Bad mental health is romanticized in many ways in social media. From quotes on depression with romantic pictures linked to it, to the way people use anxiety to seem “relatable” and the way mental illness in general is used for capitalistic purposes, to gain followers or consumers. Here is an example of a quote that does just that:
The language used here is trying to romanticize suicidal urges. This can be very harmful especially for teenagers. Younger people are most susceptible and can easily fall into this side of social media. The image above is one example of the way mental illness is portrayed as desirable. This is harmful because it neglects real experiences of depression, but portrays it in a desirable light.
Here you can see a quote about anxiety being used in a supposedly funny way to be seen as relatable. The image shows a hoodie that is being sold using mental illness as a way to appeal to consumers. This is very damaging to younger people who do not realize how it affects their image of mental illness. It shows them a false image of what depression and other forms of mental illnesses actually look like.
There is a very interesting article that discusses how detrimental this topic is for people who are really suffering from mental illnesses. From the article “The Los Angeles Loyolan”, it says, “The lure of wanting to be “interesting” combined with the rise of self-diagnosis is a dangerous mixture. It simultaneously dilutes and glorifies the symptoms of depression on a large scale.” This trend makes a lot of people try and self diagnose themselves. The more people do this, the more it takes away from people’s real life experiences of dealing with depression. Romanticizing depression makes it harder for people to know what depression is actually like. Instead, it is shown as something desirable.
This is a great blog! I think it’s important to talk about this, especially following the “Dark Ages” of social media between 2010-2017 when the communities that bonded over depression somehow became attractive to other people who did not necessarily relate, and many Tumblr blogs reduced depression into an “aesthetic”.
This blog highlights an important issue. It is true that social media has a role in the way that depression and other mental illnesses are perceived among people.
I agree that this is a problem that has gotten out of hand. The constant romanticizing of mental illnesses push the help away from people actually suffering from it. The hoodie reminded me of when an influencer created merch with the quote “did you eat today?”, it seemed like she was profiting off of eating disorders.
This is so interesting to me because I don’t think I ever took out the time to see ‘relatable’ mental health posts for what they are. In fact, up until now, I was grateful such conversations were taking place at all and reducing the stigma attached to mental health. But a clear separation between self-diagnosed and clinically diagnosed mental health issues needs to exist. While on the one hand, we can now discuss anxiety and how it affects our actions, we’re also allowing it to become an excuse for ill-intentioned people and sometimes even an accessory.
I was aware of people who self-diagnosed with mental illnesses because they thought it was cool and they want to be interesting. However, this is the first time I’ve seen people glorifying suicide, which can have a tragic effect on impressionable children.
This post reminds me of how the popular social media application “TikTok” romanticizes depression and other mental health issues. Kids don’t really know what’s right or wrong so they copy everything they see and hope they become one of the cool or popular kids. It’s sad how our generation makes psychological issues a “trend”, the people that are struggling with it makes it harder for them to heal when they see kids begging for it. This needs to stop!
Thank you for spreading awareness on this issue. Media, in general, plays a huge role in influencing the youth which reminds me of a series that came out when I was still in middle school… Everyone loved it! Although the series was heavily influenced by the romanticization of mental illness, they’ve all seen it, which is truly sad since no one seemed to bother understanding the legitimate situations of people who deal with mental troubles.