A Critique on the Demonization of Mainstream "Emotional Labour"

Cover art: unknown.

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Let me start by saying I am very familiar with the agonies of emotional labour and how utterly draining it is — I’m not here to contest that or invalidate it. What I am here to do is tell you about mainstream, pop-”psych”, ‘emotional labour’ and why demonizing this so called labour is just…incorrect.

What are my qualifications? See, I’d insert a photo of my First-Class BSc in Psychology degree but that would reveal my government name and I have no interest in outing myself that way, so you’ll have to trust me on this as I walk you through my critique.

I’ll start with the first thing, and I am not the first nor the last person to complain about this — the tiktokification of psychology or otherwise known as “pop psych”. I am incredibly protective of my dear science, and I’m in complete agreement with psychologists who say pop-psych should not exist. Pop psychology is usually full of misused and poorly defined jargon that tries to educate a general audience on often complex and dense topics.

For example, I can’t possibly make a thirty second video on C-PTSD and chalk up you knowing who’s walking up the stairs to C-PTSD and use it as a diagnostic symptom. It’s ludicrous because to genuinely understand markers of trauma, you have to research. Extensively. You have to read journals (many of which are not behind a paywall) and you have to devote at least several hours to grasping its complexities. That and you have to spends hours with a person to learn their markers.

I’m not gatekeeping, I’m stating fact — we cannot learn about psychology in thirty seconds and we cannot diagnose ourselves or others from those videos. Now that we’ve established that, enter what I’m calling ‘mainstream emotional labour’— the bastardized term. What did they do to you, sweet girl?

Emotional labour, in its original sense, is the work of managing your feelings to meet the emotional expectations of others — often under social, professional, or relational pressure.

It’s not just caring about people; it’s the constant effort to maintain harmony at the cost of your own well-being. You might also call this walking on eggshells. This is very real, and an issue the world of psychology has beaten to death, yet the internet has it all wrong. No, I don’t mean the NCBI, I’m talking about ‘social media internet.’ Even Arlie Hochschild, who coined the term 'emotional labor,' never intended for it to become a catch-all for basic human kindness. Psychologists even warn that pop-psych trends and the misuse and overgeneralization of psychological concepts could turn normal, healthy social behaviors into burdens, distancing us from relationships that sustain us and our communitiess¹.

Tiktok, Instagram and other platforms that can’t come to mind right now, have taken psychological terms like emotional labour and plastered them onto everything. They took it and ran marathons. We (and I say we to cushion my words…is that emotional labour too, gasp!) have diluted this term to meaning anything requiring a bit of emotional work and effort. Suddenly making a friend or partner happy is emotional labour, regulating our own emotional reactions is emotional labour, being kind and considerate to the cashier is labour, labour, labour.

Any emotional effort is labour, and labour is bad. But is it? Or has capitalism warped our sense of collective responsibility, making basic human connection feel like a burden?

When we stray from me, myself, and I, and start to extend outwards, the surface level analyses rear their heads, screaming that you’re performing emotional labour and need to be more selfish!! I don’t disagree with the idea that we should be healthily-selfish and take care of ourselves, but I disagree that this shift is the end all be all of life.

And this shift isn't accidental, no. In a world where every aspect of life is monetized, even relationships have been reduced to transactions—another form of labor under capitalism’s ever-expanding grip as it seethes at you to become more independent. The willy-nilly TikTok definitions of ‘emotional labour’, impacted by this very capitalist system, would have you and others thinking that welcoming a friend into your house to cry to you about her troubles is trauma dumping and thus emotional labour. It would tell you that withholding bad news until the morning so your mother sleeps soundly is ‘walking on eggshells’ and yeah yeah, emotional labour.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the ability to distinguish between genuine emotional strain and basic human acts of love, kindness, and reciprocity. The internet’s obsession with therapy-speak has reduced connection to transaction, making even the most natural forms of care feel like a burden. We’ve reached a point where the mere act of considering another person’s feelings is seen as self-sacrificial to the point of self-harm. But is it really? Or have we become so hyper-individualistic—so consumed by the capitalist demand to prioritize self—that anything communal, anything requiring effort, is immediately labeled as toil?

Anything that pulls us beyond ourselves is emotional labour now, because heaven forbid we care. We’ve reached a Godawful era of pseudo-intellectualism that bleeds into interpersonal relationships and therapy-speak that alienates us from communities we need, when everything worth living for is technically (according to the jargon simplifying overlords) emotional labour and oh gosh, here comes the ooga ooga, emotional labour bad brigade! You see where I’m going, yeah?

Emotional connection is not labour. Me wiping my friend’s cheek when she cries about someone who broke her heart is me loving, it isn’t labour. Me making my mother tea is not labour. Me abstaining from certain reactions because I know their negative consequences and choosing to, here’s a wild thought hold onto your pantaloons, self-regulate, is not labour. If you see love, care, gentleness and consideration as labour, then I ask you to look inwards and ask yourself, “why?”. The greatest things in life would require what they now call emotional labour.

Me writing this is the same. Creating my art is the same. All of it requires my emotions, a degree of labour, effort, and time, and it’s heavily collectivist because I pull from universal human experiences and present them to all of you. Is creation now emotional labour too? Is anything human and collective labour?

We confused genuine emotional strain with any form of effort, and as a result, supportive behaviors, basic acts of kindness or empathy are seen as burdensome. People hesitate now, wondering if their want for advice or support is trauma dumping, if checking on someone is invasive and forcing them to be vulnerable…healthy social support is becoming alien and frowned upon.

And so, I conclude that this demonization of so called “emotional labour” is absurd!

It’s time we retrace our steps and see where we spun this very real issue into something so anti-human. From there, put it back in its special box and leave its defining to the doctors, to the academics who formulated it, and we can look but NOT TOUCH! Don’t touch! Don’t alter until altering is needed, and for the love of all that is right, leave it to the scientists and not the self-assigned ‘holistic health coaches’ who try to tell you that loving, caring, creating, and doing all that oozes the tenderest parts of humanity, is emotional labour.

What a blessing it is to have people to put effort towards, art to put emotions into and a chance to reach the world with it, even our own little corners.

We have to be able to discern between true, psychologically accurate emotional labour and utter nonsense, I’m sorry there’s no other way to put it, is there? I’ve twisted myself into a knot trying to keep this sweet and informative but holy hell girl, this is HARD! I’m finding and it does take me a while to find it but I implore you — let live and if you do find yourself in real emotional labour, care for yourself and set boundaries when safe.

But for those who confuse love and care for labour, for a burden, how I hope you can feel the warmth in your chest after a call with a friend who hears you and comforts you. I hope you can feel the way life grows lighter when sorrows are shared and communities take you under their soft wings. I can only wish that you find a tribe, and have your life shaken, your views altered, and your hands growing bigger as they remember how to cradle the world and its people.

1. https://www.pcicenters.com/pop-psychology-the-problem-with-oversimplifying-mental-health/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20the%20information%20presented%20in,seek%20legitimate%20support%20from%20providers.