It's Time to Talk About Toxic Positivity and Hustle Culture

If anything plagues social media it is the toxic combo of hustle culture and toxic positivity. The message of keep working towards your goals with a smile on your face until you drop thrives under the influencing world and influencers are the biggest culprits when it comes to projecting this message through their “inspirational” posts.

Influencers Capitalising off Toxic Positivity and Hustle Culture 

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If you are following hustle or positivity gurus to replicate their success, or to feel some positive vibes, or both, you are looking in the wrong place. Instead of showing how they grew as a person to get from A to B, an influencer’s “inspirational” content consists of flexing and promoting either their own products or a product from a sponsorship deal. They pretend that they are adding value to people's lives by “inspiring” and “motivating” others to achieve their dreams, but really it is just deceptive marketing. Jose’s video “The Daily Routine of a 24-year-old CEO” is the perfect example of a fake inspirational video. A huge indicator that videos like these are disingenuous is that they are riddled with clichés. Saying “inspirational” things like “I do today what others aren’t willing to do, so I can do tomorrow what they can’t” actually makes people feel like if they aren’t grinding every day, then they are not ahead of the game, and if they aren’t ahead, they’ll fail. Immediately he plugs his brand by saying he wakes up at 5 am and drinks his essential muscle tea to get a head start to the day. Jose teaches us that waking up in an expensive apartment, showering, eating breakfast, answering a couple of emails, going to the gym, driving around in a lambo, getting a cocktail, and then going to bed is the key to becoming a successful CEO. This information is just as useful and inspiring as Jake Paul’s “Financial Freedom Movement” online classes where he preached how much school sucks, how people should quit their jobs to start a YouTube channel, and vowed to teach paying users the formula to success. Spoiler alert. It was a scam. Toxic positivity hides under the guise of positivity to trick people into making the creator richer. Influencers will literally sell you shakes that are laxatives claiming that they are weight loss miracle drinks, even though they haven’t tried the product, and if you experience bad side effects, the toxic positivity they promote will tell you to keep going, smile through the pain, it means that it’s working, don’t give up and keep grinding. I’ve seen countless influencers capitalising off this toxic hustle and positivity culture by promoting products like pills, claiming that it has increased their productivity and has helped them become the ultimate “Boss Babe”.

The Effects of Toxic Positivity and Hustle Culture

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How many times have we seen the words “Good Vibes Only”? I know I have seen it more than I can count from neon signs to social media posts. Although the message appears to be positive and harmless, living by this principle is toxic. Traces of toxic positivity and hustle culture may be easy to spot in disingenuous inspirational videos like the one I previously mentioned but this toxicity can hide just as well as it can reveal itself. “Good Vibes Only” is one of many subtle toxic positivity messages and that’s the dangerous thing about this type of culture we have developed. Being exposed to this toxicity often enough will lead us to believe that anything other than good vibes is to be avoided or is bad.

Of course, there are benefits to feeling gratitude and it is a good thing, but when it turns into a way in which we delude ourselves into thinking that we are always happy and to ignore any emotions we consider as “negative”, it is extremely unhealthy. We must allow ourselves to process every emotion because if we do not we are denying the reality that it is what makes us human. If we do not acknowledge and address our feelings, they will resurface and come back uglier. When we are no longer able to work like a robot, a feeling of guilt and shame can overtake us, which can lead to feelings of worthlessness. When I reached my burnout stage during my Master’s Degree after months of neglecting sleep, terrible eating patterns, and social isolation, I remember asking myself what’s wrong with me? Toxic positivity and hustle culture really had me thinking that my body warning me that it needed rest was unnatural and that the unhealthy habits brought on by “hustling” and “positivity” were necessary. Don’t listen to the hustle myth that giving yourself a break means that you are wasting time when you could be doing something productive instead. Rest is actually productive. Forcing yourself to work for the sake of recording more hours worked means that the productivity and quality of your work will suffer. Coming back to our work with a fresh pair of eyes and feeling energised can help us to see things that we didn’t see before or think of new ideas. When we give ourselves a break, we can actually appreciate our work and be proud of it.

