The problem with being too happy

In 1999, on the cusp of the new millennium, a Big Mouth Billy Bass, the soon-to-be ubiquitous animatronic fish, appeared in my family’s downstairs loo. Billy, made of latex with a mechanical skeleton inside, ostensibly deceased having been wall-mounted, started twitching whenever someone entered. He would then break into a breezy rendition of Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin. A strange gift. I remember being surprised by this novelty the first time, then amused by the reactions of unsuspecting guests, then it became unbearably irritating and we took the batteries out.

The lyrics of that song, released the year I was born but unknown to me until the arrival of Billy a decade later, consisted mainly of the catchy titular refrain. McFerrin reportedly called it ‘a pretty neat philosophy in four words’. Expanding on this, the first verse cautions that worrying makes problems doubly bad, the second advises that even in the case of homelessness, it is better not to worry. The third verse says that when you worry, it brings everyone else down with you.

Its whistling optimism was a huge hit. It apparently became George Bush Senior’s favourite track, used as his 1988 presidential campaign song without McFerrin's permission. In response, McFerrin demanded he stop using it and then stopped performing the song. He never sang it – at least not publicly – again. Lyrics about mental survival while being materially powerless, drawing on spirituals and the blues, written by a black musician whose father was the first African-American man to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, convey something very different when appropriated, bumper-sticker style, by a white millionaire in a limousine – or a whistling fish of the kind Bush probably had among his sporting trophies. For many in the western world, that pre-9/11 decade (supposedly ‘the end of history’) could be summed up by the complacent optimism of Big Mouth Billy Bass.

Twenty years later and several global crises downstream, the ‘good vibes only’ merch spawned by Billy seems less complacent than deluded. The same goes for the influencer accounts dripping in positive platitudes, the privileged friend unaware how politicised her decision ‘not to let’ politics affect her is, the self-care articles implying suicidal thoughts can be kept at bay by the cheery exhortations of Urban Outfitters’ homeware. This ‘think happy thoughts’ variety of 21st century positivity, especially as exploited by brands, seems nostalgically kitsch at best, like Uri Geller using mind control to bend a spoon. At worst it intensifies my sense of impending doom.