From today’s title, you may have guessed that this is a follow-up to my last post about how a little hype can go a long way in helping us enjoy things that we actually enjoy. Last time, I talked about how the pervasive negative attitude surrounding video games at the moment might actually be affecting my will to play them, even good ones. Today, I want to talk about how a short, fun, positively toned video can help you enjoy something that isn’t actually all that good.
Meet Cecil from GoodBadFlicks. He’s been making great videos for years that are mostly about silly horror films made on a shoestring budget. To me, what makes Cecil stand out is all the background work he does in his research, often reaching out to the cast and crew of even one-time projects filmed in the 1980s. It’s amazing how often people are willing to talk about that one silly horror movie they made over thirty years ago. As he is a professional editor, the videos are all well-made and his unpretentious, positive, emotive voice goes a long way in charming you into his perspective for a few minutes.
Not that Cecil doesn’t extend far outside of my range of appreciation at times, as some movie awfulness is irredeemable beyond even what a charming and sympathetic backstory can add. However, I can’t undersell the effect these stories can have on me in adding to my appreciation of an otherwise badly received film. These short videos can actually help you enjoy some movies well beyond their face value by adding a lot of human context. One might say, however, that this can draw you out of a movie, making it less immersive and experiential. True, but this is exactly what some movies need. You see, Cecil’s videos don’t make the movies good, but they do make them more fun to watch. And for that, he deserves a spot in my little internet hall of fame.
But now I want to be clear about what I mean regarding what I have said about positivity and negativity. Like any good and worthwhile conversation, some people have seen fit to take things too far. Like I said in the previous article, many of us don’t want to admit how certain dialogues affect us on a subconscious level. We want to believe that we are completely in charge of our minds, and that our perceptions regarding our immediate, personal area of control are unflawed. A few years ago, I had a roommate that began to rely on a show of anger as a coping mechanism for all of the life situations he found confusing or difficult. Obviously, as most coping mechanisms will do, this led to the further obfuscation of the core issues and, indeed, negatively affected his personal relationships and ability to be promoted at his job. Nothing new there. But what I didn’t realize, even knowing all this, is how much the experience was affecting me, even though I wasn’t always the target of his anger. When I finally moved out, I noticed a big change in myself and in my overall mood.
Though this is something important to consider, I don’t believe that positive vibes are a worthy or healthy lifegoal by themselves. They are the perks of true accomplishment and rewards for maintaining good relationships by relinquishing self-centeredness, grudges, and personal criticism while embracing grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice. It is also worthwhile to discuss how negative vibes can distort the clarity of what I just mentioned, subverting good goals and good relationships for toxic, codependent ones, which can include ridiculous, self-prescribed goals for achieving happiness that can’t and never do pay off and enslaving relationships with the imbedded goal of trying to keep an unappeasable person happy.
Ironically, this downward spiral can also be caused by seeing other people as a means to an end, with the end being positive vibes only. Though it would require more investigation on my part to know for sure, this seems to be the idea behind groups that desire to turn positivity into a movement or even a sociopolitical obligation. Positive vibes at the cost of truth are made of the same substance that cause the same psychoses brought on by pervasive negativity. The fact is that positivity doesn’t necessarily cancel out negativity in the context of living a healthy, flourishing life of meaningful goals and relationships. Negatively criticizing people for not positively affirming your toxic relationships and debilitating life goals, for example, will thrust you into an unnavigable world of negativity incomparable to even a temporary relationship with a negative person. Truth, however, cancels out lies, and it provides a cornerstone for a life that can enjoy positivity with no strings attached. What I mean here is that we often need friends to offer a second pair of eyes on things that may seem obvious to us in our present predicament. Good assessment on their part might not be too positive or affirming, but it could lead to enjoying true positive feelings together in the long run, which should linger far longer than those forced out of others and consumed like an addictive drug with all the diminishing returns natural to such things.