I'm never one to take jokes too seriously or even get angry, but this one joke floating around the Internet and high schools has started to get to me. There are now memes about killing yourself whenever something bad happens, you get into a really awkward situation, or even just going to school the next day. The most common one I see is the drinking bleach when life just gets too annoying.
It's all fun and games, and no one ever means any harm on anyone. I know I should allow myself to just laugh along at the ridiculousness because hey, it doesn't mean anything!
But here I am, getting all distraught. I can't find the humor in making fun of a real issue. A real issue that no one wants to talk about or really even acknowledge is there. An issue that gets scoffed at and called "weak" or "attention-seeking." Suicide happens. Depression is real. And it's not what you think.
When you've sat face to face with someone, begging them not to take their own life, it all changes for you. "I'll just go kill myself," doesn't have the same light-hearted meaning. Taking pictures of yourself pretending to chug bleach isn't quite as humorous. We can all joke about the things that don't affect us or that we don't want to really talk about, sure. But also think about what that joke could mean to someone else.
A racist joke is going to mean a lot more to an elder that got imprisoned in an internment camp. A "loser" slam is going to mean a lot more to someone that was bullied all throughout their life. A fat joke is going to be a little more daunting to someone who has never been secure about their weight. We try to be careful about all of these "jokes" because they really aren't funny to some people. I think that suicide jokes are very much the same.
If you've never known someone who is suicidal or you have never been affected by suicide, I can definitely see why this wouldn't seem like much of an issue. I also don't see an issue in using our fantastically large vocabulary of words to find another way to express our angst against this unfair world. I'm not angry or expecting it all to stop; I just hope that looking at this from a different angle will make you think the next time that suicide is just a 'joke.'
