‘We’re always being told that looking on the bright side is good for us, but now we see that it’s a great way to brush off poverty, disease, and unemployment, to rationalize an order where all the rewards go to those on top…’

Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with America? The Resistible Rise of the American Right (London: Secker & Warburg, 2004)

This project is a critical visual exploration that aims to reveal the toxicity around ‘self-help’ culture and how the individualistic message can distract from the cause of the problem, which is the system we live in.

It aims to critically examine the cultural rise of toxic positivity, manifesting ideologies, and self-help narratives, identifying them as mechanisms that promote individualism and obscure structural inequalities. Using visual communication as a tool for analysis and resistance, the project interrogates how these narratives encourage internalized self-blame and biological reductionism, offering oversimplified solutions to complex social and political realities.