AAs a staunch optimist, I never thought I’d say this, but it’s true: the world is mean and getting meaner. Instead of bringing us together, the internet seems to have fueled our divisions by empowering those best at sowing fear, distrust and outrage. We are angry at each other about migrants, gender identity, climate catastrophe, vigilantism and so much more.
A recent survey by King’s College London found that for the first time a majority (52%) of the British population believe that culture wars are a serious problem for society and politics. I’m sick of this. I suspect you are too. I have been searching for an antidote for the past few years. Just possibly, it can be found in a few human instincts that are hard-wired into us: generosity and our response to it. At the start of the pandemic lockdown, stories of death, chaos and grocery hoarding filled the media. Like many of us, an Australian woman, Catherine Barrett, felt on the verge of tears much of the time. One day, one of her neighbors put a box of tissues on the communal table in her building with just a simple note: “Please take if needed.”
Barrett was deeply moved by the act. This gave her an idea. She created a new group on Facebook and posted a photo of the box of tissues and the neighbor’s note. She wrote: “I’m setting up this group to spread kindness… to restore our faith in each other.” She named her group the Kindness Pandemic. The group quickly grew to more than 500,000 people, with members from all over the world sharing stories of acts of kindness they had witnessed or done themselves.
Barrett’s group proved that simple acts of human kindness happen every moment of every day around the world. But they are largely invisible to us, drowned out by headline nastiness. Why do we do this to ourselves?
It’s not as if the dark stories somehow reveal a deeper truth. Yes, it’s terrible that 100 people died today in a violent incident. But is it really more significant than the fact that more than 20,000 children’s lives were saved today, and every day this year, thanks to the tireless efforts of tens of thousands of invisible public health workers over the past three decades? Their remarkable generosity led to the global infant mortality rate down 59% since 1990. By succumbing to the allure of the dramatic and the recent, we inadvertently feed ourselves a poisoned worldview. No wonder we feel sick.
What will it take for stories of kindness to eclipse stories of violence and fear and division? Here are three of the catalysts that can help push acts of kindness across that divide.
The first is simply emotion. Sometimes the positive stories we share are told in the dry language of statistics or generalizations. The statistic above about the spectacular drop in preventable child mortality may have intellectually related to you, but I doubt it moved you. Yet if you were to sit down and look at the Carter Center YouTube video that shows what childhood Guinea worm disease looks like and how it is eradicated, you would feel intense emotions – including dismay, disgust and deep gratitude. The numbers are incredible – a reduction from 3.5 million cases in 1986 to just 13 in 2022 – but seeing for yourself a 2ft worm being pulled from a screaming child will make you care. It’s no wonder then that this video has been viewed 18 million times and has done as much as anything to alert the world to the incredible story of a horrific disease consigned to history.
Second, courage. Dylan Marron is used to haters on the internet. A proudly progressive content creator, he has produced a series of social justice-oriented videos covering topics such as police brutality and the controversies surrounding transgender people’s use of public bathrooms. However, as the number of views skyrocketed, so did the aggressive comments from strangers.
Marron developed an unexpected coping mechanism, blunted by the barrage of hate. He messaged a few of his trolls and asked if they wanted to talk to him on the phone. The result? He could find common ground. One 18-year-old troll who told him he was a moron and that being gay was a sin turned out to have been bullied – like him – at school and shared Marron’s love of the movie Finding Dory.
Third, creativity. The bolder, the better. A group of friends in Japan were sick of the litter on the streets of Tokyo. But instead of just going out there and cleaning up, they decided to do it in a way that would get noticed. They dressed as samurai warriors and used their acting skills to pick up the trash with drama and panache, grab disposable bottles with tongs and throw trash into the baskets on their backs. It is easy to understand why the videos of them in action have been seen by millions and attracted many to join the group.
We live at an incredible moment in history. Today it is possible to give away knowledge, creativity, connection and enchantment on an unlimited scale. It is also possible to amplify stories of other people’s kindness like never before. Everyone can do it. Next time you’re on social media, look for someone somewhere who’s sharing something positive – anything from a kind comment to a gift of creative, uplifting content. There are so many of them out there. Like them. Place them again. Follow them. This will start to teach the algorithms that control your feed that you are not the person they thought you were. And it can help lift this content into other people’s feeds. The ripple begins.
