At the suggestion of a third-year class monitor, I set up a WeChat group for industrial engineering students from freshman through senior year. The name was “Industrial Family,” and the idea was simple: give students across different years a place to talk.
It didn’t take long for the group to take a different turn. First came the sticker battles—meme after meme flooding the chat. I remarked that I had received more stickers that evening than I had in all my previous years combined. Someone immediately replied: “Having that many stickers means you’re good at conversation and easy to like. Praise!”
After that, things got out of hand. Compliments flew in every direction. People praised one another; anything anyone said was grounds for praise. Someone observed, “This is turning into a praise group.”
Praise groups have become popular on university campuses lately. There are even Taobao shops that sell praise as a service: you pay, get added to a WeChat group, and say whatever comes to mind. The members are already poised to shower you with compliments until you start to question your own life.
It reminds me of the chicken soup essays that were once everywhere. Whenever life felt bleak, you could read one and feel as if you had taken a dose of 999 cold medicine—warm in the chest, a little sting in the nose, tears welling up.
The popularity of these things points to something obvious:
Everyone is having a hard time.
The baby is bitter inside, but the baby says nothing. People run themselves ragged trying to make a living, get tangled up in love, burn the midnight oil over their studies, stumble in their careers, get pushed around by bosses, frozen out by colleagues, dismissed by ex-girlfriends. Who hasn’t been ground into the floor by life? And the floor isn’t even smooth.
Modern life is hard for everyone, and the pressure is enormous. People need a shot of motivation, so chicken soup essays appear. People need encouragement, so praise groups appear. People need a way to have fun, so Douyin appears.
Of course, even the best chicken soup can become cloying. That’s where poisonous chicken soup comes in: “Whenever I’m frantically busy, I comfort myself by thinking that once this busy stretch is over, I can move on to the next busy stretch.” And: “Lying in bed is great for a moment; keep lying there and it stays great.”
There isn’t that much chicken soup to go around. Everyone is just finding some joy inside the bitterness.