First Comes the Breakup, Then Comes the ‘Thrive Post’
If the thrive post has a patron saint, it is Nicole Kidman. Specifically, Kidman the day she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise, when she was photographed by paparazzi leaving her attorney’s office with her arms blissfully extended, her mouth a wide, Whitmanian yawp. She is undeniably free. The image has since become a meme—and inspiration for people leaving relationships. If you catch a friend posting this photo, assume that they’re recently single.
What I call “thrive posts” are the things people share on social media in the aftermath of a breakup to signal that they’ve moved on and are thriving. (I’m a thrive-poster myself—I into the Kidman meme hours after being dumped.) This is a modern manifestation of a long-standing impulse. “Living well is the best revenge,” the 17th-century poet George Herbert wrote. But, in the age of social media, living well feels like it isn’t enough; an even better revenge is publicizing how well we’re living. That publicity may take the form of thirst-trap photos, cryptically optimistic status updates, or photos documenting nights out with friends. Though that social-media usage tends to increase after a breakup, thrive-posting is different from simply tweeting more often. Thrive posts tend to or comment elliptically on the subject of personal growth. They’re as opaque as they are obvious, reliant on plausible deniability (), while sending a pointed implicit message () These public displays of self-worth can be great for a dopamine hit, but ironically, thrive-posting may hold people back from truly moving on.
