Why Envy Is the Internet’s Most Toxic Emotion (And How to Stop It)

I’ve decided envy is the ugliest human trait, and I say this as someone who’s witnessed people destroy friendships over Instagram stories. It’s self-hatred wearing a concerned face, pretending to be helpful while systematically poisoning everything it touches.

Photo by Dương Trần Quốc

Here’s what nobody wants to admit: we attack people for having exactly what we want. The woman who rolls her eyes at her friend’s promotion secretly applies for the same job. The man who mocks his neighbor’s Rivian spends lunch browsing electric car websites. The person who leaves a comment on someone’s success story “must be nice to have rich parents” while their browser history shows hours researching the same career path. We become critics of our own desires, which is like hiring a divorce lawyer to plan your wedding.

I’ve watched envy turn reasonable people into emotional arsonists. They’ll compliment your success while mentally calculating how to make you feel terrible about it. Envy doesn’t just want what you have it wants you to not have it anymore. As Twain might say, man is the only creature who can be miserable about someone else’s happiness, and we’ve perfected this particular art form.

The line between love and hate isn’t just thin it’s practically nonexistent. Envy lives in that space, thick with darkness and manipulation. It’s the only emotion that punishes both the person feeling it and the person receiving it. The envious become consumed by someone else’s success while the envied get mystery hate for crimes they didn’t know they committed.

When we feel envy crawling up our throats, that’s our cue to sit with our own self-hatred instead of projectile vomiting it onto someone else’s happiness. Because attacking someone for having what you want doesn’t magically transfer their success to your bank account. It just makes you the villain in their story while remaining the victim in your own.

Envy is just self-loathing with social media skills and the moral compass of a weather vane. At least when billionaires destroy democracy, they’re honest about wanting power.