Social media can be a fairly toxic space. Contrary to the reassuring notion that "nobody really cares about you, people are focused exclusively on themselves," it turns out that many of these "self-focused" people are ready to spend a couple of minutes (a whole day? many days?) on nasty comments. Bullying can come crashing down on a person because of any feature of their appearance or any opinion they voice. And so, in this stormy digital sea, an unusual "island of kindness" has appeared – the Kindness Mob movement, which takes up the tools of trolls and rage-baiters but uses them exclusively for good.
The project was founded in 2023 by Tyler Brickley, a digital marketer from Kansas City (USA). It is a community of volunteers in a digital movement, and their number has already passed half a million. Anyone who wishes can join. Community members nominate content creators (on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) who, in their opinion, need support. This can be anyone: a friend, an acquaintance, a user they happened to notice, or even the person making the nomination. Every day Tyler posts a video in which he announces the nominee, and after that the participants begin a "raid" on the comments, leaving hundreds of sincere and kind messages there. The mandatory conditions:
- Do not advertise your affiliation with The Kindness Mob; the action must look spontaneous and organic, because, according to the organizers' idea, one of the goals is to show that kindness exists on the internet and lives on its own.
- No template phrases or expressions, only what comes from the heart.
- Focus on the person, not the conflict. And this is a very important point. Even if the task is to neutralize a wave of hate, all attention goes to the person's wonderful qualities and words of support for them.
According to Brickley, this is trolling, but with a "+" sign. "We hijack the mechanisms of online harassment, such as coordination and anonymity, and use them for good," Brickley says.
The community has a website where nominees are posted, a TikTok channel, where the greatest activity takes place, and a YouTube channel.
The BBC, which wrote an article about the community, cited the story of Laura Tigeleiro from Staten Island (New York). Laura has multiple sclerosis, which makes one of her eyes cross. The girl posted videos on TikTok with useful recipes, hoping to find friends, but instead encountered cruel mockery of her appearance. Tyler Brickley directed his "army" to her profile. As a result, more than 15 000 warm and supportive comments appeared under Laura's videos. The haters were completely displaced by positivity. Thanks to the sharp growth in audience, TikTok's algorithms began actively promoting Laura's content, and she was able to earn enough money to buy her family a new car.
The Kindness Mob phenomenon has a scientific basis. Researchers call it "social contagion theory": behavior, whether negative or positive, spreads from person to person like a virus. When a flurry of compliments appears under a creator's content, it becomes psychologically uncomfortable to write nasty things. The mechanism that makes people join in bullying (the herd effect) works just as well to protect the victim, stopping the bullying. Kindness is "contagious" no less than aggression, and perhaps more so.
The Kindness Mob's "raids" are conducted not only against hate. The community directs waves of kindness to those who go unnoticed, who have suffered a loss, who feel burned out.
The movement has objective limitations. Brickley admits that he receives dozens of requests for help every day, but is physically capable of organizing only one targeted "wave of kindness" a day. Besides, the project is not oriented toward profit at all. Despite a half-million audience, monetization of the platform brings the creator symbolic sums. What does this mean? That support is needed from each of us. We can all become volunteers of kindness, join this community, create our own, or simply be the ones who leave kind, sincere comments under posts, without getting drawn into arguments, without calling curses down on the heads of the haters.
And you can also create your own inner Kindness Squad. And summon it every time your inner critics find a victim. And it doesn't matter who that victim is – a random passerby, a neighbor, the weather outside the window, or yourself – the Kindness Squad will come and "write" a dozen of the most heartfelt compliments to the object of criticism.
The story of The Kindness Mob proves that tools created for destruction can be turned to good. And that the only way to defeat evil is not to fight it, but to generate kindness. In this case – skillfully coordinated.
