[tshaddox]

I'm curious what you think counts as "framing in terms of mental health." Or more interestingly, if you think this article constitutes "framing in terms of mental health," I'm curious what you wouldn't consider as such.

This article does use words related to mental states, like "comforting" and "relaxing." But that's pretty difficult to avoid in most writing of non-trivial length.

[alabastervlog]

The name they've decided to give these, "emergency" chickens, knitting them for hurricane survivors. It's all a step up from just "we like these and they're nice" and into "these are Helpful with a capital H".

My point is exactly that that kind of thing reads like a joking exaggeration, but this sort of approach to things is really common now and I truly have trouble telling when people are joking or being serious about it. Most of it reads like joking to me, but I don't know. It's also been going on long enough that it's making me wonder even more, since, judged as a joke, it was played out and over-done years ago.

[tshaddox]

I think you're pretty clearly experiencing a false positive on your "major cultural problem" detector. The chickens are cute and comforting, no doubt, and people are referring to them as "emotional support chickens" and "emergency chickens" as a tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. Note how the chickens are given names like "Hennifer Lopez" and "Lindsey LoHEN." You even say that it reads like a joking exaggeration, but apparently your confirmation bias is strong enough to override that observation?

[tokai]

There's lots of research showing stuffed animals can reduce stress even in adults. There is no joke here.

[alabastervlog]

You're weirdly concerned about how much I'm reacting, which is pretty minimally. Like, I can't imagine how I could have raised this while reacting any less. But yes, I also saw your other post and got your message that you're bothered I brought this up at all. [EDIT] Ah, ninja-edited this paragraph into irrelevance! :-)

Maybe you need a chicken. [EDIT] But perhaps we all need chickens?

But thank you for helping me understand this. The framing is 100% serious, I guess.

[s1artibartfast]

I would say that it is 99% joke, but the 1% is important in validating, justifying, and elevating the concept in the current culture.

[s1artibartfast]

I would say the topic framed in terms of mental health. For one, the chicken itself is called an "emotional support chicken" - this itself is indicative of cultural currency. The idea and purpose of a knit chicken can be framed in many ways. It can be simply fun, creative, or artistic. In this case the purpose is psychologically palliative opposed to recreational. It is medicalized. You see this elsewhere. A day off work to rest, relax, and enjoy isn't just vacation (which also implies these concepts), but a mental health day.

One of the leading stories in the article is about delivering them to survivors of Hurricane Helene - an interesting linguistic choice in its own right (Helene impacted roughly 2 million people, killing about 200. It had a 99.995% survival rate).

I suspect most people make these chickens simply for fun and decoration.

[tshaddox]

Your comment is seething with confirmation bias. You're seeing things only because you're looking for them.

You conflate "health" with the word "palliative," when the latter specifically refers specifically to serious health problems. I go to the gym for my physical health and my mental health, but that doesn't imply that skipping one gym session would lead to a serious physical or mental health problem. Same goes for "mental health days." There's nothing sensational about referring to one's health.

And yes, we always refer to people who survive natural disasters as "survivors." Google "survivors of hurricane helene" and you'll find countless articles with headlines like "Survivors Describe Their Frightening Experiences," "4 Ways to Help Hurricane Helene Survivors," "Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Survivors Surpasses $137 Million," etc.

[s1artibartfast]

>And yes, we always refer to people who survive natural disasters as "survivors." Google "survivors of hurricane helene" and you'll find countless articles with headlines like "Survivors Describe Their Frightening Experiences," "4 Ways to Help Hurricane Helene Survivors," "Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Survivors Surpasses $137 Million," etc.

Yes, I agree, which is why I used it as an example. You are confirming that the observation is not bias! Im not claiming that the article is exceptional in this regard.

I think it is precisely the framing and focus on health and safety which is interesting!

[tshaddox]

You claimed that it's an "interesting linguistic choice" in the context of an alleged "cultural currency" which overly frames topics in terms of mental health, describes the purpose of comforting toys as "psychologically palliative" and "medicalized." You claimed that this phenomenon is everywhere, then gave two more alleged examples: the term "mental health day" and the term "survivor."

