Toxic Positivity - Glurge, sugary lies, and other nastiness

[Aero the Alcoholic Bat]

This subject has been weighing on my mind lately. Toxic positivity, and the (sometimes retarded) overcorrection to it.

You know, those who try too hard to be positive, to the point it comes across as tasting like diabetes.

Like childrens' shows that were overly sugary, to the point that even those in elementary school would never admit to liking them, oftentimes even singing violent parodies about horrible things happening to the characters. Barney the Dinosaur comes to mind, as does Care Bears. Mr Rogers often gets unfairly lumped in with those.

I remember watching edgy Newgrounds animations and photoshopped memes/parodies of these properties, made by edgy teens who were trying too hard. Or YouTube videos of toys/plushies being subjected to various tortures like getting set on fire, blown up with fireworks, or shot with handguns. But I digress.

Various cartoons, even intended for "adults," frequently have the tone of cartoons intended for younger audiences these days, which is particularly jarring. Many of which are "safe edgy."

Which leads me to my next example: cartoons like Blobby and Friends, or political YouTube channels like Noncompete or Tho[ugh]t Slime. All of which have a childish art style or tone, but have strong language and are intended for adults.

Or, worst yet, LGBTQP groomers like Lindsay Amer, Guillaume Labelle, or Jeffrey Marsh, who, of course, each utilize a very childlike, sugary asthetic, along with their usual propaganda about how sexual degeneracy is good, actually.

So, anything else? Random musings, personal observations? Is it fair to be leery or scornful of anything that radiates positivity, is overly colorful, even if it's apolitical? Or even musings about overcorrection into edgelord-ness, or even trying to combine toxic positivity with edgy stuff, safe-edgy?

I know I'm rambling, but I think the subject deserves its own thread.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

Here's the quintessential commentary on toxic positivity:

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

I don't think you're rambling. Our society right now is basically obsessed with everything having a soft edge right now. Everything has to be "nice."

 

[NerdShamer]

Here's the thing: The internet is largely inhabited by sjws, manchildren, retards, and so on. It's an retarded move not to shift your marketing strategy towards this crowd?

 

[Idiotron]

I'm not sure you're using the correct phrase here.
"Toxic positivity" has more to do with the discourse surrounding products, not the products themselves.
Like people saying TLJ is amazing and MCU phase 4 is amazing Mass Effect Andromeda is amazing and everything is great and get excited for next product.... that's toxic positivity.

What you're talking about is a thing but that has another name that escapes me right now.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

 

[Some Dumb Faggot]

I don't think you're rambling. Our society right now is basically obsessed with everything having a soft edge right now. Everything has to be "nice."

The issue is that people have gotten so weak that they now want to avoid any pain or discomfort.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

I can't understand how adverse people are to anger. Is it unpleasant? Of course. But we wouldn't get angry if there wasn't some advantage to it. I love to be mad! Fury can be cathartic in moderation and righteous fury is the ember that stokes the flame in the hearts of men. Anger is power! Get mad!

The world wouldn't be in the situation we're in if everyone could just get angry again. Now we live in a world with no conviction, no drive. Sad!

 

[Ultrapenguin]

I'm pretty sure stuff like Barney was meant for more like pre-k or kindergarten; of course kids in elementary school will make fun of it, because then everyone knows they're too cool and mature for that stuff.

Meanwhile the one time they tried to have the wicked witch from Wizard Of Oz guest star on Sesame Street, and they had to pull the episode because small children are kind of pussies and they found her way too scary.

I can't really blame them for playing it safe; I'm not sure what kind of material anyone expects them to put in these shows, there are a lot of exceptionally dumb and sensitive children, and a lot of very whiny parents.
Keep in mind the cancel happy harpies we have today aren't a new invention, they existed back then too and were poised to get together and bombard a station with angry calls at the first hint of objectionable material, and journalists would help just like they will today.

This is just how products produced for a mass audience are, they're designed around the intelligence and sensibilities of the lowest common denominator.

I can't understand how adverse people are to anger. Is it unpleasant? Of course. But we wouldn't get angry if there wasn't some advantage to it. I love to be mad! Fury can be cathartic in moderation and righteous fury is the ember that stokes the flame in the hearts of men. Anger is power! Get mad!

The world wouldn't be in the situation we're in if everyone could just get angry again. Now we live in a world with no conviction, no drive. Sad!

Most people's lives these days are very socially tenuous, and it's easier than ever to abandon or exclude anyone who you don't get along with perfectly.

I think that's made everyone very sensitive to social disagreement. Or at least direct confrontation, nowadays everyone's passive aggressive instead.

 

[Anonitolia]

What you're talking about is a thing but that has another name that escapes me right now.

Agreeing with this guy, I don't think what you're describing is toxic positivity. At least to me, toxic positivity has always been the way that Twitter or tumblr users talk. You know, with how they always try to put on this really cute and sweet "uwu I'm a soft boi" face and spaz out to look endearing when in reality they're vicious degenerates who hate everyone around them for not being as perfect as they are but hide that fact so they can manipulate people.

I think you're just describing sickly-sweet, overly-saccharine stuff. It's not nearly as actively malicious so it's not really "toxic", but I agree with the fact that it's way too much and helps nobody.
Then again,

I'm pretty sure stuff like Barney was meant for more like pre-k or kindergarten; of course kids in elementary school will make fun of it, because then everyone knows they're too cool and mature for that stuff.

this is also true. The examples you gave are kind of shitty- they're all shows meant for 4 year olds at the absolute oldest. Of course elementary school kids would make fun of them- it's the same reason teenagers make fun of and disown anything from when they were like 8 or 10. And toddlers are generally way more sensitive than 1st graders, so their shows are obviously more saccharine.

