The Detriments of Social Media’s Romanticization

One thing I’ve found to be the most intriguing has to be the phenomenon that is romanticization on social media, which, as a result, ends up bleeding into real life. I feel that this has to 1) do with the advent of individuality complexes as well as 2) an effort to normalize things as a part of society that ends up stylizing them. 

This, though, it may sound like it doesn’t have many detriments, ends up invalidating those who are genuinely and actually suffering (those with depression, anxiety, OCD, etc.).  

I’ve noticed that this phenomenon usually starts when something people suffer from, lets take anxiety for example, starts to become more widely noticed and acceptable. This is good though, at least, for now. When a mental illness is understood without being infantilized or demonized, it means that those who have it can be more accepted among peers and feel more understood in the spaces they’re apart of. Although, being here can easily be lost, something that will result in the steady decline of good normalization into romanticization, which is in no way beneficial.  

As people start to grasp more of an understanding on anxiety and the ways those with it suffer, there can also start to be individuals who view their mental illness to be something that consumes their entire person, rather than a part of them, because of the media that they take in online. One example of this is depression, in an extreme sense. Sometimes when those who have depression start to feel that such a horrible condition is now who they are, rather than a part of their being. This means it will consistently be the topic of conversation for them as well as something they consistently refer back to whenever thinking about themselves and who they are. This is something that is especially influenced by the unhealthy romanticization of being depressed online. Not only do people view it to be something that sets them apart from other people, making them feel like the world doesn’t understand them even more than it already doesn’t, but it also ends up stylizing this all too real infliction upon pepole’s lives. Depression is something that takes away from you, not helps you, and yet, social media makes it appear as if it is a part of your being that simply makes you more understandable and ‘cooler’ in a sense. People consistently commenting about the things their depression makes them do to others and themselves, the horrible lows that they experience, and other things in an unhealthy manner only encourages others to feel such pain at higher volumes.  

Though this article was rather short, it is the truth of what it means to decline from healthy normalizing and understanding into romanticization and styling things, making them seem ‘cool’, and encouraging others to participate in dangerous behavior and feel dangerous emotions.