Tumblr is almost definitely one of the worst social media sites when it comes to adding to the stigma. Unlike other social media platforms, users have an increased ability to share graphic and upsetting content compared to other sites like Twitter or Facebook, who often remove such content. This means a huge amount of stigmatising content can be found on Tumblr, and some of it really is shocking. A lot of it involves the romanticisation of mental illness, meaning mental illness has been turned into something to aspire to, but there is also content that revolves around as well the mockery of mental illness. This kind of content is undoubtably very wrong, dark and upsetting.
Whilst this content does exist, there is some content beneath the stigmatising content that actually aims to reduce the mental health stigma. This is promising, however the bad definitely overrides the good. It would be amazing if a whole Tumblr ‘mental health’ feed consisted of non-stigmatising content.
Content Warning – Some of the content below is graphic, which may consequently be seen as triggering, upsetting or offensive.
How Tumblr Posts Add To The Stigma
Firstly, ‘suicidememes’? Suicide is definitely not something to make a joke or internet meme about. How is someone taking their own life something to joke about? That person could be someone’s daughter, son, husband, wife, mother, father, and so on. To put a photo of a noose used for suicide next to a photo of girl’s wearing fashion chokers is ridiculously dark and stigmatising. Wearing a noose is also not something to be desired. What sort of message is this putting out to affluent users of Tumblr? This sort of content is completely removing the seriousness from suicide and also taking away respect for those who have been lost and those who have lost someone special due to suicide. According to SAVE, there is one death by suicide in the world every forty seconds. Think about that next time you contemplate posting something stigmatising towards mental health.
There seem to be photos of pills floating all over Tumblr, all brightly coloured with seemingly pretty filters because people think they look ‘cool’. Well, no, pills aren’t cool and should not be something to glorify. It’s pretty obvious through the hashtags #thinspo and #healthspo, meaning thin inspiration and health inspiration, that mental health is constantly glorified. Pink pills with ‘chill pill’ engraved into them certainly do not exist. Real medication prescribed for mental illnesses doesn’t look like this, which therefore promotes mental health in a very incorrect manner. A chill pill is also a theoretical phrase, and I’m pretty sure if you told someone with a mental illness to ‘take a chill pill’, they’d be extremely offended and frustrated. So why this phrase is being used to glorify mental illness in this photo, I really do not know. Taking mental health medication is not ‘cool’ and is not something that people aspire to do to look ‘cool’. Medication is so important in order to help people get better, but posting photos like the above simply promotes a completely wrong message about what suffering from a mental illness is really like.
How Tumblr Posts Fight The Stigma
This photo is an amazing example of how Tumblr can be used to spread a positive and real message about mental health. I spoke about how mental health terminology is misused online in one of my previous posts, so it is amazing to see how there are people out there who want to put people who they use medical terminology to describe their personality right. There are a range of words provided here that could be used instead of ‘OCD’, which in turn might help to make a difference about how people language online and therefore fight the stigma. Many people misunderstand mental health and how serious it is, so I was very glad to see this photo online as it will help others to understand that OCD isn’t a personality trait and is actually a very serious disorder.
This photo is so simple but carries such an important message. So many of us within society feel that physical health is so much more important than mental health, and that’s because we can actually see physical health so automatically realise that something is wrong. But just because you cannot see an illness, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, so mental health is just as important. I found a very interesting quote regarding this topic by Kevin Breel, which was mentioned in a YouTube video by Jack Harries (JacksGap). Breel said that, “We live in a world where if you break your arm, everyone runs over to sign your cast. But if you tell people you’re depressed, everyone runs the other way.” This is so true, as not enough people understand mental health and how it is just as important as physical health. Just because we cannot see an illness, it does not mean it isn’t there. This photo will potentially assist in making sure others are aware of mental illnesses and how important they are.
Help fight the mental health stigma on Tumblr
Tumblr can be a very dark place on the internet, so let’s make it a better one by overriding the stigmatising content with positive, uplifting content that speaks the truth about mental health alike the examples I’ve shown you. Whenever you see positive content, share it and reblog it to fight the stigma even further. Let’s put the negative and stigmatising content to bed because it’s giving everyone a completely false message about mental health. If you’re mindful of the content you upload and share, then you will undoubtably help to make a difference to the size of the stigma.
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