The Meme-ification of Mental Health

Storm Husbands Features Editor

This article contains mentions of suicide and psychological conditions, including depression, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and eating disorders. Reader discretion is advised.

As you read this sentence, someone in the world is committing suicide. Hundreds of thousands every year, dozens every day, one every 43 seconds. In 2008, Suicide Prevention and Awareness month was first declared an acknowledgement in the United States. Since then, various organisations from the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to St. Michael’s college has acknowledged this month as an important initiative that functions to spread awareness about mental health and encourage prevention of suicidal action or ideation. Not too long ago — and still, currently, in many parts of the global world — struggling with mental health is a covert topic, a dismissed experience chalked up to the regular woes of life. However, our current online world functions like an epistemic bubble. It seems like mental distress and disorders are discussed and recognised on every corner of the internet. Due to this, it is easy to believe that the normalisation of mental health and the online sphere is positive but many negative impacts are yielded, including self-diagnoses, trivialisation, barriers to care, and romanticisation.

On the positive side, one can say that social media generally reduces stigma surrounding mental health. The development of the internet has transformed our world in that centuries of information are now readily available with one simple search. In an analysis conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), disclosure of mental health can reduce certain negative attitudes and behaviours though long-term research is still needed (Zhang et al., 2026). The widespread sharing of stories, struggles, and successes helps people with similar experiences connect and find solidarity in online communities. It also helps debunk myths like mental disorders being rare, adult-only issues, or an indicator of violence and aggressive tendencies (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2016). Social media also fosters open and honest communication about inaccurate portrayals of various psychological issues overall increasing mental health literacy and understanding.

On the other hand, there are an unfortunate number of downsides to how mental health is represented online. In the current information age, we have seen an ostensibly rapid rise of therapy-speak, the casual use of psychological terms outside of a clinical setting; or wellness buzzwords. Wholistic wellness also seems to be on the rise, even gaining official recognition and support from universities through the Okanagan charter. However, the APA argues that this phenomenon is not new (Medaris, 2024). From our own personal relationships to Love Island contestants, everyone seems to be an expert on boundaries, triggers, traumabonding and gaslighting. Therapy speak does have benefits in helping people articulate their feelings and regularising communication but the major issue is its imprecision. The socio-linguistic integration of this misused language attenuates real, important terminology and spreads misinformation. However, the APA argues that this phenomenon is not new (Medaris, 2024). A misinformed person 5 years ago may have used ‘bipolar’ as an adjective to describe someone dynamic, or hot and cold. This is no different to assigning the label of ‘narcissist’ to anyone one dislikes.

Misinformation is further circulated through the romanticisation of psychological conditions in the media. Many disorders or struggles are viewed through an artistic lens, for example. Depression and suicidal behaviour become a dark, tortured aesthetic when paired with the likes of Sylvia Plath or Vincent van Gogh and restrictive eating disorders are made into odes of beauty and self-control, encouraged by runway model moodboards set to the tune of unreleased Lana del Rey. In other cases, the distress many psychological diagnoses can cause is entirely forgone. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a colloquial adjective used to express admiring neatness or a clean space, autistic has become synonymous with being a quirky geek or nerd. The reality of washing hands until they bleed and fearing taboo attraction to family or animals, or distressing social situations and sensory overstimulation is much less desirable and thereby much less discussed. This romanticisation also works in the opposite direction to increase isolation of people with diagnosed conditions (Robinson et al., 2019).

The combined ubiquity of therapy speak and aestheticised views of mental health often lead to self diagnosis, a claim to have a disorder or condition based on self-examination and inferences rather than professional clinical evaluation. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, there was increased concern for adolescents and young adults diagnosing themselves online. Potential self-diagnosis can be a useful tool in deciding to seek help. Relating to content online about a harmful aspect of behaviour can encourage people to get evaluated and seek help, even if it does not end in an official diagnosis. When self-diagnosis progresses too far, it can cause people to erroneously believe they have certain conditions due to influence from friends or online creators (Haltigan et al., 2023). This can potentially lead people to, whether intentionally or subconsciously, play the role of being in need of mental care, making themselves vulnerable (Underhill et al., 2025. A possible cause for this concerning trend is the lack of community in younger generations, especially seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Isolation caused my online schooling and quarantine severely lessened the social peer-to-peer gap making the desire for a village all the more evident. It is important to note, however, that the desire to be unwell is in of itself a symptom of being unwell and that this nuance is important when discussing self-diagnosis and mental health among the youth.

Finally, social media trivializes mental health by treating it as unserious. Platforms originally created for keeping up with friends and family can never truly lose their familiarity and comfort. Due to this origin, mental health can never truly be separated from the wealth of humour surrounding it. In the current online zeitgeist, we are observing the critical desensitisation to serious topics surrounding mental health, suicide, and self-harm through emes and jokes about not taking medication, starving oneself, or wanting to die (gupta et al., 2021). Algorithmic platforms like TikTok and Instagram further push this content the more one interacts with it, thus trapping those struggling in an endless loop of suffering leading to overall anhedonia and apathy. While saying that you are going to kill yourself after a minor inconvenience may seem insignificant, becoming accustomed to this sort of content further trivialiases mental health conditions and makes seeking help more difficult.

In the end, it goes without saying that social media can reduce stigma and help people struggling with their mental health, practices such as self-care, wellness, exercise, therapy, and getting medicated are largely promoted and encouraged but in its current state, the negative outcomes of desensitisation, trivialisation, and romanticisation of psychopathology drastically outweigh the positive. These phenomena are some that all of us likely participate in but creating a comfort towards needing help and not seeking it fosters a harmful community and increases barriers to care. We all have a responsibility to our peers, our family, and our friends, to those who have lost their lives and their loved ones, to make that one every 43 seconds into a zero.

U of T has many mental health resources.