Being able to hustle constantly is an impossible task. If you were to bite off more than you can chew or work constantly throughout the day, you are eventually going to plummet. The World Health Organization even recognized burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” where the stresses of the workplace have an impact on people’s physical and mental health. An extreme example of the consequences of over-work can be found in Japan. There is such an extreme culture of over-work that the Japanese even have a name for it, karoshi, which translates to "death by overwork”. It is common to see people sleeping on the floor in train stations and there have been cases where people have dropped dead. 

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The toxic positivity and hustle related content influencers put out to the world are dangerous because people will end up measuring their self-worth by how productive they are. Your hustle is not your identity. Remember that. We are humans, not machines. The words I heard in Sunny Lenarduzzi’s video were the words that I needed to hear to detoxify. She revealed how her work ethic became her identity “I only felt worthy when I was productive/doing things”, and how she felt like the only happiness she got was when she saw “a win externally in work”. She explained how she convinced herself that she was fine and was kept so busy that she didn’t have time to heal open wounds. Eventually, it made her break down to the point where she needed hospital treatment. It was refreshing to see someone talk about just how real and toxic this hustle and positivity culture is. It’s a discussion that we need to have. It transcends social media. It’s in our workplaces. It’s ingrained in us. Whilst feeling under the weather 79% of Brits have forced themselves to go into work and when they do phone in sick 67% said that they feel guilty. Toxic positivity and hustle culture push us to prioritise our concern of what our colleagues or boss will think of us if we take days off rather than our own health. Taking time off doesn’t mean you’re a “bad” employee or that you’re any less hard-working. Toxic positivity and hustle culture doesn’t serve you, it serves capitalism. 

Putting Things into Perspective

When I was scrolling through my Instagram feed I came across a post saying that if you are not using lockdown to improve yourself or grind then you’re lazy. This post came from an “inspirational” account. It was anything but inspirational. Content like this actually makes people feel guilty that they aren’t doing enough and makes them feel guilty for even giving their bodies the much-needed rest that it needs. Like every year when it comes to its near close, people on the internet made posts reflecting on the year they had. If done tastefully, these posts really can be inspiring and uplifting and it’s wonderful to celebrate people’s wins. But 2020 certainly wasn’t the year to be asking other people “what have you achieved this year?” Most people have been so constrained by the current climate and are just surviving. 2020 had already been a lot to process and had taken a financial, physical, and mental toll on people. If you managed to preserve your sanity, that is an achievement within itself.

The political, social, and economic unrest as well as the pandemic hitting people like a ton of bricks at one time has lowered people’s (at least the people I know) tolerance to toxic positivity and hustle culture. People have lost jobs and loved ones and having influencers tell you to burn yourself out through the grind does not wash well with people. If the toxicity of this kind of content wasn’t obvious before, it certainly is now.

Looking Forward: What To Do From Here

Being exposed to this toxic trend has an effect on everyone, whether we realise it or not. Look at the people you are following and ask yourself whether you are really benefitting from their content. If not, it would do you a world of good to unfollow them. Find a healthy balance between your work life and your social life. It will not only help with your productivity but it will also help you find joy in your work. Breaking free from toxic positivity and hustle culture is a process that takes time. After being exposed to it for so long we can find ourselves slipping back into our old ways. To prevent this create a self-care daily schedule. Take bubble baths. Watch a film. See a friend. Go for a walk. Eat cake. Hobbies are important too. Taking breaks does not make you any less of a dedicated employee or any less of a person for that matter. It is productive. It is needed. It is human.


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Written by Yasmin Al-najar

Yasmin loves all sorts of literature, art, politics, and history and enjoys going to the theatre. She studied English and Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University and then went on to do a master’s degree in Human Rights and Political Science at the University of Manchester. She is currently writing about social and political issues for various online platforms.

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