Depression Culture: Behind the Memes
On a loud bus, a 15-year-old girl looks down at her phone. She doesn’t like taking the bus, but Instagram makes it easier. She scrolls through her dash and looks at memes. A meme comes up that she connects to.
She laughs quietly and sends it to the group chat all of her friends are in. They send memes back, and the time goes by a little faster.
“Yeah, my friends aren’t on the bus so I’d rather be on my phone,
Does that make me a millennial?”
Generation Z and Millennials are exposed to more social media than any other generation. Private lives are more public than ever, so memes about personal struggles aren’t a rare occurrence. More specifically, memes about depression and anxiety.
These posts can take the shape of traditional top text, bottom text, meme template. Or, more commonly reaction images and short videos like TikTok. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all have accounts that were made by users solely for depression memes.
Many of the memes reference suicide and social isolation. Both are severe topics and real struggles for people dealing with anxiety and depression. That might be the allure of the memes, to use them to cope with issues that many Americans deal with.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders affect 40 million Americans and depression affects 15.7 million.
Alec Bellak is a 15-year-old high-school freshman with a hopeful future in the music industry. She said her experience with anxiety and depression hasn’t been minimal.
“I have an anxiety disorder, I get sweaty and nervous to the point where I can’t move. I’m frozen,” said Bellak.
She struggles with big social interactions and prefers to be with a couple of people at a time. Her passion to sing led her to the choir where she performs to help overcome her nerves around crowds. Bellak also looks at memes daily, most of them being about anxiety and depression.
“I love them, because it’s like, oh! Other people are going through the same thing. And they make me laugh. I’m less anxious when I look at them,” said Bellak.
Bellak isn’t alone in the feeling that memes help her cope with her symptoms of mental illness or anxiety.
A survey conducted in Indonesia measured how helpful memes are to mental health. In the survey, 133 college students were asked what kind of memes they look at, and the biggest category was Self-deprecating/Depressing memes. When asked if the memes help with symptoms of depression, and anxiety 46% said yes, it helps, and 54% said no, it does not.
So, memes do seem to help a part of the audience, but not the majority. And the big concern is that these behaviors can be more damaging than helpful. Kyra Ortega-Schwartz, an Education and Prevention Outreach Assistant Coordinator for the University of Oregon’s Counseling Center, said where her concerns lie,
“The only issue I personally see with this kind of humor is not getting people who need help, help because friends think they are joking.”
Joking about suicide is common for these online memes. However, according to the Crisis Centre, joking about suicide is part of the warning signs 80% of people show before committing suicide.
Suicide is a rising concern, with the suicide rate jumping 60% internationally in the last 45 years, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15–44 (male and female),” said the WHO.
Ortega-Schwartz said that among those negatives there are positives. An educated populous is one, and a younger generation that isn’t afraid to ask for help. She said depression is becoming more common for younger people,
“You hear from folks on the suicide hot lines that have 11 year olds calling,”
Younger generations are arguably the most involved in depression culture, and the statistics show a young population battling mental illness. According to the National Institute of Mental Health,
“An estimated 31.9% of adolescents were identified as having any anxiety disorder, and suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34.”
For Ortega-Schwartz memes help with awarenesses and education. She said younger students are starting to be able to identify what they are feeling and why more often.
“They have this vocabulary that they wouldn’t without exposure and normalization of mental health issues,” said Ortega-Schwartz.
She believes the more awareness there is the more likely someone is to reach out when they are in need. Whether they reach out to a doctor or friends and family, communication is key.
“I think as social media continues to grow, mental health will be something people will talk about more and more.
Bellak has a simpler opinion on depression culture and humor,
“ Its better than being alone.”
