Among the boom in self-help books on the shelves this year there is a title by life coach Andrea Owen called How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t. It has a quote on the cover from Jen Sincero, author of You Are a Badass, and comes hard on the heels of Unf*ck Yourself; F*ck Feelings; F**k Anxiety; Calm the F**k Down; Unf*ck Your Brain; How to Make Sh*t Happen; and the mother of all sweary self-help titles, Mark Manson’s 2016 juggernaut The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck.
Most of these books present perfectly sensible ideas about how to stop jeopardising your own efforts and escape negative thought-loops. They compile lists of bad habits and address self-defeating behaviours and a few years ago, when the trend started taking off, they sounded naughty and arresting in a light-handed way.
To my ears they sound less like that now. I don’t want to be un-fun about this, but the presence in the White House of a man who, if he has mastered anything, might be said to have nailed the art of not giving a f*ck makes this and other sweary directives appear less in the vein of a cheeky marketing ploy and more like further evidence of our descent into hell.
It is partly just a question of a particular formulation reaching peak usage. A few years ago, when every aspiring literary novel bore a title that married a whimsical job (lighthouse keeper) with a branch of the family tree (daughter/nephew), or that located a collective of obscure amateur enthusiasts (the bicycle repair shop owners’ society) somewhere western readers might find delightfully far-flung (of Tamil Nadu), a trend that once seemed mildly charming became instantly unbearable.
In the realm of sweary self-help books, the book that started the avalanche was almost certainly the 2005 bestseller by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur, Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? (Or, as Bill Bryson noted in an interview with the Guardian: “Is it just this book?”) When it came out, there was some harrumphing around the language and what it said about the erosion of civility in public life, but it was generally received as a cheeky corrective to the more pompous aspects of publishing.
Now, these kinds of titles simply sound angry, an extension of the shouty tone of online discourse, even if the thing they purport to be shouting down is one’s own demons. That is their appeal: demonstrating that in spite of all that bravado, everyone is running scared inside and we might all get along better if we tackled our frightened inner voices.
It’s a generous interpretation of tough love, one that frames the performance of instant outrage and general fury as an expression of inadequate self-care. Love yourself more and you will be nicer to others. I’m sure this is true, but I would suggest a change of emphasis. Instead of looking purely inwards, the tough talk of these titles might address the wider implications of not giving a f*ck, while staying true to the jaunty flavour of the trend. How about a runaway hit book with broader social utility, along the lines of How to Stop Being an Arsehole?
• Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
