Rising road rage, burnout and online hostility reveal deeper emotional exhaustion as many Malaysians struggle with stress and uncertainty.

MALAYSIA feels angry these days – not just online, where complete strangers call each other “bodoh”, “macai” or “walaun” before breakfast, but also in Parliament, where politicians sometimes behave like relatives fighting over inheritance during Deepavali.

The anger is everywhere – on highways, in supermarkets, at parking lots, at mamaks, in office WhatsApp groups and even in the passive-aggressive “K” replies from colleagues who are one inconvenience away from launching a full emotional TED talk.

Lately, scrolling through Malaysian news feels less like reading headlines and more like reviewing evidence for a national group therapy session.

A few weeks ago, a viral video showed a motorcyclist kicking a car at a toll plaza, in what became yet another road rage incident. Another case saw five men arrested in Kota Kinabalu after a teacher’s car windows were smashed following a traffic altercation.

Then there was the shocking Cheras case involving a senior citizen who was assaulted after a minor accident. The elderly victim later told the court he became afraid to leave home.

At this point, some Malaysians no longer use signal lights while driving because apparently “hand gestures” have become the preferred form of communication. And honestly, can we talk about our roads for a moment?

Some Malaysians drive like they are late for surgery they themselves are performing. You could be calmly driving to buy nasi lemak and suddenly find yourself trapped between a Hilux tailgating you at Formula One speed and a Myvi overtaking from an angle previously only studied by Nasa engineers. But beneath the jokes and memes, something deeper is happening – Malaysia is emotionally exhausted.

People are carrying invisible anger from lives that have become harder, lonelier and more uncertain.

The cashier snapping at a customer may have spent the entire month worrying about rent; the man raging in traffic may be drowning in debt; and the woman arguing over a parking spot may not have rested properly in years.

Many Malaysians are functioning but not coping and perhaps that is the real story. We are living in an age where everyone is overstimulated and under-supported. Food prices keep climbing while salaries often do not. Young adults are trying to survive while paying PTPTN loans, rent, fuel, childcare and therapy-level Grab fares.

Meanwhile, social media ensures nobody suffers quietly anymore. Once upon a time, if someone annoyed you, you complained to your spouse, your neighbour or your favourite makcik at the pasar. Now, Malaysians can upload a 37-second video, add dramatic background music and turn a parking dispute into national discourse by lunchtime.

Algorithms reward outrage but calmness rarely goes viral. A thoughtful comment gets three likes while someone typing “Malaysia already finished” under a random post racks up 12,000 reposts and a podcast invitation.

We are constantly consuming anger until it has become our emotional background noise.

And politics certainly has not helped. Years of political instability, corruption scandals, racial rhetoric and endless power struggles have left many Malaysians emotionally cynical.

People are tired – tired of promises, tired of outrage, tired of feeling like survival itself has become a full-time job. Even humour has changed.

Malaysians still joke because humour is practically our national coping mechanism but our jokes now sound more like collective stress responses.

We laugh about expensive groceries while calculating whether adding cheese to a burger now qualifies as financial recklessness.

We joke about petrol prices while driving with the fuel warning light on long enough to develop spiritual trust. We make memes because if we stop laughing, some of us may genuinely cry in a hypermarket parking lot.

And perhaps the saddest part is this: despite being more connected than ever, many Malaysians feel deeply alone.

We message constantly but rarely talk honestly. We post selfies while quietly burning out. We know each other’s political opinions but not each other’s emotional struggles.

Men are still often raised to suppress vulnerability until it emerges as anger while women carry enormous emotional labour silently until exhaustion turns into resentment. Children absorb stress from parents who themselves are barely holding it together.

So no, Malaysians are not suddenly becoming cruel people – but we are becoming emotionally stretched.

A society under pressure eventually starts leaking that pressure everywhere onto roads, comment sections, across dinner tables and through small everyday interactions.

That does not excuse bad behaviour. Road rage is still dangerous. Public abuse is still unacceptable.

Nobody deserves violence because they changed lanes badly or took too long at a traffic light.

But understanding the emotional climate matters too. Because sometimes the rage we witness in public is not just anger – sometimes it is fear, exhaustion; years of financial anxiety, loneliness, disappointment and emotional suppression finally erupting over something as small as a parking space.

That is the real danger facing Malaysia today – not inflation, politics or even the endless culture wars online but a society slowly losing its emotional patience with itself.

Anger does not always arrive loudly; it can sometimes build quietly through unpaid bills, silent disappointments, humiliations at work, loneliness at home, sleepless nights and years of feeling unheard. Then one day, a stranger cuts into a lane, a cashier gets an order wrong, somebody leaves a harsh comment online and suddenly the pressure explodes.

Malaysia is not collapsing in one dramatic moment; it is fraying slowly through millions of exhausted people trying very hard to hold themselves together.

And perhaps behind every angry Malaysian today is not simply a bad person but someone who has been carrying too much for far too long.

Hashini Kavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor at theSun.

Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

 The Sun Malaysia