Opinion: The problem with 'positivity culture'

The future is (not) bright: toxic positivity in a doomer world

It’s 2024, and the future looks grim. The world is on fire (literally), people are stealing doors from public bathrooms for some internet points, and your dream job in tech has taken your self-esteem and any hope of a career hostage. The game seems to be rigged from the start but the stakes are high. But hey, stay positive! If you aren’t projecting perfect, sunshine-filled happiness, are you even trying?

So here we are, stuck in a bit of a paradox. On one side, a generation of “doomers” is hell-bent on telling everyone how hopeless things are (thanks, Zoomers). On the other, toxic positivity keeps trying to “fix” the world with a hashtag and a wellness retreat.

…Right.

Doomer culture: the kids are all right, except they’re not

Spend five minutes on Twitter (now called X for some reason?) and you’ll see Gen Z and Gen Alpha doing what they do best: predicting the end of the world. I mean, what can I say? They’ve inherited a planet that’s boiling, a job market that treats them like a joke, and an economy where “getting by” feels out of reach. The generation before them gaslit them for years, and now they shake their heads and wait for it all to implode.

So of course they live in a permanent existential crisis. How could they not? The world keeps promising solutions that turn out to be slicked-up scams, and the people making decisions are old men who look like they’d send Morse code by clattering their loose dentures.

Take tech for one. The opportunities are endless! So are the fake job postings. Companies found the “FREE MONEY HACK” people have been talking about for ages: post listings for jobs that don’t exist and collect tax credits. A dystopian version of corporate charity. If you somehow land an interview, expect to be ghosted for weeks, then get a call at 3 pm from a blocked number on a Friday asking whether you have 5+ years of experience for an entry-level role. If they haven’t hung up on you by the third question, you’ll be the one who wants off the call. To make things worse, half the time the interviewers don’t even know what job they’re hiring for. They read off a script and pretend “What’s your greatest weakness?” is a real question to ask a grown adult.

I get it, doomers. It’s hard to stay optimistic in a system that seems built to make you fail. But this negativity, valid as it feels, builds a toxic echo chamber. If everyone is stuck in the “we’re doomed” spiral, how does anyone get out? The system may suck, but not trying to change it helps nobody.

Toxic positivity: “good vibes only” for the already privileged

At the other end sits “toxic positivity”. I mean, even the name feels contradictory: what do you even get when you combine something negative with something positive? Unfortunately the operator is multiplication. It’s everywhere too, waiting to tell you that a bit more “positive thinking” and some “good vibes hehe XD” will solve your problems.

Positivity itself is fine. I love positivity. I’d have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The problem is believing that if we all slap on a smile and repeat “everything will be okay,” the world will rearrange itself into something pristine. Pretending things are fine when they aren’t just makes them worse.

You’re struggling. I’m struggling. Little Timmy down the street is four and he’s struggling. Yet you’re supposed to act like you’re on a permanent vacation, crystal-clear water and sunset included. You can’t let anyone see that you’re stressed and lost, because people won’t care, or worse, they’ll use it against you. Every interaction gets scrutinized, and any sign of vulnerability counts as an admission of failure. So you bottle it up and keep the facade intact. You post filtered selfies that probably wouldn’t pass Face ID, and you pray your self-doubt doesn’t catch up.

When you have to act “fine” all the time, there’s no room to be real. Nobody gets to say “I’m struggling, and that’s okay.” You get an endless loop of “good vibes only :))” mantras that just feed the feeling that you’re not enough.

The echo chamber of negativity

This is where the doomers and the good-vibes crowd end up in the same place. Turns out two negatives don’t make a positive here. Each group sits in its own echo chamber and feeds its own worst instincts. Doomers trade memes about drowning in student debt and climate change. The positivity crowd trades hashtags about manifesting success.

Where does that end? The doomers’ fear grows when everyone around them shares it. The good-vibes crowd’s refusal to look at reality leaves everyone else feeling like they’re missing something, like maybe they’re the ones doing it wrong.

Both sides miss the point. The answer isn’t one or the other. It’s a messy, ugly “both.”

You’re struggling, I’m struggling, and that’s okay

Life isn’t going to be perfect. Positive thinking won’t change the fact that the system is broken, the job market is broken, and your social media posts aren’t fixing either. Everyone has bad stretches, and a lot of us feel like society was designed to make us fail.

So don’t pretend it’s sunshine and rainbows when it clearly isn’t. Let yourself feel the bad stuff. The belief that good vibes fix everything is toxic because it keeps us away from the root problems. You can’t heal if you won’t look at what’s wrong, and you can’t fix a system while you’re busy pretending it works.

Maybe we should take a page from Inside Out: the one where Sadness, Anger, and Fear turn out to matter as much as Joy. Each of them has a job in how we deal with the world.

Final thoughts: authenticity over positivity

So what’s the fix? Stop pretending. If you’re struggling, say so. Your emotions are part of being human, so stop trying to patch them like bugs. Honesty is the best tool we have for getting through this godforsaken world. It won’t change the world overnight, but it might leave us better equipped to survive it.

And no, that doesn’t mean everything will be okay. Even with this “solution,” there’s no guarantee of a happy ending. That’s life.