Social media continues to grow into a larger part of our lives. With this much access at our fingertips, it is easy to get wrapped up into the over exaggerations that those platforms bring. Teenagers are constantly within their own world while on social media, they have the ability to do whatever, whenever. This generation is consumed by an endless cycle of social media, and in that cycle there is a constant glorification of mental illness. Many posts on explore pages, are light hearted jokes about serious illnesses. There is a difference between venting online about being stress out and have a very real medical condition, however it seems that we have lost that division.
During a trip to Japan, vlogger Logan Paul, filmed him and a few friends while walking in the Aokigahara forest, AKA “suicide forest”. In his video, he comes across the hanging body of a suicide victim. However, instead of stopping his video to respect the man who tragically took his own life, Paul and his friends start giggling and making light hearted jokes. He even went as far as to post that part of the video to his Youtube channel, which had 15,903,141 subscribers. He knowingly sent out a video that had a suicide victims body in it, to 17,111 subscribers excluding every other person that has access to Youtube. Paul claims his video was meant to highlight mental health issues. He had no sensitivity to the man who commited suicide, and has no consideration for anyone dealing with a mental illness.
The society we live in is utilizing social media to glorify mental illnesses, and we have lost sensitivity while talking about them. After the show 13 Reasons Why was released on Netflix, many viewers took to social media to make jokes regarding the suicide within the series. Without taking in considerations those who are dealing with suicidal thoughts, memes about the show soon were trending on twitter.
People with large platforms need to understand how they influence others, and take it in to consideration before they post their thoughts. When a celebrity uses an illness as joking material it makes it okay for other to do the same. Mental illness has become a relatable meme, when in reality they are serious and extremely scary. Using them as platforms for light hearted jokes, makes is hard to take them serious when they become a real problem for others around you.
