How Being a Bad Person Became Trendy (and Why Kindness Still Makes People Uncomfortable)

A few months ago, I thanked a barista three times in less than a minute. She looked at me like I was weird — not rude, just… strange. That small moment stuck with me. Since when did kindness start feeling suspicious?

Today, being cold, sharp, and unapologetically self-centered seems not only accepted but admired. On social media, we celebrate those who clap back, cancel, expose. At work, being “efficient” often means not caring. In relationships, setting “boundaries” sometimes just masks emotional detachment. Kindness, on the other hand, is easily misunderstood as naivety, weakness, or worse — a lack of personality.

So how did we get here?

The Rise of Cool Cruelty

Sarcasm is the new sincerity. Irony is social capital. In digital spaces, the ability to be cutting, witty, or cynically detached is often rewarded with likes, retweets, or even job offers. There’s little space left for softness that doesn’t come with a punchline.

We live in a culture that confuses authenticity with bluntness, assertiveness with aggression, and confidence with a lack of empathy. If you smile too much, you’re fake. If you show care, you’re needy. If you choose compassion, you’re weak.

But what if the opposite is true?

Byung-Chul Han: Kindness as Resistance

In The Expulsion of the Other, Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes that our current society, obsessed with transparency, speed, and productivity, has no room for the Other — the stranger, the vulnerable, the one who interrupts our flow. Kindness, in this context, becomes radical. It’s not a nice gesture — it’s an ethical stance.

Han doesn’t describe kindness as politeness. He sees it as an act of care that acknowledges the other person’s existence without trying to absorb, fix, or eliminate them. True kindness is not about usefulness; it’s about recognition. In a world where everything must have value, kindness defies logic because it refuses to be transactional.

He writes:

“Hell is the lack of the Other.”

That’s what we’re moving toward when we treat others only as tools, threats, or mirrors.

What We Lose When We Stop Being Kind

We lose the possibility of connection without performance. We lose nuance. We lose silence that isn’t awkward. We lose the small pauses that make daily life tolerable — the door held open, the eye contact, the non-ironic “how are you?”

Worse, we teach ourselves that the safest way to move through the world is alone, armored, and detached. But nothing grows in isolation.

Kindness Isn’t Cute. It’s Brave.

I’m not writing this as a call to be soft all the time, to say yes to everything, or to smile through abuse. Kindness is not people-pleasing. It’s not submission.

It’s looking at someone — a colleague, a stranger, even someone you dislike — and choosing to see them as more than a function or a threat. It’s resisting the instinct to roll your eyes, to win the conversation, to walk away without looking back. It’s inconvenient. It takes effort. It’s deeply human.

In a world where cruelty is cool and disconnection is trendy, being kind is almost revolutionary.