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Stop Celebrating Extremism Behaviors
A look into how the media manipulates us into becoming extremists addicted to fixing problems they actually created for us
I see a worrisome trend in society: we seem to celebrate redemption over prevention. The internet is bombarded by “Before and After” stories of people who took actions that led them down a bad path (examples: debt, addiction, and obesity). Then they succeed in overcoming it to return to a normal life. These stories get thousands of likes and congratulatory messages. I am part of the problem as, to show support, I often chime in to boost those people’s egos, and because I am genuinely happy for them. Yet I clearly see the dark side of this.
“Before and Afters” Sell
We only celebrate the people who achieve impressive transformations but what about the people who don’t ruin themselves? The internet is full of diets, debt programs and more, but there is a much smaller industry to teach people how NOT to take those bad paths. Prevention is not popular at all. If you don’t believe me, just do a few simple google searches, such as “how to never start smoking.” vs. “how to stop smoking.” and so forth. The search volume is ONE HUNDRED times lower for prevention than for redemption. It feels as if society is almost…
