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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?
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...
I agree with your post, but I also see where the OP is coming from.
I think it's mostly a process of infantilization. Corporations, states, media etc. behave towards the plebs more and more as if they were children. So yes, that means sometimes they will be extremely positive (you're a good kid!) and other times they will try to scare you (they're coming from you! you need our protection) or reprimand you (how dare you say that foo-ism, you disgusting bar-ist).
So I see OP as referring to the coddling, "nice" face that they adopt for well-behaved kids, which they (Cathedral people, not OP) probably would like to be the only face they have to adopt, because in their ideal world likely every pleb is a good child.
And it's not only about art styles, it's also about the language used and the patronizing, condescending or "overly cute" tone. For example, see the peppering of emojis in every online communication by many companies, states etc. Does anyone really need a finger pointing down to understand that "this image" refers, in fact, to the image shown below a post? To see the country flag after the name of the country? To see a snowflake after reading the word "winter"? (oh, babby understandy now, you mean time when it snowwy, thankies mommy!!) Etc.
An interesting exercise is to compare current textbooks to old textbooks. It's very salient in programming books. Most old programming books address the reader as if he were an intelligent, mature, adult person, even if they use jokes and puns sometimes; they show respect for the reader. Many current programming books try extremely hard to be "cute" and address the reader as a dumb, fragile baby. For example, compare Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs to Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good!. SICP is not dry at all, in fact it's quite friendly and full of jokes and puns. But it clearly respects the reader and expects him to be mature and intelligent. The second one is written as a children's book, but meant for adults. This may be an extreme example, but the trend is definitely there.
The thing is, it seems that many people like to be addressed as children. Maybe because it "absolves" you from responsibility, thinking and anything else but "wanting" and "not wanting", being happy, sad or angry? I don't know.
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