Social Media: The Epicenter and Hub of Toxic Positivity
Advice that isn’t rooted in reality but still garners the attention and adoration of gullible netizens.
I recently came across a video posted by a Bollywood actor on his Facebook page to inspire people to fitness and health.
“Nature is a gym. Membership is free.”, read the caption of the post.
In the video however, the actor can be seen using the grounds of what appears to be a swanky resort in the mountains with manicured lawns, cobblestoned pathways, well laid stairs, and classy park benches to complete his workout regimen: Jogging, high knees, various push up variations, and tricep dips. His followers were all over the comments complimenting him on his various achievements and thanking him for giving them new fitness goals.
But enough with the feel-good theatrics. Let’s get to the meat of the issue. Since when is the ground of a well maintained resort called “nature”? This isn’t nature. It is a subversion of nature for the purpose of monetary gain which only a select few like the actor in the video can afford, access, and benefit from.
Let’s get real. How many people in India have access to such facilities to do such workouts every day? Nature isn’t free, at least for city people. If you run or do workouts at a park inside the city, then that is a public service that you happen to live in close proximity to. If you, like the actor in the video, use the grounds of a resort to do such workouts while on holiday, then you’ve already paid for the service in the resort package, isn’t it?
I’m not categorically claiming that nature isn’t free. Nature used to be free…..once upon a time. A time when we hadn’t maxed out all our open spaces in the city by converting them into residential and commercial units for money. The concrete jungle has eaten up whatever open spaces we had left. Take a look at any major Indian city. How many Indians live in close proximity to a park, a lake, a public playground, or a running track? Maybe like what, 5%?…or even 1%? How many cities even have such open spaces for residents to go and do their daily workouts? A very paltry few I’m assuming.
We did not become the most populated country in the world by allowing our parks and playgrounds to survive the onslaught of overpopulation. However, people still aren’t willing to let go off age old myths and beliefs that hold absolutely no water today. Parks used to be our gyms. Playgrounds used to be our training grounds. There were open spaces everywhere. Sadly, there just aren’t enough of them around for the age old expression “nature is my gym” to hold true anymore. Ironically, there are gyms everywhere in the city, but ‘nature’ found either only on the outskirts, or in bits and pieces around the city.
There are thousands of athletic and sportive people desperately looking for a place to train and exercise everyday. When you film an inspirational workout video inside a swanky resort, call nature your gym, and claim that it is free, it comes as a scathing reminder to fitness enthusiasts that they have to struggle, work extremely hard in life, and hustle for years together before they can be able to afford to train in such high class facilities like you.
The next post of toxic positivity that I came across was one that consisted of two pictures of Elon Musk in different scenarios put together in a single frame:
The one on the top showed him sitting in front of a windows 95 PC smiling for the camera, and the second one on the bottom puts him at the launch event of the Tesla Cybertruck. The text on the upper half read “Two things define you: Your patience when you have nothing”, and the text on the lower half read, “Your attitude when you have everything.”
However, netizens weren’t gullible enough to fall for the tricks of the internet this time, and some of them were quick to point out that Elon did not need to have any “patience for nothing”, because he infact, always did have everything:
I came across a few more posts of toxic positivity as the algorithm followed my video watching patterns. All these posts compelled me to ask just one question.
Why do such misleading statements, toxic positivity, and lies abound on social media?
Pages spreading such toxic positivity have thousands of followers, likes, and shares. I know one of the reasons is to keep gullible people believing in the illusion of the system. That they will somehow “make it” one day. But outrightly lying to them about how a famous personality made it big in life solely through patience, hard work, and dedication, when he was graciously funded by his parents through and through is the height of deception and dishonesty.
“Too much positivity is toxic because it can harm people who are going through difficult times. Rather than being able to share genuine human emotions and gain unconditional support, people who are faced with toxic positivity find their feelings dismissed, ignored, or outright invalidated.”
These social media charlatans are well aware that ordinary people seldom fact-check the truthfullness of such statements and will blindly believe anything that sounds remotely positive. They know that people don’t have the time to verify the authenticity of each and every single post, and so graciously take advantage of their naivete. What this does is it portrays a false and inaccurate version of success.
I’m not saying someone out there didn’t climb the ladder with the heaviest bags on their shoulders. They are true inspirations and their stories must be told. But portraying certain individuals who didn’t come from such backgrounds in the same light only misrepresents reality and spreads toxic positivity, causing gullible people to chase a fake idea of success all through their lives.
