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

Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

glamourmagazine.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–79 of 79 posts

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#71

Post by robocat »

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.

It always feels like religious preaching to me - a sort of belief you are supposed to have and that seems to be proselytised mostly by American people, songs, wall art etc.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#72

Post by pickle-wizard »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #48
pickle-wizard wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#73

Post by DoreenMichele »

pickle-wizard wrote: post #72
DoreenMichele wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#74

Post by noxToken »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #42
pickle-wizard wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I sometimes feel that way too. I suspect there's a deeper lesson about what we permit to be the bases for our self-esteems, and what we see as our proper calling in life.

I feel this way too. I have a colleague who graduated a semester or two after I did. He currently makes a bit more money than I do, and every so often, I wonder if I'm doing it right.

Then I consider the conversations that we have. He's always having to learn something new (not exploratory learn, but forced to learn due to someone with clout shoehorning some ill-fitting tech into the project) or rewrite a steaming pile of crap left by someone who thought they had all the answers. He works with greener tools and tech stacks, and sometimes he gets to write kick ass proofs-of-concept. Yet he always feels like it's time to look for another job after about a year.

I have a stable job where I'm appreciated. It's not perfect. I absolutely have my complaints, but I know that a fair share of those complaints are shallow gripes. My tech stack is a bit more mature, but it's modern enough that I can keep pace in discussion. I put in my 40 hours, and I'm done. I put in time for vacation, and management just says, "Alright, have fun."

When I stop to think about our ever diverging career paths, I always realize that his career is not the type that I want.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#75

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kaycebasques wrote: post #14
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.

Granted, it would have been powerful if the author had called out (or was allowed to call out) Glamour's hypocrisy on this matter, but I think the fact that they're talking about the topic at all is a step in the right direction.

It is not wise to bite the hand that is currently feeding you. And I don't mean paying the author - I mean running your article. If Vogue will run it, let the reader notice the irony. If you call it out explicitly, Vogue (probably) won't run it. If you actually believe what you're saying, that's kind of counterproductive.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#76

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #26
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.

As a blue-collar worker, you could complain to the people around you... but your boss probably couldn't. As you move into management or into the white-collar world (either one), you can still complain, but your complaining will be taken more seriously, so you can't just blow of steam any longer. You have to complain, quietly (and rarely), to the people who can actually change things, and preferably with both a reason for them to make the change, and a suggestion of how to do so. It's a cultural shift.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#77

Post by 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

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#78

Post by PavlovsCat »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #26
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.

> 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...

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#79

Post by dsfyu404ed »

munificent wrote: post #55
erulabs wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not entirely requiring your life to be together, any significantly tough outdoors activity tends to get an interesting group. Local search and rescue volunteer hiking groups, for example, tends to be a weird mix of geology teachers, ex-marines and firefighters, and nerdy hiker types.

I was absolutely going to guess search and rescue.

You're both close. Rock crawling.
Post reply on HN