Can you be so good you start to be bad?

Is purity culture causing excessive judgement and victimization within Gen Z?

I think that everyone, or hopefully everyone, walks around life trying to put their best foot forward. Obviously, everyone has a different meaning of what it means to be a good person– but I really don’t think that there are many people out there that wake up and aim to be a bad person. But, is it possible that there are people who wake up and have such high moral standards that it brings their own good nature down, labeling them as people who cause more harm than good?

This idea began after spending a solid hour doom scrolling on Tiktok, actively avoiding final essays that I have to write, when I came across Hannah Glenn ( @hannahglennhannahglenn) and a video she posted about her new substack essay: Moral Superiority Will Turn You Into A Bad Person. She states that 98% of people believe they are the nicest person they have ever encountered and goes to say that how people act online shows that they never once have had any human mess ups and are in fact “the perfect person”. I feel like this can be seen in Gen Z in the past election term, when it showed many of the new democrat voters chose not to vote since Harris was not the ‘perfect politician.’

There has started to be a large emphasis on being ‘perfect’ even in possible imperfect ways. Consumers and people on social media want people to be honest, but not too honest because they have to save face; humble but not ingenuine— be niche and original but relatable. I don’t know if this is a niche reference, but around two years ago a woman posted a recipe video of her bean salad to which someone commented “can this be without beans, i hate beans.”

It has become standard now to produce things that others can be involved in– to pass opinions on. I think it also has a major influence on purity culture that has risen in the last few years. I don’t mean religious purity– though that too probably has a lot to do with this topic, but health and aesthetically. I can really see this on my college campus, if you don’t meal-prep, or go to the gym everyday, or spend 16 hours on your school work, yet still make time to go out until 2 in the morning you are doing ‘adult’ wrong. If you don’t subscribe to group-think you are outed as someone unworthy of any entertainment. People really continue to believe that how they live life is the best possible way and they hold themselves higher than those around them.

I think the best way to combat this is higher morality that causes you to end up just being a mean or ‘bad’ person, is it to recognize that all that matters is yourself. I am not suggesting everyone turn into selfish humans, but move through life understanding, you live with you the whole time and would you even want to be around you if you met yourself? I think that by focusing on these questions, you start to realise; if you can’t stand yourself you probably do not need to judge others. Obviously it’s a lot easier said than done and if I’m honest I really don’t see my generation changing much anytime soon, but maybe if at least one person starts trying to be nicer to themselves, see their own flaws, we will stop pointing out others flaws.

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Edited by Lottie Bowden and Lilli Eve