Character trait: Toxic Positivity, Toxic Acceptance (Part 1)

Usually, antagonists or villains are emo and gloomy, angry and aggressive, suave and sly, or any combination of that. They are not generally associated with positive traits in their personality, or at least positively-associated traits.

And that's a shame, because real life sure does have a lot of variety in toxicity. It's not only in the Dark And Foreboding flavor. Often, it comes packaged in a nice, pleasant, frilly, bow-on-top package of happiness, acceptance, and inclusion.

Only, of course, not really.

People that have these behavioral patterns of toxic acceptance and toxic positivity, are all lollipops, fun, and games as long as you go along with them. If you oppose them or try to break away or even just dabble in anything they consider threatening to them, they will go into attack mode. And this attack mode is very specific: they will accuse you of becoming the perpetrator of their victimhood, even if you're only minding your own business.

If they are more subtle, they won't go on the war path immediately. Instead, they will manipulate and steer you away from what you want to do, by imposing their views on what should be done and allow no dissent.



In Inside Out Joy is an antagonist to Sadness, and does everything in her power to forbid sadness as an emotion- pushing it to the realm of toxic positivity. There are great videos on this on YouTube. Of course, in the end, she does come to realize what she's doing and she changes gears.

People on the other hand, may not be so quick to change. How would toxic positivity be evident in dialogue?

Here is a quick starter pack:


Actually, some of the quotes on the 'genuine optimism' list are still toxic positivity. Can you single them out?

And here is a succint description of the behavioral pattern of the trait:


I'm positive (see what I did there) that you have encountered people like this several times in real life. Peak toxic positivity is telling people with clinical depression something like this:



And this is a great way to get into the weeds about it: toxic positivity is toxic not only because it dismisses any notion of things being validly negative (and thus needing to be addressed) but because it also pushes to bend reality to the dogma of this positivity for the comfort of those manifesting it. For their "safe space" if you like- which is not at all the actual, genuine safe spaces needed by people who experience harrassment and abuse of various kinds. Unfortunately, the two get confused (purposefully or not) and we got either reinforcement of a dysfunctional set of perceptions and actions as well as further tresspassing and abuse of those who need their safe space respected.

But how does that need for comfort overwriting anything else in one's environment translate into further toxicity and problematic behaviors? Let's explore:

People shun science for some kind of new age or pop/viral fad, where things are always sunny, shiny, bubbly, and positive, so much so that they become blind to their problems and the additional problems they are creating. They create a fragile, fake comfortable bubble of false positivity supported by false facts, and attack anyone who will threaten to pop it.

The extra problem is that often, an element that is true, such as the powerful impact of contact with nature on mental health is exaggerated to the point that it transforms from being scientific to becoming pseudoscience. Once that is done, straight up wrong facts are served up as absolute truth, and people will buy it because it's in their bubble of false comfort (just google colloidal silver if you dare).

And with toxic positivity, also comes toxic acceptance: the demand for acceptance of these dogmas, assertions, and beliefs just on the grounds of it being a demand. And of course, the loud, rigorous, violent (verbally or actually) reaction should such a demand not be met.

The evolution of the Body Positivity and Fat Acceptance movement is an excellent example of taking a good, necessary thing and pushing it beyond the point of reason or safety.

But that is for Part 2 of this exploration of what you could design a pretty interesting and not necessarily directly obvious antagonist or villain, or even protagonist, in your stories. To be continued…

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