[Razengan]

Your intentions may be sincere but these kinds of gestures feel.. ehh. like a futile move of desperation, a flimsy bandage over a gaping wound, hugging yourself in a dark storm, rocking back and forth whispering mantras even you can't really believe in..

If you're feeling like shit about your situation seeing something like "You got this!" can be annoying at best and may make you feel worse.

At best this is an attempt forget the disease instead of treating it.

The effective counterbalance is to cultivate kindness at core levels of society, in how parents treat their children and how children treat each other, and to stop rewarding unkindness (it's too easy in too many cultures to gain popularity by being a bitter asshole and expounding negativity), and most importantly, address the issues that make people bitter instead of telling them who to hate.

[Nathanael]

Hey Razengan! I agree a message like "You got this!" may not always be well received, especially by people suffering from a deep depression. Most of them are more neutral, or at least they seem so to me, like "May you be happy" for example.

For people who are not feeling particularly depressed in the moment where they see one of these badges, I believe it could have an uplifting, positive effect. A small one, probably, but that's good enough for me.

Ultimately, I can't control how people react to these, but I am careful about curating the messages and I do intend for them to express genuine kindness.

I also agree that this is not a cure-all. No such claim was made, in fact. I do think we could use more kindness at core levels of society, as you say.