Akanksha Mete
On Instagram, searching for "#suicidememes" yields over hundred thousand results. The Google searches for "suicide memes" have increased roughly by an average of 1000% since 2008. Temporally correlated to global socioeconomic instability and decline, suicide memes are a 21st century manifestation of "gallows humour", meaning cynical humour that arises from traumatic or stressful situations. Suicide memes are immensely popular because they represent a collective loss of faith in humanity, further dramatised and publicly broadcast as is instinctive for the social media generation. Suicide has become symbolic shorthand for a host of negative emotions, ranging from rage to apathy to stress.
Despite initial misgivings when suicide memes first emerged as a global phenomenon, numerous people advocate for them. This post will critically examine the arguments driving advocacy, focusing specifically on the effect of normalising suicide memes on the mentally ill.
The argument in favour of suicide memes rests on claims that suicide memes provide a healthy outlet for dealing with negative emotions, and that they further the cause of mental health by destigmatising talk of suicide. As is with most forms of humour, suicide memes become a coping mechanism that allows people to diffuse tension, and partially deflect painful, complex emotions until they find themselves fully capable of grappling with said emotions. By doing so, suicide memes simultaneously provide a medium of expression.
Tabooed emotions, such as those revolving around mental illness or suicide, can be expressed in socially admissible ways through humour. As such expression becomes commonplace, the tabooed emotions slowly are normalised. Therefore, the prevalence of suicide memes destigmatises the once-taboo topics of suicide and mental health, and allows people with mental illnesses to articulate their thoughts without fearing opprobrium. Humour is also a "socially facilitating experience", which can reduce feelings of isolation among people with mental illnesses, thereby serving a therapeutic purpose.
However, these arguments stem from incomplete understanding of mental health and illness, especially in sensitive contexts that involve suicide, whether satirically, symbolically, or otherwise.
The pro-suicide memes argument that such memes serve a therapeutic, socially facilitating purpose misses out on a key point. Suicide humour is "socially facilitating" when shared between people with mental illnesses, as people "laugh together at that which inspires fear". Of course, not everyone making suicide jokes is mentally ill. The communal camaraderie aspect of gallows humour that lends it its therapeutic functions is therefore diluted when shared between people with mental illnesses and those without. Research further indicates that people with mental illnesses are less likely to view suicide humour as truly humourous - Keith-Spiegel, Spiegel, and Gonska found that people who had attempted or threatened suicide previously found suicide cartoons less funny than nonsuicidal psychiatric patients and nonsuicidal insurance salesmen did (1971). Another research study found that only 39% people who felt "psychologically near" the violation that was the source of a joke about tabooed behaviour found the joke funny, as opposed to 73% if they were "psychologically far" from the violation.
On any college campus, or a corner of the internet dominated by teenagers and twenty-somethings, phrases like "Please just kill me," or "I really want to die," abound. Dark humour has gained widespread popularity with the teen and young adult demographics, specifically in the form of memes. Internet memes are virally-transmitted concepts, usually in pictorial form, intended to be funny. Therefore, they have two key elements: virality, and humour.
Despite initial misgivings when suicide memes first emerged as a global phenomenon, numerous people advocate for them. This post will critically examine the arguments driving advocacy, focusing specifically on the effect of normalising suicide memes on the mentally ill.
The argument in favour of suicide memes rests on claims that suicide memes provide a healthy outlet for dealing with negative emotions, and that they further the cause of mental health by destigmatising talk of suicide. As is with most forms of humour, suicide memes become a coping mechanism that allows people to diffuse tension, and partially deflect painful, complex emotions until they find themselves fully capable of grappling with said emotions. By doing so, suicide memes simultaneously provide a medium of expression.
Tabooed emotions, such as those revolving around mental illness or suicide, can be expressed in socially admissible ways through humour. As such expression becomes commonplace, the tabooed emotions slowly are normalised. Therefore, the prevalence of suicide memes destigmatises the once-taboo topics of suicide and mental health, and allows people with mental illnesses to articulate their thoughts without fearing opprobrium. Humour is also a "socially facilitating experience", which can reduce feelings of isolation among people with mental illnesses, thereby serving a therapeutic purpose.
However, these arguments stem from incomplete understanding of mental health and illness, especially in sensitive contexts that involve suicide, whether satirically, symbolically, or otherwise.
The pro-suicide memes argument that such memes serve a therapeutic, socially facilitating purpose misses out on a key point. Suicide humour is "socially facilitating" when shared between people with mental illnesses, as people "laugh together at that which inspires fear". Of course, not everyone making suicide jokes is mentally ill. The communal camaraderie aspect of gallows humour that lends it its therapeutic functions is therefore diluted when shared between people with mental illnesses and those without. Research further indicates that people with mental illnesses are less likely to view suicide humour as truly humourous - Keith-Spiegel, Spiegel, and Gonska found that people who had attempted or threatened suicide previously found suicide cartoons less funny than nonsuicidal psychiatric patients and nonsuicidal insurance salesmen did (1971). Another research study found that only 39% people who felt "psychologically near" the violation that was the source of a joke about tabooed behaviour found the joke funny, as opposed to 73% if they were "psychologically far" from the violation.
When people use suicide frequently but symbolically in their humour, they are able to express their negative emotions and move on. But these casual sayings can be incredibly triggering to those with mental illnesses, for whom thoughts of suicide may be an everyday reality to grapple with, rather than a satirical shorthand for something more commonplace. Destigmatising and normalising are not similar. Normalisation of casual suicide memes may be triggering for those with mental illnesses, or cause them to feel as though their triggers are being dismissed for humourous punchlines, especially when used by those without mental illnesses. Further, jokes about suicide are a warning sign that someone requires help - but normalising them may lead to a case of boy-who-cried-wolf that makes picking up warning signs an uphill task.
Further, negative, "self-defeating" humour is positively linked to indicators of psychopathology, such as rumination, brooding, and suicidal ideation. Self-defeating humour styles serve as an interpersonal method of rumination, placing consistent emphasis on people's own perceived flaws and weaknesses. Use of such humour exacerbates negative views of the self, and heightens feelings of low self-esteem. Therefore, even as a coping method by the mentally ill, suicide jokes should be destigmatised, but to advocate for their normalisation is dangerous.
In conclusion, therefore, while we may have convinced ourselves to see the humour in pervasive suicide jokes, it may be time to convince ourselves to consider the negative ramifications a satirically nihilist remark about craving death may have on people around us. Conversation regarding avenues of better mental health support and sensitivity should accompany destigmatisation, not flippant jokes.
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