I’m scrolling through my phonebook, trying to find a relevant recipient for a daily dose of joy. After a decade in journalism I have some weird contacts in my phone. As well as friends and family and a virtual black book of dates, there sits Diane Abbott’s name, alongside Howard Marks (RIP), Rick Stein’s sons’ and someone I once interviewed about animal assisted therapy (skunks worked best for schizophrenics, I’d learnt). Luckily whoever is about to receive today’s morale boost won’t know it’s from me – so I don’t have to feel like any kind of creep texting something nice to someone who may have forgotten I exist. Which is why I’ve basically forgotten dating apps exist and am now obsessed with this instead.
Morale – a mental health-boosting app launched in 2022 – last week began a Christmas campaign to keep us all as cheered as possible as the weather worsens, work hours extend and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) becomes just as talked about as raging world wars. Everyone I know is now talking about SAD and everyone seems to have it, but with darkening skies and other people’s noses dripping onto your sleeve on the tube, can anyone blame us?
Here enters the “Million Morales” campaign just in time to stop London deciding as one to go into deep hibernation in the hope something will be better when we yawn awake in spring. The app allows users to send anonymous compliments or morale boosts to anyone in their phonebook but the campaign has made it even simpler in an attempt to keep us all going this year.
All you have to do now is go onto moraleboost.co.uk and pick a set compliment (changing daily all this week), then enter a UK phone number and whizz it off to your chosen one. Options for daily compliments might include: “Thanks for always making my day just that little bit easier”; “I’m so proud of you” or “I’d call you a star, but you’re a whole constellation.” I’m hoping there might also be some like: “I’d joyride a red Ford Thunderbird into the Grand Canyon for you” and “I think you’re so fit I pretend to know what starsign I am when you ask me.”
When the compliment arrives on that person’s phone it comes from “Morale”, rather than you – filling the receiver with a sense of wonder at who it might be from. It’s a bit like receiving a Valentine’s Day card in primary school and being too young to realise it came from your mum. Instead, it could have been from that boy you have a crush on because he always kicks you in the playground.
The explosion of online dating, where numbers are handed out fast and furious, as well as our addiction to our smartphones and the modern need to be networking and “on” all the time for work purposes, mean our phonebooks are bursting at the seams with all sorts of people we might not have thought about for years. Or seen in years. Or wished we had, and wondered why we haven’t? In short, that means that when you receive a message you can’t reply to and have no idea who it’s from, the world on your phone, in your palm, and right in front of you, becomes suddenly far more interesting. You could find yourself glancing suspiciously around your office, your local boozer, or even at the people you live with in an entirely different way, both after receiving or sending one. Because if you’ve sent one, will the person guess it’s from you?
Equally brilliant is the fact that the compliment giver also gets a buzz from it, says founder Aldwyn Boscawen, 34, from London. “Giving anonymous compliments allows us to express our feelings without fear of rejection, and for the person receiving them, not knowing who a compliment is from allows them to take it more seriously than they otherwise might if they knew it was from someone who loved them and wanted to support them. My mother says I’m the best-looking boy in Battersea because she loves me. She says she doesn’t understand why I’m single, but here I am - single,” he laughs.
The idea, with the new, free and easy to use, wing of Morale is to reduce the barriers for compliment-giving and allow both parties to feel the mental health benefits at a difficult time of year, Boscawen says. “Paying a compliment takes our emotions to a positive place. It generates a sense of purpose, gratitude and belonging and increases our feeling of connection to others,” he explains, having done a lot of very academic research (and being, as I like to think of it, an Eton-boy-turned-good). “Paying compliments to others has been scientifically proven to reduce stress levels and all those things combined really help improve mood.”
A lot of people find it difficult to express themselves face-to-face, so online they feel safer and less socially-anxious, but you can flip that on its head and say – why not be a nice troll?
It can’t be denied that looking through your phone book and seeing some names your rather see burning on the walls of hell than in your contacts, does spark some low-level vitriol, but Boscawen has thought of that too and says that Morale is a “positive trolling” app. You can’t choose your own words and send them unless you have the app and have been “approved” by contacts in your phone – set-pieces are instead offered online because they can be sent to anyone and everyone, he adds.
“Positive trolling is the idea that anonymity online can be used for good and not just for saying horrible things without the fear of repercussion. A lot of people find it difficult to express themselves face-to-face, so online they feel safer and less socially-anxious, but you can flip that on its head and say – why not be a nice troll? Being kind to people or being complimentary while staying anonymous kills any fear that you’re going to be brushed off and you get a lot of satisfaction from it yourself.”
My phone goes: it’s a text message from Morale: “You are the kindest person I know.” I ask him if he sent it; he vehemently denies it. “I don’t believe you,” I tell him, but all he does is smile and shake his head and make me wonder if it really could be from the person I want it to be from most.
