I love films that are violent.
I love music that is anger and angst-filled.
I love comedians that shine a light on the dark side of humanity.
Can I still love these things and be kind?
Or do I need to change my taste in art to align better with my desire to be a kinder person. Do I need to become a hippy?
I was worried that I needed to stop consuming anything provocative, challenging, or intense. That my bookshelves, playlists, and viewing histories will need to reflect only gentleness, warmth, and light.
After careful exploration, I felt my worry was misplaced.
Practising kind communication doesn’t require me to sanitise my entire emotional and creative life. It doesn’t mean pretending I only experience positive emotions or that I’m interested in calm content alone.
It means something simpler: understanding the difference between consuming art that explores the full spectrum of human experience, and how I choose to communicate with actual human beings in my life.
The misconception works something like this: if I’m working towards kinder communication, I should only engage with kind content. I should avoid anything that explores violence, conflict, darkness, absurdity, or human cruelty.
But kindness isn’t about purity. It’s not about existing in a carefully curated bubble where difficult emotions, complex themes, or uncomfortable truths don’t exist.
Kindness is about how we treat people in our actual human contact, not about what stories resonate with us, what music moves us, or what perspectives we find intellectually engaging.
Many people who care deeply about communicating with respect also find meaning in:
These aren’t contradictions. They’re examples of humans who understand that exploring intensity through art is different from expressing intensity towards people.
Art allows us to explore concepts, emotions, and experiences we may never encounter directly.
When I read a novel about cruelty, I’m not learning how to be cruel. I’m understanding motivation, consequence, or the conditions that create harm.
When I watch a film that doesn’t resolve neatly, I’m sitting with ambiguity, something real life demands of us constantly.
When I listen to music that expresses fury, I’m experiencing catharsis, release, or solidarity with a feeling I’ve carried.
When I laugh at comedy that highlights human absurdity, I’m not endorsing mockery, I’m appreciating observation and the courage to name what many notice but few say aloud.
These experiences can actually strengthen our values. Sometimes consuming content that could potentially conflict with our principles helps us see those principles more clearly. Watching something that makes us uncomfortable can clarify what matters to us.
Art explores. Communication connects.
They serve different purposes in our emotional and intellectual lives.
I started Best of Our Kind because I didn’t want this journey to feel like self-erasure.
I don’t want people to believe that practising kindness requires them to:
That’s not strength. That’s suppression.
Kindness, as we understand it, is not about removing complexity from our life. It’s about bringing awareness to the moments when our words reach another person, and choosing care in those moments.
We can love stories about morally grey characters and still treat people with dignity.
We can find dark comedy hilarious and still pause before responding sharply.
We can appreciate art that explores violence and still speak to people gently.
We can listen to angry or aggressive music and still hold space for someone’s feelings.
These aren’t contradictions because art is not instruction.
It’s exploration.
This distinction matters because it reveals something important: art doesn’t create communication behaviour in isolation.
In the 80s and 90s, there were moral panics about music, video games, and films supposedly corrupting behaviour. But millions consumed the same content (including myself) without becoming violent, cruel, or antisocial.
Because behaviour is shaped by far more than what we watch or listen to:
For many people, the turning point towards wanting to communicate with more care isn’t triggered by the art we consume. It’s triggered by what we witness in real interactions.
The comment that lands more harshly than intended.
The conversation that escalates when it didn’t need to.
The group chat that turns defensive.
The public exchange that feels performative rather than human.
The meeting where someone’s dignity is casually dismissed.
The way disagreement immediately becomes dismissal.
That reality, not the fiction we consume in our downtime, is what makes some of us want something different.
If you’ve been worrying that practising kindness requires you to change your cultural consumption, let that worry go.
We’re not asking you to become someone else. We’re not suggesting that your bookshelves, streaming queues, or playlists need to reflect only gentle content.
You already know the difference between a story and a conversation. Between a song lyric and a text message. Between satire and everyday speech. Between experiencing intensity through art and directing intensity towards a person.
Practising kindness doesn’t mean pretending that difference doesn’t exist.
We believe it means:
Kindness doesn’t ask us to suppress the full range of human emotion.
It asks us to consider impact alongside intent when our words reach another person.
It asks us to recognise that what feels cathartic or intellectually stimulating in art may feel harmful when directed at someone in conversation.
It asks us to understand that communication is contact, not performance, and that contact requires care even when, especially when, emotions run high.
Kindness is not about what we consume. It’s about how we connect.
And connection requires awareness, intention, and choice, qualities that great art often explores, even when the art itself isn’t kind.
If you’ve been holding back from taking this first step because you thought it would require you to soften every aspect of yourself, you can set that concern aside.
We’re not asking you to become a different person.
We’re not suggesting you narrow your interests, sanitise your cultural consumption, perform constant gentleness, or try to live a life of purity – only spouting peace, love and flowers.
We’re asking you to bring awareness to the moments when your words reach another human being, and to choose care in those moments, even when it feels difficult.
The rest of your life, your stories, your music, your comedy, your intellectual complexity, remains entirely yours.
Kindness isn’t about sanitising humanity. It’s about honouring it.
And that includes honouring all of who you are.