Compliance Framing
Suggesting that staying calm, quiet, or cheerful in the face of injustice is a sign of strength — rather than a forced survival response.
SSA Ontology
Glossary of Weaponised Positivity
A permanent publication within the SSA Ontology, with a stable web address and machine-readable identity.
Concept scheme · 5 concepts
Glossary of Weaponised Positivity
Not all harm looks like harm. This glossary names the patterns that dress control up as kindness — and use cheerfulness to erase discomfort, truth, and dissent.
Gratitude Gaslighting
Insisting that people be “grateful” for crumbs of support — even when those crumbs are harmful, insufficient, or humiliating.
Infantilising Reassurance
Offering hollow comfort or oversimplified advice that ignores a person’s depth, complexity, or autonomy — often in a patronising tone.
Masked Minimising
Responding to someone’s hardship with upbeat clichés or silver linings that deflect from what they’re actually feeling or saying.
Positivity Policing
The enforcement of “positive vibes only” in spaces where real harm needs to be named. Often used to silence lived experience or distress.