Does the Media Glamorize Mental Illness?
By Bo Wang
TW: mentions of suicide/eating disorders/self-harm/other sensitive topics
In 2019, HBO released the show Euphoria, which is now an Emmy-winning drama starring Zendaya as Rue Bennett, a teen with a substance addiction. The show's writer, Sam Levison, aimed to portray the battle of addiction but also showed Rue's condition as excellent, even desirable, with the stunning cinematography.
This is nothing new, as only two years before Euphoria airing, Netflix's 13 Reasons Why was prevalent among teenagers. The main character had committed suicide, and after her death, she is all anyone can talk about, leaving viewers with the impression that suicide equals popularity; however, the reality is that most people that kill themselves do it for other reasons. Even so, stories of people taking their own lives in the way the character had surfaced. In fact, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the series' debut was followed by a 28.9% spike in suicide rates in children 10-17.
Euphoria and 13 Reasons Why are only two of the many instances where the media shows mental illness in this light.
Many television programs portray mental diseases as desirable or even attractive. In turn, people with mental illness are harmed by the romanticization of the condition, as it prevents them from obtaining proper care.
A student at New Paltz High School had stated that her current struggles with mental illness were partial because of Skins, another show that had a character suffering from anorexia. "It teaches you how to be anorexic," she says.
Eating disorders are one of the most glamourized mental illnesses, with huge spaces on platforms like Twitter, Tik Tok, and Tumblr. As social media has taken our lives by storm, it isn't a surprise how it influences us. There are "thinspo" videos and threads with thousands of views encouraging unhealthy eating habits.
This type of media is so accessible, creating a huge problem. Users are easily able to expose harmful and dangerous content to impressionable minds. "There were some people on TikTok, back when being emo and depressed was a big thing," the same student from New Paltz High School said, "that would talk about their self-harm in such a refreshing, enlightening way like: 'Oh, I miss it,' and they glamorized cutting yourself. They made it seem so euphoric because it supposedly makes you feel better. People would say 'I miss the blood trickling down…' and that made people think, 'Oh, wow, let me try that.'"
While many people may try to go online to seek comfort in knowing others are going through the same thing, the effects can be more harmful than helpful.
For example, one person suffering from severe depression since they were fifteen said in a case study that "he resorted to the internet for support because he felt lonely, and there he encountered images glamorizing depression and self-harm." This worsened his mental health by prompting him to partake in "harmful behaviors and thoughts."
Interacting with social media is inevitable, but it's crucial to have a healthy relationship with it by understanding that not everything on social media is accurate. In addition, there need to be boundaries to what can be shared.