In Russia, the audience of Who Wants to be a Millionaire rarely “Asks the Audience” because the onlookers tend to give the wrong answer intentionally.
This peculiar cultural trait is likely due to the country’s collective ownership, serfdom, and social hierarchy that made it challenging for most Russians to become wealthy.
Additionally, communal living was prevalent in rural areas of Russia, and tsarist attempts to introduce private ownership failed.
Therefore, when a Russian neighbour became rich, resentment and suspicion would arise.
Meanwhile, American audiences cheer when contestants get questions right, as they believe anyone can achieve success regardless of their financial status.
Toxic validation also exists in the West, particularly regarding people’s romantic and s**ual happiness.
As people seek life advice online, the most popular responses are typically the worst, and users receive validation through social media engagement.
The most disastrous lifestyle declarations receive the most likes and retweets, such as ending functional romantic relationships over minor issues or self-mutilation.
Although ideology contributes to bad advice, the main problem is that audiences rarely have people’s best interests at heart.
Even high-level celebrities like Prince Harry are not immune to toxic validation, especially when political fashion is involved.
After his Oprah interview, where he denounced his family as racist, Prince Harry discussed his upbringing and the pain he experienced and how he doesn’t want to pass it on to others.
While he receives toxic validation from some sections of the media for being modern and opening up, it’s likely not in his best interest.
Instead, he should concentrate on uncontroversial good causes and avoid the media as much as possible.
People validate other people’s destructive lifestyles for several reasons, including the need for chaos and the need to rationalize their own life decisions.
Journalists and social commentators often give terrible advice despite being articulate and intelligent because they have chaotic personal lives filled with debt and disastrous relationships.
People evangelize for their distinctive lifestyles and gather cultural support around them, creating a competition in which values inevitably change rapidly.
In Russia’s history, after the revolution broke out, the Bolsheviks enacted the first great s**ual revolution of the 20th century.
Russia’s rulers encouraged young Communists to publicly denounce family members for opposing the regime, to the approval of their peers and society’s new elites.
The same thing happened in Mao’s China, where they were lauded with approval for their fervour in this time of revolutionary moral uncertainty.
Later, when it all sank in, the same people were overcome with guilt, shame, and horror at what they had done.
They had made a terrible choice.
Nonetheless, people, especially the young, seek validation from the most influential and powerful in society, not from the wisest or those with their best interests at heart.
The Bolsheviks wanted children to turn against their family members because they saw the family as a rival to state power, but the family was also the source of common sense and folklore, the cumulative wisdom of the ages.
It is a rival source of affection, a genuine one, as Christopher Lasch called it, “a haven in a heartless world”.
The world can be heartless, making it all the sadder that toxic validators cheer when a young man denounces his own family, like Prince Harry.
