience"? - How can an experience be "invalidated"? What does that mean? Disrespected, discounted, something else?

Re: Toxic Positivity

#122

Post by travisporter »

layer8 wrote: post #108

They recommend empathy. However, businesses trying to communicate that they care about their customers by feigning empathy (“we are sorry to hear you’re encountering this issue with our awesome product”) but not actually acting like they care (not providing useful information, not engaging with the actual problem, not actually fixing the issue) is what comes across as toxic positivity for me. At least in a business r…

Absolutely agree. I'd rather have a disgruntled tech support person say "sorry we can't do that." Not, "How's your day, let me pull up your info, I see you're bla bla, anything else I can help you with?"

Re: Toxic Positivity

#123

Post by orwin »

cgrealy wrote: post #53
orwin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job because I was a bit bored, my new job isn't better, but at least I have 10 weeks of vacations, and my 35h a week allows me to enjoy my life without sacrificing either sleep or family when I'm not traveling. Is this toxic positivity?

Sounds more like a humblebrag to me.

It is. Actually I'd rather not spend at least ten hours a week waiting for administrative bullshit and just work and not have the 35h work week.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#124

Post by jum1p »

Great article!

How are you doing? I hope your doing great, such as me.

It doesn't seem to be new but I'd prefer if people'd stop to sell emotions.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#125

Post by amalcon »

Kaze404 wrote: post #117
throw__away7391 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the author seems to be firmly anchored in a coastal elite bubble. In particular this phrase: > invalidate someone's lived experience ...is particularly cringe-inducing. These are code words. This is not how any normal human in the English speaking world has ever spoken prior to exposure to a particular brand of (most often quite expensive) education, and let's be clear--that's the whole point. People t…

What? That's a completely normal sentence. I don't understand what in particular triggered this rant full of strawmen.

I mostly disagree with grandparent's diagnosis of the issue, but it really doesn't seem like a normal phrase to me. I live in one of these elite coastal cities, work with mostly Ph.D's, and my primary social circles have an unusual proportion (even for where I am) of educated folks as well. The phrase reads to me much like something that came out of Google Translate -- I know what it's trying to say, but it does not seem like the way a human would say it.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#126

Post by lauraekelly_ »

samhw wrote: post #99
lauraekelly_ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you have any self-awareness about the toxicity of making a presumptuous and insulting comment about me, someone you don't know, based only on an article I wrote about toxicity... Or maybe you are just that uncaring about the impact you may have on someone's day? I can take valid criticism and have read the critique on here with genuine interest. However, I don't believe this comment about 'the writer' is…

I think it's probably not a good idea to read comments about your writing on the internet. They aren't sending them 'to you' - you've sought out this discussion - so it's on you if you choose to read people's opinions. If you want constructive advice: try to write in the same way that you would talk. Shallowly, that means read your writing out loud – what Flaubert called his 'gueulade' – or, even better, vice versa:…

Hey, thanks for your comment. I took a walk in the sunshine to decompress a bit and before I go I just wanted to pop back on to explain a couple of things. I didn't seek this out. I don't really go looking for such discussions because I'm a bit too time-starved, but someone let me know they shared my article on here because they liked it so I checked it out. Because I don't go looking for this, this hasn't really happened before (as far as I know) and it's a bit jarring to see people make assumptions about my intelligence for conforming to a style guide for accessibility reasons and practicing what the product preaches. I want to also mention that whilst I'm sure you're trying to be helpful and not condescending, I have read Flaubert and I've read Orwell, his fiction and his work on the English Language. I have a Masters Degree in English so I've read quite a lot lol, I sound like a dickhead saying that. I only say that to contextualise that I like a lot of 18th and 19th-century Lit which has a lot of long, winding sentences; my own writing took on that character and I struggled for a long time to adapt my writing style. So if it's coming across disjointed then that's something I need to take on board because I'm writing in a style that isn't mine. Ultimately it is compliance - someone called it aggressive compliance, I can't really comment on that. Readability compliance is actually really important when it comes to inclusivity and vital things like medical literacy, which is just one of the reasons people use our product. With this being said, its effect on writing style is obviously something I need to feed back for product development so we can continue making a better, more nuanced tool. We've already made a lot of progress from readability calculators from the past and want to keep improving this technology. I'm not shy about criticism, I haven't even been shy about my username. But yeah, I don't even go here, so I don't know what the critique environment is like. Thank you for taking the time to write this, I do appreciate you're coming from a good place here.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#127

