Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toxic positivity does more harm than good

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 296 posts

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#51

Post by andreygrehov »

There are at least two things that annoy the hell out of me:

1 Fake positivity

2 Co-workers that are "happy" to work during PTOs

The first one is described in the article. The second one is somewhat related to the first one or could even be the result of fake positivity. Working during a paid time off (PTO) is terrible for culture – makes your co-workers feel guilty if they won't spend a few hours at work during their PTO. I almost feel like an employee's access to Slack/E-mail should be restricted to read-only while they are on vacation.

If you are one of those two, stop kissing your manager's ass! Enjoy your vacation–forget about work.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#53

Post by cordite »

PointyFluff wrote: post #12
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #8

I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…

They should just dole out cryptocurrency every time they say that. The words would have meaning again.

Maybe a terrible idea, but it was inspired by the parent comment here..

Fork DogeCoin, when someone goes above and beyond, reward them more each week.

When they want, they can use dogecoin to do something like 20% time.

I'm just following on the satirical nature of the parent comment here, don't take this as a real suggestion.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#54

Post by mzan »

During reading the article, it was impossible not thinking to this famous Italian pop single:

https://youtu.be/jx8GhXm-HcA

" I'm out of the tunnel of amusement [...] we live on memories, gentleman, and games sincere embraces, kisses and fires of all those moments, sad and amusing and not on moments that were sadly amusing "

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#55

Post by inglor_cz »

arkitaip wrote: post #20
haunter wrote: post #11

Prime example is the current Cosmo row about putting obese models on cover ("This is healthy") while Covid is rampaging in the US and killing obese people https://www.rt.com/news/511466-cosmo-fat-healthy-covid-cover...

That's a terrible example and your biases are showing.

TBH saying that someone with BMI 30 is "healthy" is twisting the meaning of the word beyond recognition.

Is smoking healthy? Philip Morris would certainly like it if people believed that. Fortunately, they do not believe it anymore.

The false dichotomy of "either you hate fat people or you feed them positive bullshit" definitely looks like toxic positivity to me. No space for "your weight will likely cause you health problems down the line, here is how you can help it" there.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#56

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

malingo wrote: post #25
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #8

I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…

Do you mean "espoused" instead of "eschewed"?

Ah yeah, my bad.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#58

Post by blackearl »

haunter wrote: post #11

Prime example is the current Cosmo row about putting obese models on cover ("This is healthy") while Covid is rampaging in the US and killing obese people https://www.rt.com/news/511466-cosmo-fat-healthy-covid-cover...

It's funny that people got so mad about that cover because the article within is about how to be positive when going to the gym and doing the exercise that you're able to do. Not going "well I'm so fat already, hope is lost"

For all the fat hate, there are also the people who genuinely think that being obese is healthy. What better way to get through to those people than to trojan horse them with that controversial cover?

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#59

Post by [deleted] »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #8

I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…

[deleted]

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#60

Post by rimiform »

hntrader wrote: post #31
haunter wrote: post #11

Prime example is the current Cosmo row about putting obese models on cover ("This is healthy") while Covid is rampaging in the US and killing obese people https://www.rt.com/news/511466-cosmo-fat-healthy-covid-cover...

It's a bit different to the intended meaning of toxic positivity in the article, which is about dishonest cheerfulness. Maybe we need a different name for what you're describing. Promoting metabolic disease as healthy, when it's one of the leading causes of early mortality, is certainly some type of toxicity ...

Per the article: "Even the oppressive insistence that we should love our body, no matter what, can tip into upbeat intolerance by implying that it’s not OK to want to work on tummy folds or laugh lines."

It's certainly related.

Post reply on HN