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Calm Your Anxiety for Only $9.99 a Month
May. 23rd, 2021 04:31 pmTell Me It’s Going to be OK: Self-care and social retreat under neoliberalism
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/tell-me-its-going-to-be-ok-tokumitsu
But here’s the truly wonderful thing about neoliberalism — as it turns us all into paranoid, jealous schemers, it offers to sell us bromides to ameliorate the very bad feelings of self-doubt and alienation it conjures in our dark nights of the soul. Neoliberalism has not only given us crippling anxiety, but also its apparent remedy. It is no coincidence that as we become more nervous, “wellness” and “self-care” have become mainstream industries. Over the last few decades, workplaces have become ever more oppressive, intensely tracking workers’ bodies, demanding longer hours, and weakening workers’ bargaining rights while also instituting wellness and mentoring programs on an ever greater scale.
I was reminded of this essay after Tumblr started advertising a subscription-based mindfulness app through brightly-colored positivity posts. I don't have anything interesting to say, but seeing people* reblog these ads unironically makes me so tired.
(*Not my mutuals though, my mutuals are all way too smart for this.)
Anyway, the essay also has two hard-hitting paragraphs toward the end about positivity culture on Instagram that are unfortunately more true now in 2021 than they were when the essay was published in 2018.
"Positivity" continues to be something I struggle with a lot, to be honest. On one hand, I am not interested in pointless pablum about how "anyone can succeed if they try hard enough," while on the other hand I'm so burned out from hot takes and monetized outrage that I've become extremely resistant to writing or drawing anything even remotely critical.
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/tell-me-its-going-to-be-ok-tokumitsu
But here’s the truly wonderful thing about neoliberalism — as it turns us all into paranoid, jealous schemers, it offers to sell us bromides to ameliorate the very bad feelings of self-doubt and alienation it conjures in our dark nights of the soul. Neoliberalism has not only given us crippling anxiety, but also its apparent remedy. It is no coincidence that as we become more nervous, “wellness” and “self-care” have become mainstream industries. Over the last few decades, workplaces have become ever more oppressive, intensely tracking workers’ bodies, demanding longer hours, and weakening workers’ bargaining rights while also instituting wellness and mentoring programs on an ever greater scale.
I was reminded of this essay after Tumblr started advertising a subscription-based mindfulness app through brightly-colored positivity posts. I don't have anything interesting to say, but seeing people* reblog these ads unironically makes me so tired.
(*Not my mutuals though, my mutuals are all way too smart for this.)
Anyway, the essay also has two hard-hitting paragraphs toward the end about positivity culture on Instagram that are unfortunately more true now in 2021 than they were when the essay was published in 2018.
"Positivity" continues to be something I struggle with a lot, to be honest. On one hand, I am not interested in pointless pablum about how "anyone can succeed if they try hard enough," while on the other hand I'm so burned out from hot takes and monetized outrage that I've become extremely resistant to writing or drawing anything even remotely critical.