I disagree with all of it. Using the term "survivor" in its most basic and widespread sense is not at all interesting in the context of your false argument about "cultural currency."

[s1artibartfast]

Thats OK, I'm fine to disagree.

[mindslight]

You've hit the nail on the head, and it points to what's actually driving it.

> It is medicalized... A day off work to rest, relax, and enjoy isn't just vacation (which also implies these concepts), but a mental health day.

The destruction of individual agency, in favor of top-down systems of control. The culture is a self-reinforcing thing, but what's pushing the culture is individuals having to express their own needs in terms of what the system will allow them. The "day off" isn't allowed - paid ones are not required to be provided by law, and the wealth-centralizing economic treadmill has made it so most people do not have the finances to lose a day of pay.

Similarly with emotional support animals. Airlines have policies that certain types of pets need to travel in the cold cargo hold, getting left waiting on a hot tarmac, with horror stories abounding. Landlords outright prohibit pets or put you over the barrel for "pet rent" (it's not like paying pet rent gets you extra space or amenities, or makes it so that chewing on the woodwork then becomes "normal wear and tear".

So enter people skirting their systems by any means possible, in this case the federal laws that created the legal concept of emotional support animals. And then comes the crab bucket mentality of rolling our eyes at people who we deem to be inappropriately using the escape hatch.

To avoid the euphemism/abstraction treadmill, we would need to be having these conversations maturely. But politics always seems to just end up going sideways (/me loosely gestures at the current ongoing destructionist catastrophe)

[s1artibartfast]

My thoughts went down a similar track as well. It is about justification. As collectivist attitudes increase socially, individuals feel the need to frame or justify and defend their individual actions and desires. Its not just that I want a vacation day and have leverage to take it (socially unacceptable), but I need it - it is necessary maintenance, but ultimately for the greater good. Like you said, it is a play on values that are socially acceptable to express to get what people want anyways.

As a result a recreational hobby gets dressed up as self care or pro-social action. There can be an element of truth to this of course, but I do think it introduces a lot of exaggeration and conflation.

Putting my biases on the table, the whole thing strikes me as childish and dishonest. Kind of of like a kid rationalizing to a parent how they will use some new toy to get their homework done faster.

[TeMPOraL]

You hit the nail on the head, IMO.

> Individuals feel the need to frame or justify and defend their individual actions and desires.

This, exactly this. I only recently realized this has been a huge factor for almost my entire life. There was always something more important to do than what I wanted. Parents wanted me to do things. School wanted me to do things. Religion wanted me to do things (courtesy of growing up in a proselytising Christianity-adjacent cult, 1/10 would not recommend). Later, in adulthood, it's family expectations again, then relationships, and then of course, work. The sum total of things I'm supposed to be doing, and that reflect good on me when I'm seen busy doing them, is effectively unbounded, leaving no place for any "selfish desire" such as... IDK, relaxing, taking a walk, clearing my head, watching stupid shit on the Internet.

Of course, those desires don't go away just because there's always something more important to do. But I can't just satisfy them without feeling like having to justify to myself and others, why I'm doing the "me thing" instead of the "important thing". Might be why I've struggled with procrastination all my adulthood - "I'm working" gets others off my back, and then it's only me I have to justify my choices to.

(As a kid, I didn't do "new toy to get my homework done faster", but I sure did the other thing - a computer to help me learn. It was a great argument, because it was partially true and my parents also heard it from adult sources (e.g. news programs).)

I'm not really sure why I do it, and why many others seem to. Some kind of insecurity? Like, I want to escape the neverending demands of other people without hurting my relationships with them, so I justify it in a way that makes fulfilling my own needs sound like either a) a critical, unavoidable maintenance work, something that's not really a choice, or b) it's actually doing them a favor, or c) it's capital-I Important. It's preemptively denying others the ability to counter "hey, what about me and my needs". A form of conflict avoidance, I guess.

I envy people who can just take vacations, or do hobbies, or whatever, without guilt or the need to justify it to others.

[rixed]

What's insightful about parent's comment is that it not only question the need for the new toy but also the need to do the homework faster.