Film representations of the mentally ill community & its GIF transmediation onto Tumblr
Conclusion
When I set out on this journey and began putting pen to paper, I wondered what I would find amidst this research. I thought it was only fitting to ask my personal social media following what they thought about the “sad” culture that is present on Tumblr and if they would be willing to share their own experience with me, anonymously or not. Many of the responses were exactly what I expected they’d be, but some made me remember exactly why I set out on this project in the first place.
One girl shared with me the following response:
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“Essentially, Tumblr depression pages, the show Skins, and the first season of American Horror Story were the reasons why I started self harm in the 8th grade. I looked at all the black and white cutting GIFs, and all the people who were saying “people cut to feel better”, and it made me think I also wanted to. I vividly remember pictures of girls with their legs cut up and I mimicked it once. I eventually stopped thinking about depression like that and got 1000% better.”
Another girl shared this with me:
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“I remember scrolling through Tumblr in 8th grade and reading posts I related to but it made it seem or feel like it was normal to feel the way I felt, which was super depressed and anxious. It (Tumblr) always glorified mental illness on that platform and it was one of the reasons I denied help for so long because I thought everything I felt was normal to feel.”
That’s when I noticed the problem and who was affected most by the glorification of mental illness through GIFs on social networking sites like Tumblr: adolescents. Out of everyone I spoke to over social media about my research, they all said that they used Tumblr during a period of intense depression when they were teenagers.
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If I really wanted to, I could analyze every GIF on Tumblr. What it really comes down to, though, is ​why ​content like the GIFs we have analyzed so far are being reblogged so frequently or even at all. This brought me to the following conclusion: Tumblr users circulate depression-related GIFs in order to express something they feel they can not express in their own lives, to construct their identity through an online platform, and to romanticize mental illnesses. However, the content of these GIFs originally came from films and television shows, which further emphasizes the need for filmmakers to honestly and accurately represent mental illnesses and the mentally ill community from the very beginning of the media production process. Once a film or GIF is distributed and sent out into the world, there is a tendency to forget about its influence and impact on certain communities as it circulates. The purpose of this paper was to outline, highlight and analyze those influences and impacts, and to advocate for a future where honest representations of the mentally ill community are a necessity.