Yes, vax-positive culture is here, and while I have a hard time feeling like any kind of public optimism is totally pure and good—years of slowly realizing how toxic American positivity can be will do that to a person—I simply cannot consume enough. The #GetTheShot hashtag on Twitter is a good source for a hit. “Abuelo on the left. Dad on the right. 2nd shot for both. More family up next. My relief and joy is indescribable,” one person using the hashtag wrote…

Online vaccine positivity, which you can see in memes, tweets, and videos, is a huge departure from previous pro-vax culture. In this, as in so many things, the strange circumstances of COVID have created something new. Before COVID, promoting vaccination had mostly been the government’s (and nonprofits’) job. And it’s been a hard one, because vaccination has mostly been about maintaining the measles-free, polio-free, pertussis-free status quo we’ve gotten very accustomed to enjoying. “That’s the problem with vaccines. When they work, absolutely nothing happens. Nothing,” Paul Offit, a doctor and vaccine educator, writes about the difficulty of his job.