If it wasn't shows for literal kindergartners, what you brought up were examples of teenagers destroying what they watched when they were little. I think people keep forgetting this since Newgrounds has been irrelevant for decades (and everyone who was prominent when it wasn't is now middle-aged), but the vast majority of users on there were teenagers or very young adults... the exact same demographic that's stereotypically edgy and known for loudly renouncing things from their past for social validation.
And during the 2000s, an era in which edginess on the internet reigned supreme above all else, a public demolition of what you watched when you were little would be met with resounding praise and acceptance. Same reason lots of the insane social-justice shit going on right now in that same demographic is so prominent.

Various cartoons, even intended for "adults," frequently have the tone of cartoons intended for younger audiences these days, which is particularly jarring. Many of which are "safe edgy."

Which leads me to my next example: cartoons like Blobby and Friends, or political YouTube channels like Noncompete or Tho[ugh]t Slime. All of which have a childish art style or tone, but have strong language and are intended for adults.

Or, worst yet, LGBTQP groomers like Lindsay Amer, Guillaume Labelle, or Jeffrey Marsh, who, of course, each utilize a very childlike, sugary asthetic, along with their usual propaganda about how sexual degeneracy is good, actually.

This is something else entirely, but I definitely think it fits and deserves a thread/to be discussed in this one. It's a very weird phenomenon that I swear is hearkening back to the 80s, just in all the worst ways.
It's got the same zombified ignorance of the actual world around it in favor of a "utopia" defined solely by the hollywood elite,
that same edgeless tone that ends up either being very creepy or very annoying (or both!)- with the only difference in this new stuff being that it still tries to be "edgy" and "meta" and "subversive", but it's had its edges sanded off for so long now that it's forgotten how to actually do those things and ends up being extremely mild (but still reminiscent of what it's trying to achieve) to please crowds-
and dissent against it is shut down, either as "un-american" or "-ist", as well as actively discouraged by outlets like newspapers or the government.

I don't know why this has reoccurred, but the infantilization of most adults today might have to do with it. They want something reminiscent of their childhoods- which was filled with edgy 90s subversion and/or edgy 2000s everything- while simultaneously being as smooth as their brains so that they don't get scared or have a panic attack. It's the same reason everything is so bent on nostalgia-pandering now, too.
The rise of moral absolutism and constant signalling of your virtue as an ideal personality has also contributed, the same way that unhealthy patriotism skyrocketed in response to the Soviets being the Soviets and fucking up everything around them just by existing, and since companies are trying to pander to the masses that I just described (who want edgeless familiarity over all else) they put in a lot of signalling to make sure that people can look virtuous for consuming their product and think the company is virtuous by proxy (especially in an age where everyone hates corporations by default).

 

[Illumithotty]

Sure, it's from gawker but it's still a strong condemnation of smarm.

 

[Aero the Alcoholic Bat]

I think you're just describing sickly-sweet, overly-saccharine stuff. It's not nearly as actively malicious so it's not really "toxic", but I agree with the fact that it's way too much and helps nobody.

I lumped the two together because I thought the two had enough overlap to talk about in the same thread.

 

[Anonitolia]

I lumped the two together because I thought the two had enough overlap to talk about in the same thread.

Fair enough, and I won't disagree

 

[Troon Destroyer]

It's only a First World issue: you Westies are just too rich and comfortable, an incredibly minor problem sends you into a fit of tard rage and suicide baiting, so you flood everything with saccharine and pretend that it will get you through.
Also this and edgy defeatist faggotry are two flavours of the same shit.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

The issue is that people have gotten so weak that they now want to avoid any pain or discomfort.

Not only that, they feel that they have a right to avoid any pain or discomfort and that pain and discomfort is a violation of their rights.

 

[Aero the Alcoholic Bat]

Not only that, they feel that they have a right to avoid any pain or discomfort and that pain and discomfort is a violation of their rights.

I guess that's the main reason why I brought up Barney the Dinosaur and Care Bears in this thread, despite seemingly being tenuously related to the subject of toxic positivity, those who insist everything is fine when it isn't, or those who mask their horrific worldview/ideology in a mask of positivity and sparkles. Such media plays a role, even early in childhood, of rotting your brain:

Perhaps the most insightful criticism regarding Barney is that his shows do not assist children in learning to deal with negative feelings and emotions. As one commentator puts it, the real danger from Barney is "denial: the refusal to recognize the existence of unpleasant realities. For along with his steady diet of giggles and unconditional love, Barney offers our children a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy and everything must be resolved right away." Chala Willig Levy, The Bad News About Barney, Parents, Feb. 1994,

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I thought it will be like people going way too optimistic and positive, usually to make their partner happy, which is sadly what happened to a family member. To the point it's obvious they are faking.

In the cultural political sense, we are in Brave New World territory where a good chunk of the population emotionally regressed back to the age of 8 (while a bigger chunk never went past the age of 13 and stick with senseless cynicism and nihilism, like the average Redditor).

Both are the result of people never experiencing true hardship and need. And instead living in a simple make believe world.

 

[AgendaPoster]

These forums are full of toxic positivity too. It's called "do not politisperg" so fragile people don't get stressed by following their lolcow enjoying to its natural and logic conclusions.

 

[The Cunting Death]

Does this include "Insincere Positivity"? where you're acting nice but you're really full of shit and don't mean it.

 

[The Hardest R]

Nice thread necro lol

The one instance of toxic positivity that irritates me is the comic of some faggot who is okay with his bike being stolen because the thief wanted it more than he did.