As a New Yorker, cynicism and sarcasm are baked into my every day being. And I think it’s healthy to have a certain level of distrust, especially when it comes to systems that have long been held in place to benefit certain folks.
There’s a difference between acknowledging cynicism and leaning into it, though. And I feel like maybe as a society, we lean into negative energy a little too much. I don’t consider myself much of a “woo woo” type of person, but I do think that you have to be a very special human to be positive or hopeful when you’re surrounded by negativity. A lot of the work I’ve been doing on myself these last few years has been centered around eliminating some of that negative energy where and when I can.
Internet discourse and media are responsible for many of the clouds of negativity and division that circle society right now. Conflict gets clicks, and beef sells (isn’t the #1 record in the country right now Meg’s diss record about Nicki?) That doesn’t mean we have to engage with the conflict and beef, though. So maybe we create a world for ourselves where we’re not putting this stuff in our system as much, where we’re not getting into flame wars in comment sections, where we take the energy we’d use to dunk on people and lift people up instead. Does this mean that we paint ourselves beige and disengage from any situations (IRL or virtual) in which we’re presented with conflict and we’re strong in our opinions? Absolutely not? We should all be vocal about things that—for the good of humanity—we should be vocal about, whether that’s trans rights or racial equality or voting in this presidential election (for Joe Biden, in case you have any question about where my politics lay) or a ceasefire in the Middle East. Like, that’s our responsibility as humans with voices.
So is realizing that some people are so fucking miserable that they have nothing better to do than criticize everything others enjoy or bully others from a YouTube or Reddit screen name. Those people aren’t worth engaging with, trust me.
It’s been a weird tap dance for me, as someone who likes to consume a lot of media (and for a lengthy period of time was a member of the media) and also as someone who feels like sometimes they have to scream twice as loud to be heard half as much (although these days, I’m not feeling that as much). I don’t read most music criticism these days because it’s almost uniformly negative. I limit my news intake and try to leave it to NPR and the BBC. I don’t engage with people I was once close to who are energy drains (certain family members factor heavily here). While I do love my true crime stories and Steve Wilkos, I’ve pulled back on a lot of that as well. I definitely don’t engage idiots on the internet anymore. Didn’t Jay-Z (who ironically is causing a lot of tongues on the internet to wag these days) say something to the effect of “never argue with a fool, because from a distance, people can’t tell who’s who”?
Choosing your battles and protecting your peace are super important.