Am I best known for what I love or hate?
On when void becomes a whole personality and hating crop tops
Have you walked away from a conversation or Instagram profile knowing what they were against but not what they actually are for so well you could create the “dislikes” section of their dating profile?
Pretty quickly, we get a sense of their personality without them even mentioning what they love.
That should terrify us. Several reasons:
It’s making us judgy.
It’s making us grumpy.
It’s polarizing and dividing us.
It’s not having the impact we hope to have on the world.
I get that in the confusing times we live in, it’s really important to be clear on what we believe. But what that tends to look like is sharing everything we are against.
And I get clarity is important but what happens when what we hate becomes our whole personality?
How is it that the thing we’d like to resist, banish and totally avoid actually becomes what we are known by?
Why we do it:
Negativity bias says negative posts are more likely to be shared. And conversations around the chips and salsa at the restaurant don’t grow stale with a steady drip of gossip.
So right there we know the negative things just get more traction. This means it not only travels further but writers might feel enticed to keep harping on what they hate.
How many Instagram accounts lately have had their followers explode because they started sharing about some particular issue or person they hated? I’m embarrassed to admit1 I can name 5 off the top of my head. 🫣
So we know it’s out there. But is it in us too? Here’s a quick quiz to get an idea if you’re more known by what you love or hate: