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What are your thoughts on wholesomeness?
To me, they're another case of something nice ruined by the quick adoption of a casual majority. Finding rare wholesome content was nice and it felt genuine. With the rise of the wholesome network, suddenly it started to feel fake and devoid of the original genuiness. Plus, being so common, it's rather annoying, instead of a nice find. It's yet another thing ruined by the masses.
What do you think? What would you like its place to be on Tildes?
I enjoyed the 'Wholesome' trend as it was starting, as it was a refreshing departure from the many memes about depression that were (and still are) popular. However, as wholesomeness as a term has become more mainstream I feel like I see a lot more posts that performatively wholesome and artificial -- i.e., "look at me, look at how nice I am."
I can't really say if it would belong on tildes as 'wholesome' is kind of a vague term. I'd love to see nice posts, but I'd hope to avoid the overuse of 'this is so wholesome'.
That's my view on it too - it just seems like fake niceness at this point. Like southern sayings such as "bless your heart" and whatnot. It's patronizing even
Yup I feel like you hit it on the head. As soon as you start seeking out “wholesome” actions to post about it takes some of what makes wholesome things wholesome.
I think that 'commodified' is the right word, a lot of these memes (for lack of a better word) start as genuine actions and are latched onto people who want or need attention. Most similar memes always start as a small injoke or genuine expression but this seems to be all-too-easy to turn to when times are tough, similar to smartphone addiction cycles this trend preys on an artificial replacement for actually doing or experiencing a good deed.
I'm a huge fan of the beatles, because so many of their songs are good enough to be singles, I hate songs that are filler on albums. It's like why even put it on there unless it's absolutely killer?
I absolutely don't want meme-ified wholesomeness, but would be genuinely happy to see wholesome things. I think with the tag system we can weed out the non-altruistic content and actually enjoy a wholesome post. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that we should not restrict certain topics but we should think about ways to ensure that what we get out of those topics is all killer and no filler. How can we ensure that we remove the bad and emphasize the good is something I'm not sure I can answer but the tag system seems to be a good place to start and see what happens.
Edit: It just struck me, the culture and the mechanics of the site should be reflected in each other and Deimos seems to understand that extremely well as far as the technical things but how can we the users have our own culture and mechanics to ensure this is a great place to be? It seems that people don't like wholesomeness when it's forced but where does wholesomeness come from? I think that wholesome feelings come from when you did a good thing or you saw another person doing a good thing. So perhaps we could have a 'wholesome' group but have it dominated by creators who do good things. "I started a neighborhood recycling program where you take styrofoam and have it broken down by fungi and here are my plans to expand it, any locals interested in contributing?" Just a thought.
I'm going to throw out a different opinion here: it can be great and I think it could have a place here as we expand the groups.
Basically, we post a lot of content here that's tough to swallow. Like most things in ~enviro and a lot of ~news. Having a place to go after reading those can make it easier to not entirely block out tough but important articles.
In order to get it to work well, we'd need it to meet the standard here for higher-effort content. That could look like detailed articles about good things happening or music, writing, or things made by people here that just revolve around the theme of positivity. I think it would be a thing more down the road, but I'd appreciate it if it was done well.
I'm not the kind of guy to enjoy wholesome content when it isn't natural, but I don't judge anybody if they do. A place dedicated to being "unnaturally" wholesome doesn't feel organic or spontaneous, but why should anybody accept hateful communities just because they are? Sometimes a little positivity can go a long way, even if it's just some simple, casual reminders that you're worth something. Even if I don't appreciate it, I think it's a necessary step to curtail the spread of constant cynicism and negativity.
The wholesomememes subreddit blew up just as my dad passed away and for a few weeks I rode that "high" of positive energy. I don't visit that sub anymore but 'wholesomeness' still has a special place in my heart. I guess this is also why it hasn't changed into annoyance for me, but I can totally see how it could could!
Here we go, brief history: A year or two ago (I think, internet time is weird) reddit started seeing a rise in some subreddits, namely /r/me_irl, /r/meirl, which were joking about depression; following that was things like /r/toomeirlformeirl, which took it a step further, darker (right now at the top is this post, here is the top of all time if you want to see more.
It's turned now more into a meme sub thing, but it used to be darker. On the subject of "used to be", /r/wholesomememes was started as a sort of anti-meirl type of thing, were 'depressing memes' were really obviously edited to be 'wholesome'. Kind of like this; however this is hard to find because it was quickly taken over by memes that were just wholesome and lost the ironic/edited funny quality to it. (side note: this happened simultaneously on reddit, twitter, and tumblr). It started out as a subversion of people's expectations (you expect a dark/edgy/sad meme, instead it's just lighthearted and cute, and the bad edits made it obvious and gave a chuckle) but since then there's not really that much to subvert anymore, as the 'wholesome' bit has taken a life of its own, so it's just happy/wholesome memes made from scratch.
This brings us to today, where there's quite some people who are annoyed by wholesome memes, especially the reddit variety (which has spawned an entire network of similar subreddits), which are often seen as too happy and not genuine. I hope that helped a bit?
As others have said, the commodification of wholesomeness – perhaps inevitable with any trend, once it has been labelled – is not a step that I welcome overall.
It detracts from the authenticity of the moments when and where they do occur, of course.
However the one redeeming factor of the high profile that the trend has at the moment is that it does perhaps prompt the mind to be receptive to genuine instances when one does encounter them, and not to react with the all-too-common defensive cynicism.
As to its place on Tildes – recognition through tagging, perhaps, but I’m not sure that I’d want anything more prominent.
As an aside, I wonder how the current trend is perceived across the political spectrum? (Commodified) Wholesomeness of one kind or another has been embraced by states and movement at both extremes in the past, and it is easy to see that it appeals to the purity driver common among right-wingers.
This point, in particular, I think deserves more discussion. Over the years mainstream cynicism has grown to be so all-encompasing that I feel like it's become toxic to the conversation at large. It's no longer about assuming the worst but hoping for the best, it's become expecting the worst and if that expectation isn't met just finding another way to deem it as such. It's become an intellectually lazy tool of apathy or counterproductive anger.
I'm probably too jaded to actually enjoy or appreciate anything "wholesome", and ever since reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Brightsided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America I've tended to look askance at any sort of messaging that's too cheerful, hopeful, or positive.
So often now I see things which I would have considered just 'not being an arsehat' presented as 'wholesome'.
It can be troubling.
I wish people didn't think being an asshat was how you were supposed to act on the internet (or as I call it, the 'net). There must have been some very angry people setting the tone real early on.
Hey! Fuck you, buddy!
Personally, I find them incredibly saccharine and contrived. They didn't start that way, but it's where things have ended up.
Here's a couple of articles on the phenomenon, one from 2016, one from this year
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/13/wholesome-memes-could-they-mean-more-good-times-online
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/jul/18/too-pure-for-this-world-how-unfiltered-joy-became-the-internets-antidote
I think wholesomeness is best experienced, and shared in real life with those close to us. As a story, or as news, it's not engaging. There's a reason while theater productions are called "drama," and why the "happily ever after" part gets only one measly sentence.
Wholesomeness requires no resolution, and therefore no real discussion. It's fine to share and acknowledge, and I love me some cat videos, not gonna lie. But when I want to interact with something, or talk about it, I only go for things that are, or needing, a state of change.
Nah I can't stand the 'wholesome' network, for the reasons mentioned here sure, but honestly because 99% of the time it's the same rehashed messaged over and over. There's no originality to speak of, I mean every post is the same shit just phrased differently and my add brain can't handle more than like a minute of that stuff. Also, every time I'm on those subs I feel like they're actively trying to not only promote happiness, but deny the fact evil even exists, like they'd prefer we ignore our problems. Sure it might make some make some people feel good while they're on it, and maybe from time to time people need that boost, but it's a pretty dangerous mindset to normalize. Your problems do not go away just because you feel good. idk I might be overthinking it, but it's not for me
I mean it depends on what you mean by "wholesomeness"; if you mean positive messages &c, then I think hardly anyone will say no. If you mean wholesome memes (like the subreddit) then no, but because it's fluff, which isn't for here. If you mean something else please explain; imo as long as it's discussion worthy then it's fine.