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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3012 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 1, 2023

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I have a question that could turn into a culture war topic but I need some kind of sanity check before I flesh it out further:

Does anyone else feel as though, even as the general populace becomes less and less optimistic, the mainstream narrative has nonetheless converged on a message of unrelenting positivity?

It is hard to describe, but the best examples of what I'm talking about that spring to mind are The Rise of the "Corporate Memphis" art style and the seeming ubiquity of beauty filters as a default feature in smartphones.

Or in the way Youtube video comments have turned from a cesspit of trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls to basically a competition for who can heap the most bombastically hyperbolic praise on the subject video.

The common thread is that these techniques/styles end up minimizing the appearance of 'flaws' and 'ugliness' whilst also idealizing the subjects it examines so as to avoid... I don't know. Offense? Critique? Any possible negative emotional valence? Where before there might be depiction of ugliness as ugliness or actual examination of social and personal flaws in a way that risks causing offense, where before there were art styles that embraced ugliness (while still being aesthetic) and Cartoons like Ren and Stimpy could use unpleasant visuals for comedic effect now it seems like most products are produced with the intent of avoiding any unpleasant sensations on the viewer's part.

And this now seems to apply to every single product of modern culture, aside from some decrepit/degenerate corners of the internet. "Good vibes only" seems to be the accepted norm... with the exception of certain acceptable targets who may be used as punching bags.

I'm not even getting into possible causes, I'm literally just trying to see if this is an actual, noticeable phenomenon.

Have you felt as though mainstream/corporate-produced culture has reached increasing heights of 'toxic positivity' even as your own outlook on the state of the world has degraded?

the mainstream narrative has nonetheless converged on a message of unrelenting positivity?

You mean the same narrative that tells us that

  • We live in a culture that systemically oppresses everyone who is not a white heterosexual male

  • Literally any person around us can be a hidden hateful bigot and we must be eternally vigilant to every word and action in case they slip and reveal themselves, and we can not let slide any offensive word, even if they were said by accident and without intent to offend, because it is worse than physical violence

  • Academic campuses and pretty much all major companies are permeated by rape culture and any woman can be - and often are - sexually assaulted at any moment there

  • Police are prowling all major cities looking for non-white people to kill for no reason at all

  • We are destroying our environment and the only way to avoid it is either massive depopulation or massive drop in the quality of life

  • At least half of the country are insane illiterate bigots who dream about murdering and enslaving anybody who does not look like them, and instituting a fascist dictatorship

  • We cannot ever show our faces in public ever again for the fear of dying in horrible agony

  • Convincing people to kill themselves is a viable solution to the problem of rationing medical care (and maybe other resource problems too) - this is only in some countries, but wait a bit

  • You can't eat a steak without feeling very guilty and you better learn to eat mealworms and crickets instead

  • Everything that exists around us was stolen from somebody, built by racists or enslaved people and every child that is born is born into the original sin and owes huge sums for that just for the fact of their birth into a wrong race

  • Internet is brimming with "misinformation" and only strict government-guided censorship can give us hope for the democracy to survive

That doesn't sound like a message of unrelenting positivity to me...

That's what certain parts of the media are portraying, but notice the point that each of these is usually couched against some 'valid' target of ire, so there's always an outgroup to blame for the problem.

And the positivity tends to come from the general corporate/commercial messaging around a topic which simply frames any and every possible situation in the lightest way possible.

Let me zero in on a couple:

You can't eat a steak without feeling very guilty and you better learn to eat mealworms and crickets instead

This is often couched as "guess what! You can make an easy impact against climate change JUST by eating bugs!" as a positive, progressive viewpoint.

Convincing people to kill themselves is a viable solution to the problem of rationing medical care (and maybe other resource problems too)

There's a recent development of, again, framing this whole things as a positive in the marketing!!! This is what I mean! Rather than viewing the end of a human life as a generally tragic, possibly grim affair that should be viewed as a negative (discounting the afterlife). look at that fucking commercial portraying it as a beautiful event!

When did we hit the point where euthanasia was couched as a 'beautiful' thing rather than the ugly (sometimes) necessity that we try to avoid?

And likewise, can you find any corporation outside of the news media that allows any level of honesty, critique, or possible offense of any particular group in their corporate messaging?

If the group offended is not "woke people", then yes, easily. E.g. I have seen corporation sponsor "family friendly drag queen shows" (and publicly brag about it) - I'm pretty sure it is offensive to many people. It's just not the people that the Right Thinking People would care about offending.

But you don't see them sponsoring a Family Friendly Drag Queen show and depicting opponents to such a show as bigots.

Basically, they refuse to acknowledge that there's any negative side to it, and don't aim criticisms at any group. It's not their intent to offend, and part of that is to make it as annoyingly positive as possible.

Oh yes they do. Maybe not with drag queen shows (I can't say as I haven't witnessed specific communications to that effect) but certainly with other things. Example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2021/03/31/georgia-election-law-delta-ceo-calls-new-voting-rules-unacceptable/4823216001/

I think it's pretty offensive for anyone who supported the law (2/3 of voters by some polls) but somehow Delta - and many other companies - do not care. They think they are too big to fail anyway, so offending somebody who does not hold the power (and these aren't consumers anymore in the American system, not for a long time - it's those who control government budgets and subsidies) is completely fine.

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