This is long, skip if you don’t care, but RE: BW’s “toxic optimism” from quite a few discussions ago:
I’ve been thinking about it and I’m questioning the claim that Bianca is positive in a harmful way.
I think it’s important to contextualize her positivity. She has a severely debilitating illness, one with which she was diagnosed at like what, 26—a particularly young age to have to sit down and contemplate what her life will look like from then on? (That 20-some-year old life she lives while everyone raves that your 20’s are the “funnest, most care-free years of your life”?) She was diagnosed with an illness that stole her speech for a few years because, as she says in that first IG video about having MS, she didn’t know how to properly discuss it with others because she didn’t feel prepared enough in her own heart and mind to address even herself. I think her positivity keeps her afloat in the midst of something most of us don’t understand, something we can’t claim to know how to deal with if we were in her shoes because we aren’t in her shoes.
Toxic positivity is know to stifle someone’s ability to empathize, which therefore stifles the voices of others with whom they engage who are trying to convey to them troublesome emotions. From what we’ve seen from Bianca’s comment sections, particularly on that MS video—she’s capable of empathizing. She’s capable of expressing her sorrow for those who identify, either through themselves or through others, the infamously intense struggle with MS, or other maladies. She says sorry. She says it must be so difficult for them. She’s allowing those commenters the space to feel their grief. Sure, she ends on a positive note, a well wish or something…but that’s not toxic positivity. That’s politeness, kindness, and basic, harmless optimism.
You know, I liken it to walking on a road. (Dumb metaphor coming!
) You’re skipping along on a road that’s scattered here and there with rather deep, rocky holes. Healthy optimism means you stumble and fall into each one, lying in there for a bit—but then you stand up, evaluate your wounds, brush yourself off, and climb out of the ditch and keep skipping along. Toxic positivity is approaching a hole and leaping clean over it. No falling, no stumbling, you just jump it. You do this again and again and again, just jumping far over these ruts, thinking you’re doing such a good job of staying on-track, but you eventually find yourself getting increasingly tired. Nonetheless, you keep jumping over these holes as they come, one after another, until you burn out and you can’t jump far enough past a hole, and so you fall into it, and you’re so exhausted that you just lie in there for a long time.
I can’t and won’t believe that Bianca doesn’t have hard times spent in a hole. She definitely does. We know she does because she described her struggles with MS and their emotional toll in that IG video. And I dont think she posted that MS video to say, “Look!! My life is hard!! I’m breaking my optimism streak with this video!!” but with just another note of optimism: “Live your best life.” That message just happened to blossom from a negative experience. Like everyone, she has bad days. And I think what makes people shout “toxic positivity!” is the fact that we don’t actually
see evidence of those bad days. I understand that. But it doesn’t matter what we see and don’t see—it matters what
she sees, and she sees.
And it’s also important to remember that people aren't necessarily their social media profiles. They’re at liberty to post any content they see fit, including content that uplifts them. Our profiles don’t have to simply be a reflection of our current life, values, and ideas, but can also serve as a goals/aspirations list, or a space of mindfulness/healthy reminders, or a space of healing. To Bianca, that mindfulness and healing apparently look like prevailing optimism, which we’re prone to deem “toxic” simply because we don’t witness her real-life days of sorrow, disappointment, fear, and frustration. She chooses not to show us that, and while I think we tend to insist on everyone displaying their every genuine emotion on social media, positive or negative or neutral…they aren’t obligated to. And I think it’s hard to accept that without feeling like positivity is being “forced” onto us, when that kind of isn’t happening.
Idk, she just doesn’t strike me as “fake” due to “toxic silver linings.” She strikes me as someone who struggles in the ways we do but decides to publicly prioritize for herself the joy, gratitude, and excitement that she hopes will stay with her throughout her life battles. And I hope that, over time, more people learn to acknowledge that this is entirely OK, that this doesn’t bear harmful undertones. Her ass be fallin into ditches just like yours or mine but she just chooses to celebrate the good parts of the walk.
My opinion could change—if I could write that under (almost) every post I make here, I would. What I feel is what I’ve been feeling or what I feel in this moment. She could do something at some point that makes me think, “Well, that’s a bit excessive,” and maybe I’ll need to revise my thoughts to represent a more truthful reality, as so many people here have the intellect and thoughtfulness and diligence to do when they deem necessary. But right now, I’m comfortable residing in this place.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk, please don’t aim your tomatoes at my hair, I just washed it, and remember to take your beers as you file out.
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