Post by verisimi »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #5

I very much agree that so-called "toxic positivity" can be a problem, but I found this article greatly lacking in any sort of substance. There are no specific examples of toxic positivity, no explanation as to why its bad other than vacuous general terms repeated ad nauseam (did she mention toxic positivity invalidates lived experiences?), and no in depth explanation as to the alternatives other than what is essentia…

Come on, don't be down on it! Cheer up! :)

Re: Toxic Positivity

#128

Post by chrsig »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #118
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post is also focused on content marketing. Many already are in agreement sales and marketing tends to be more positive because, let's face it, most of them are still coming in cold with products which are meh at best and terrible at worst. For the majority of people, toxic positivity is a far bigger issue by having things invade their life to the point of having to sell themselves or others as far more positive t…

One of the most amusing things, for me, is watching marketing folks struggling to say "no," or disagree[0]. It seems they are trained to never say no. I tend to keep things positive, and rely on good team dynamics (I don't like team members competing against each other). That's not "toxic positivity." It's just common sense. We don't all have to have kum-ba-ya singalongs, but we need to treat each other with respect,…

> Decent managers can help to defuse that.

Can you share any insights into how it gets defused? I'm a recovering cynic, and so is my manager. Sometimes we get into a feedback loop, which isn't great.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#129

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

chrsig wrote: post #128
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most amusing things, for me, is watching marketing folks struggling to say "no," or disagree[0]. It seems they are trained to never say no. I tend to keep things positive, and rely on good team dynamics (I don't like team members competing against each other). That's not "toxic positivity." It's just common sense. We don't all have to have kum-ba-ya singalongs, but we need to treat each other with respect,…

> Decent managers can help to defuse that. Can you share any insights into how it gets defused? I'm a recovering cynic, and so is my manager. Sometimes we get into a feedback loop, which isn't great.

In my case, I had a team of mature, experienced developers. They all had decades of experience, and at least a couple of them, were smarter than me.

I stressed that we respect each other, and I also managed each as an individual. When there was conflict, I generally looked for common goals, and stressed them. I treated them as family. I made sure they all understood that the company's goals were always foremost to me, but that they came second; even before my own needs. I gave them whatever time they needed for family and/or personal reasons. I supported them through life crises, and had their back.

I also -and this is important- acted as a buffer between my team and my company's rather rapacious HR. This actually got me in trouble, a couple of times, but was really appreciated by my team (and also by some very highly-placed managers, in Japan).

No ridiculous team-building exercises. I used to take my team out for a nice dinner, every holiday season, and my own expense (the company would not cover that kind of thing). This was very much appreciated, and my team did not abuse it. We still get together, once a year (if possible), but these days, it's dutch.

The team stayed together and highly functional, for over 25 years. When they finally rolled it up, the engineer with the least tenure had ten years.

I'm fully expecting a deluge of fairly nasty and abusive posts about this, but that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Re: Toxic Positivity

#130

Post by kelseyfrog »

samhw wrote: post #120
Kaze404 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? That's a completely normal sentence. I don't understand what in particular triggered this rant full of strawmen.

I think you're illustrating that person's point. I'm a liberal, with-the-times person in a liberal, with-the-times city, and I cringe at the thought of ever uttering the words "invalidate someone's lived experience". Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I don't think it's a bad rule of writing to speak in simple, clear, plain words, not glutinous agglomerations of abstract verbiage which evoke n…

> Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean?

I'm assuming this is a genuine question, so I'll answer with my genuine understanding. Invalidating someone's lived experience is the process by which someone more or less says, "that didn't happen to you", or "your interpretation of events that happened to you is wrong." Before we start to find edge cases like "they clearly left the door unlocked and believed it to be locked," no that's not what invalidating lived experiences pertains to. Invalidating lived experience pertains to social knowledge and interpretations usually of harmful events. Or in other words, overwriting someone's framing of the harmful events that happened to them. Broad categories include, "no, that wasn't racism/sexism/bigotry that you experienced", or "no that really wasn't abusive." You might think of it as a certain kind of gaslighting.

Could there be a better name for it? Maybe? Signifiers are often detached from what they signify- it doesn't matter much to me at this point that this is the case. Let me be clear. I'm not here to discuss that this is or isn't a problem in discourse. Moving from, obtuse wording to, not-actually-a-problem is a kettle logic I don't wish to engage in.

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