hey, fuck off, viral nonspecific affirmation!!!

[cimorene]

The thing is, faceless affirmations always say stuff like "You will make it through this!" and even if it makes sense in SELF-TALK to say "I will make it through this", this depends on the situation, and this affirmation is tossed out into the world with no address, destined to meet a bunch of people it's not true for, but it doesn't care. And we know it's not always true and that its creator knew this, because people don't always make it through this, which doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence in their judgment and expertise: it's become completely void of reassuring power (not completely meaningless, though, because it still has enough YIKES implications to offend me).

I mean, I've seen people saying "we'll make it through" the pandemic, which is true of humanity as a whole but ignores the fact that the ENTIRE PROBLEM is literally that we all know many people are not making it through the pandemic. There are potentially reassuring or at least calming things to be said, even about pandemics, that aren't offensively and blithely untrue, but that isn't one of them.

And if it's just a rebloggable post with no context, then yeah, it's addressing plenty of people whose worry is the pandemic (because duh) and all kinds of other situations that it can't be true of. I imagine someone might say "Oh but it's not for THOSE people, that's not who it's talking to," but... those are potentially the people who need comfort the most and they can still see it, it doesn't SAY it's not for them, and then they're getting a slap in the face instead of an affirmation from you? Classy.

Comments

[vass]

Yeah, I've been having similar thoughts. "We'll get through this, and we'll do it by looking after each other and following guidelines, and if you do all that and are unlucky and die anyway, then you're not "we", are you?"

[cimorene]

Not to mention the whole class of ones that are unintentionally insulting by saying stuff about how you can "take it" or find extra strength or energy or whatever, because obviously what people who definitely are out of strength or energy already need is the idea that they're evidently so much of a failure even a schmaltzy generalized affirmation can't imagine their existence.

[james]

I like "if we as a species don't make it, the octopuses will take over and do a better job" is comforting. :-D

[cimorene]

Sometimes black humor is the only absolutely guaranteed mood lifter.