A Trend That Is Not Trendy

By Ritisha Sharma

Trend. Something which is influential. Something which people love to follow on the internet. The result of the influence of the trends of social media sets the illusion of a person’s behavior- happy, sad, angry, etc.

Today, we live in a world where almost all teenagers and adults are under the influence of social media. We live in a world where almost all people know the term ‘mental health’ and what comes under it. According to WHO (World Health Organization), approximately 280 million people are depressed. It is emphasized ‘almost all the people’ because the rest of them are the people who know the word but not the meaning.

While scrolling through the internet, you will see the clothing brands promoting depression by printing ‘anxiety queen’ on their t-shirts. You will see quotes that you cannot actually call a selection. Although there are songs made on this theme that don’t promote the ‘emotional distress’ trend, on the other hand, you will hear songs on the same theme they will be fantasizing about it without proper context. Mainly, you will see people promoting it on their social media accounts. In fact, you will see those cheap quotes typed out in their bio and captions. You will see that even their username is like that.

Saying the words depression, anxiety, etc. is a piece of cake, but it is actually a hard nut to crack. You must have seen people sharing stories or statuses about depression and trying to show that they are anxious and melancholy, however, when you see them offline in reality, they are the opposite of how they show themselves to be online. Maybe they are depressed, and people sometimes hide it or show it. We are not anyone to judge like that. Still, half of the people you see online are not actually suffering from the disorder.

Mental Health disorders are taken, shown, and treated as a trend as if, it’s something cool and edgy. Mental health problems are not something that you are supposed to see as pleasant or mesmerizing. It’s great that you are taking it in a positive way, but the way social media promotes it is in the wrong way because you are not actually depressed, so it doesn’t make sense.

There is a term called ‘Positive digital footprint’, meaning whatever you post online should be optimistic. Moreover, whatever you are posting will leave a mark on the internet and on the people viewing so that’s why it should spread a positive message. Now when we talk about the people who post just to show just that they are dejected, they are not leaving a good mark, and the person who is viewing they might get influenced and like this, all the people will get a bad influence, which is not good at all.

To all the people who are like this, please understand that mental health disorders are not special. When you are posting to show yourself to be depressed, you are indirectly hurting the intentions and feelings of the people who are actually depressed and already heartbroken. If truth be told, you are making fun of them. Instead of doing this, we should be helping the people who are tangled in the ball of anxiety. We should be following the footprints of ‘positive digital footprint’. We should become a ray of hope and help them, as you know depressed people are dying from the inside and longing for help. Instead of hurting and breaking hearts, let’s be the reason to heal them.

By Ritisha Sharma