"I'm having such a bad day, I should kill myself."
"Go kill yourself."
Even after the surprise popularity of my article Mental Health: A Constant Battle, Not a Trend, I'm back once again to address mental health and how society reacts to it. This time, I'll be talking about a darker subject. Trigger warning: suicide.
It's 2017, and we live in a world of memes. I love memes, I really do, I love the Evil Kermit meme, the Arthur memes, the Joe Biden memes, and older memes like Bad Luck Brian. But lately I've seen a meme that's been unsettling to me.
I get it, it's supposed to be dark humor and exaggerated humor, but there are limits. Suicide is not funny, it's not a punchline, it's not a meme, it's a horrible thing that happens everyday.
Approximately one million people commit suicide each year worldwide, that is about one death every 40 seconds or 3,000 per day (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/234219.ph...).
You never know what somebody is going through, they might be severely depressed and on the verge of suicide, yet people are making jokes about it when it's a real thing that can happen to anybody.
The bleach drinking meme dates back to 2012 when Amanda Todd, a bullied child as well as a victim of an online predator, attempted suicide by drinking bleach, but was taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. She survived the attempt but that's when the jokes began. Kids at her school made fun of her, mocking that she couldn't even kill herself, and of course, the internet had a field day: "Am I famous yet?" "Am I Amanda Todd yet?" The memes are disgusting.
Tragically, Amanda hung herself in October 2012. Even in death, people still mock her bleach attempt, which is the biggest kick in the face for me. How many more people have to die before people realize how damaging bullying is?
As somebody who was bullied and someone who has struggled with mental illness, these jokes need to stop. It's not cute, it's not funny, and it's harmful to people like me. What if this were to happen to you, because it can.
Think before you click. You just might save a life.
Amanda's story. Rest in peace, angel:
