The Catch 22 of Meme Culture and Increasing Mental Health Awareness
Understanding the impact of relatability online and the potential damage of using mental illnesses as adjectives
“I have always confessed, or rather proudly branded myself, to be an anti-meme culture crusader. Over the years, memes have slowly crept up on us as the token form of communication and the key to make any subject, no matter how niche, into a relatable format. As memes have trickled down into our social, visual and verbal dialect they have to moved away from light-hearted pop culture references to more social political issues. As the progression of the meme has grown, so has my distain with my scoffs and eye rolls to turning puce with rage. However more recently, my anger has developed into a feeling of deep unsettlement and offense as younger generations tackle one of the biggest rises in social impact – mental health.
I think you’d have to be a pretty unconnected Millenial or Gen Z’er to not notice the influx in mental health content flooding our social media outlets- and with wonderful reasoning and outcomes for the most part. We are amid some of the highest recorded levels of mental health statistics, but there’s never been less prejudice surrounding it. Of course, it’s on ongoing battle of breaking the stigma whilst being kind to ourselves and others, however with endless thanks to the millions of selfless and brave individuals sharing their stories, we’re living in a society which is another day nearer to considering mental health of equal important to physical
With all this said and ongoing praises sung, the impact of mental health awareness on social media could also be considered a Catch 22. I should probably start my argument by saying that the impact of mental health on social media and the impact to mental health from social media are two entirely different things. I could point you to a number of beautifully written personal essays on the impact of the latter written by authors who could account its damage far more eloquently than me. However, the impact of mental health in the age of what I call ‘Meme Culture’ is one I haven’t been able to get much of a grasp on, and is discussion I’m desperate to open to like-minded sufferers.
“I think back to my early teenage self in the depths of unknown territory, being so desperately self-conscious of appearing ‘damaged’, that knowing people are using similar thoughts for comedy would prevent me seeking help.”
I have been suffering from mental health issues since by very early teens and have come on a turbulent but equally tremendous journey to keeping ‘sane’. At my highest, I laugh in the face of my former self and skip through life putting two fingers up at anyone who tries to slow me down. At my worst, I frankly can’t put what that is into words. I wish I was a talented enough writer to verbalise what the depths of my anxiety and depression does to me, but I can’t. All I see when I look back is a mental scribble, a blip in my history, a part where the film is over exposed and damaged. Thankfully with the support of what I see as unearthly and god-like beings, I’ve always made it back to solid ground and started to get the skip back into my step. After 25 years with my chemical concoction mind, in the last couple years I’ve finally gained the confidence to accept this part of me that will always be there, and even grown to love it. Learned to love the empathy it has allowed me to feel, the gratitude it has inflicted upon me, the art it’s allowed me to understand and feel so deeply. I do, however, feel somewhat less poetically that it has given me the right to be royally offended by anyone who takes depression and anxiety disorders lightly. To anyone who has no grasp on what it can do to a person, but dreams of the benefits it can give to their digital persona. If I am to talk specifically, it has given me the right to question the morals of those who use other people’s disorders for their own gain, for what some misinformed ‘Gen Zer’s’ believe is ‘an aesthetic’.
Now, I am fully aware and in awe of people who use humour as a way of coping and accepting their mental health struggles. Nothing makes me admire someone more than an ability to see light in something which once paralysed them. Creating a medicine for others from their pain. This is why for me mental health memes are so offensive. I don’t doubt that some of the people who make Vines, Tik Toks or any online content do in fact suffer from certain conditions or disorders. However, I refuse to believe that every 20 something year old I’ve seen using hashtag #sadboi on otherwise unrelated content is suffering with disorders or some form of mental distress. I refuse to believe that using other people’s suffering in promotion of your image is acceptable.
The frequent portrayal of bad mental health within meme content is something which has started to filter into everyday dialect. I’ve given up with the amount of times I’ve had to remind people ‘Hey, that’s not okay’ whenever a minor inconvenience has caused them to blurt out ‘EURGH, I might as well hang myself!!’. Or the shudders I get when people describe themselves as ‘Bipolar’ when easily irritable. The scariest thing about all of this is I am the only person I know to be outspokenly upset by this digital content and its results. If the statistics are true and 1 in 4 of us do suffer from mental health difficulties at some point in our lives, why aren’t more people upset by the casual use of disorders as content? I wouldn’t consider myself to be someone struggles to take a joke- I even (ashamedly) err on the side of inappropriate when in certain company, but why do I feel like I’m the only one unsettled by this?
“Are people disengaging with the individuals effected by mental health disorders and seeing it as an abstract concept? ”
If I am to talk specifically about an example of something I’ve noticed increasingly used out of context on social media platforms recently, it’s the nonchalant content branded as a traumatic event. I have no personal or direct experience with the effects of trauma and I am very hesitant and aware as to not take offence on anyone else’s behalf, however from my own experiences on the spectrum of difficult mental health, I have to question why more people aren’t calling out the content I’ve been seeing. I’ve seen an alarming number of people on social media using the false clichés of traumatic events to set up a punchline for their comedy content. When seeing this, my heart sinks. I worry about the backlash of a generation aware of mental health that they see it as just another topic for misinformed satire. I worry that the rise of journalists and political figures labelling us as ‘snowflakes’ and ‘woke’ could cause a backlash with worrying effects. When seeing this content, I am concerned for the audiences it is reaching who may downplay their symptoms at the fear of being laughed at. I think back to my early teenage self in the depths of unknown territory, being so desperately self-conscious of appearing ‘damaged’, that knowing people are using similar thoughts for comedy would prevent me seeking help. Having watched a number of videos listed under hashtags relating to trauma on TikTok, I fear for a confused individual who sees these videos and shrugs off their experience as something to be laughed at or put aside, when it’s in fact debilitating.
Having sat on this unease for a while now with a few unarmed individuals feeling the wrath of my disgust over one too many pints, I feel it is time for me to open this discussion with others and question – ‘Is mental health a taboo subject and should it be used as meme content?’. Of course I am aware of the pros of destigmatising mental health struggles, particularly within younger generations, however I do wonder if people have taken things a step too far. Are people disengaging with the individuals effected by mental health disorders and seeing it as an abstract concept? Should we be calling out people on their inappropriate motives for using mental health has a topic in social media content? And, should we be questioning the relationship between mental health and meme culture more frequently?”.
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To read more from Nora you can head to her first submission on The Insecure Girls’ Club, titled ‘Privilege, Mental Illness and Learning Self-Compassion’.