If you've never heard of Tank Sinatra, the creator behind the Instagram powerhouse “Tank's Good News,” chances are you've been living on the Moon. Tank, whose real name is George Resch, is a prolific content creator who gained millions of followers on Instagram through meme creation and reposting hilarious content. "Tank's Good News" is one of Resch's projects where he only focuses on re-sharing positive, uplifting media to the general public. It turns out that Resch's own personal story helped serve as a kind of inspiration for the account.
Resch told Elite Daily that he struggled with sobriety more than a decade ago, before getting completely sober at the age of twenty-two. Now being thirty-eight, Resch recalls: "I would be frustrated that I wasn't positive, but I wasn't looking for anything to be positive [about], so it was a vicious downward cycle where I was unhappy and I looked for things to justify my unhappiness. When I got sober, I thought doing that would kill me. So, I felt like I needed to be positive to survive."
In 2017, Resch created Tank's Good News, the hugely successful project that stems from his frustration with the negativity of current news. “CNN, Fox... they've made a business out of creating a visceral reaction out of people but that reaction is fear, anxiety and negativity," he explained. He didn’t know there was a market for good news, yet said he knew “if I could make people feel good, they would come back."
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The huge popularity of Tank's Good News reflects not only its creator's but our shared fatigue with what’s happening on the screens and media. The worst scenarios are bombarding us every day and it’s only fair we get fed up with it. To find out more about it, what this negative exposure does to our mental wellbeing and how can we be more resilient to it, we spoke with Dr. Lise Deguire, a clinical psychologist and author of award-winning memoir “Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience From a Burn Survivor.”
Dr. Lise said that indeed many people report that their mood is negatively affected by the news. “Of course, the news itself tends to focus on negative occurrences. For example, the news will report on the terrible car accident that happened. They will not, of course, report on the thousands of people that safely drove that day. (Safe, happy occurrences are not usually considered news.) But, because the news focuses so much on negative events, it can make us feel that only bad things are happening in the world,” she explained.
The clinical psychologist added that the news often focuses on events that make us fearful, “because when we are afraid, we tend to think we need to keep watching the news.”
When asked what are psychological benefits to reducing the time you spend on social media and watching TV, Dr. Lise said that when her clients report anxiety, sadness or anger about the news, she often encourages them to limit their news/social media exposure. “Most of us can stay informed through a quick read of the headlines. Having the news on in the background, or checking Twitter all day, often distresses people because the news almost always focuses on scary negative events and ignores positive ones,” she explained.
The good news is that we can all learn to become more positive and resilient to negativity. “One way is to learn who or what makes us feel good, and who or what makes us feel bad. For example, my mood usually improves when I listen to music or go outside. My mood usually goes downhill when I stop exercising. All of us have activities that lift us up or bring us down.”
Dr. Lise also said that the more aware we can be, the better choices we can make. “Does it help you to dance? Write? Call a friend? Take a bath? See if you can figure out what is in your positivity 'toolbox,'" she suggested.
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