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13 Reasons Why 13 Reasons Why Messed Up

By: Miranda Mishaan

In middle school I was surrounded by the glamorization of suicide and self harm.

I had tons of social media like Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat where people would

upload depressing posts of their acts of self harm. One of the quotes I remember was,”

Suicidal people are just angels who want to go home.” This is a prime example of the

glamorization of suicide in the media. I myself, felt my mental health issues get more

intense after seeing these words and images. 3 years later this show came out called

13 Reasons Why which is about a girl named Hannah who commits suicide and records

these tapes explaining why she did it (based on a book). It is so easy to go wrong with a

show that brings up super touchy topics like suicide and rape. The whole point for the

show was to demonstrate awareness for suicide and for someone who has actually

been exposed to it my whole life I can tell you that this show creates more conflicts than

solved problems.

The reason for all these people getting upset if because of the “triggers” or

“trigger warning”. These show up a lot in the media to warn people about what they are

about to see if they may be upsetting to a certain group of people. This can also be

called “being triggered” by something. More and more media sources like Huffington

Post and HBO, are usings these trigger warnings which is really beneficial to people

who have been rape victims, abuse victims, or being who have family members who
have gone through something. The things people can be triggered by are endless, but

in most cases they have to do with suicide, rape, and abuse. Sometimes the ranges can

be taken even farther where people will get triggered by things like homophobia,

misogyny, depression, eye gore, needles, images of elevators and blood and many

more. Another source proclaims that even the word “trigger” is a trigger to some people,

and therefore the word should be replaced with “stress” (TW: More Harm Than Good?).

In my personal opinion, it’s hard to make everyone happy because everyone has their

own triggers. So to have trigger warnings that a large group of people can relate to

would be beneficial. Even so, we are always being infiltrated with media so it’s almost

impossible to have a person avoid triggers in their everyday life.

A big misconception is exposing people to raw rough footage won’t make them

feel the same way the characters in the show do. This is completely false. A perfect

example is the “Werther” effect. This is the phenomenon in which exposure to report of

suicides or suicidal behaviors influences others to commit or attempt suicide (13

Reasons prompts a spike in suicide). In 1774, a 24-year old writer in Germany

published his first novel, which unfolded as a series of letters that explained the life of

the artist named,”Werther” who eventually took his own life. This resulted in a bunch of

copycat suicides. This is what I think the explanation is for people thinking dark thoughts

or commiting suicide. After watching the show, there were two teens who family says,

committed because of the show. Bella Herndon and Priscilla Chui unfortunately died

shortly after watching the show. They didn’t know each other but died four days apart.
From this we can make the strong conclusion that “awareness” doesn’t mean helping

people understand. It gives people ideas to do things they aren’t supposed to be doing.

A lot of schools have been responding to the show since most of the students are

watching it, including at my own school. At a school in Hamilton, Ontario the principal

issued a statement called “Suggestions for Families” that instructs teachers not to use

the show as “a teaching aid” and notes of its glamorization of suicide, negative

portrayals of helping professionals which might lead to kids not seeking help if they feel

suicidal thoughts. Another school in Edmonton, Alberta sent an email to parents asking

them to tell their kids to not talk about 13 Reasons at school and warning them of the

graphic content. “The discussion that is unfolding at school is troubling,” it says in the

email. (Canadian Schools Have Banned Discussion) These emails mimic the exact one

that was sent out at my school. I interviewed Lisa Laplante, who is an administrator

about this email. It states,”The show has been highly watched by young people and has

received lots of media attention. Because the show takes up issues related to suicide

and sexual assault, there have been strong (and strongly mixed) reactions from many

viewers along with several professional and advocacy groups… The depiction and

circumstances of the suicide have raised concerns because there are several elements

in the story that are inconsistent with safe messaging guidelines around handling

portrayals of suicide in media and works of fiction.” She later tells me a lot of this email

was copied and pasted, which is totally fine. If there is a template with basically

everything that needs to be said to schools it would’ve made it easier to regulate the

show.
A lot of teens are coming out to speak against the hype. “Honestly, I had an

anxiety attack; I broke down, pretty much. I used to self-harm as well, and I tweeted

about it, saying, 'If you're sensitive to content or if you've ever been through these

things, I recommend you don't watch it alone.' And someone right away messaged me

back and said they agreed the show could do more harm than good. I asked why, and

they said because for them it made them want to end their life. I, of course, made sure

she was okay, and she said she's been getting better. I catch up with her now probably

once a week and make sure she's okay. But the show, and what she said to me, is

exactly what I didn't want to happen to people, and it did." - Sofia, 18, California. It is

frightening what triggers can actually do to people. She also talks about how there is

“little cliffhangers- that left me on edge”. It is really hard to stop watching or even

reading something with cliffhangers. It can get people really sucked in and makes it

even more irresistible to discontinue watching. Not to mention, the entire world is talking

about it! The targeted audience is teens, which is the audience who hasn’t completely

developed and the most sensitive so why wouldn’t you regulate what they see? Another

teens says, "I watched it with my girlfriend; it took us about a week to finish. Right off the

bat, it was completely different from the book. None of the scenes in the book were as

graphic as in the show. When I got to the last few episodes - I had read some things

online that warned me - but watching the rape scenes and being a sexual-assault

survivor, and having my mom be a sexual-assault survivor as well, it really hit home”

These victims are being exposed to very harsh footage that brings that back memories

that are hard for the brain to comprehend, and most likely the victims spent a very long
time trying to forget these memories. I too read the book and the Netflix series and the

huge difference has to do with the exposure. When you read a book there are no

images or media to show you exactly what’s going on, and can push your limits

emotionally. The best part about reading is your brain will create imagery based on what

you can handle.

What is making creating all this uproar? A lot of it has to do with the exposure of

the rough content, but it also has to do with this “glamorization” of suicide. In a nutshell

it means, “to cause to be or seem glamorous; romanticize or beautify” (dictionary.com).

A dead girl speaking about her death, on cassette tapes. Allegedly she only has one

way out and that’s suicide. What the show doesn’t address is that bullying is a direction

correlation to suicide. Which is not the case. She might have had a mental illness that

was never talked about. There is way too many bystanders, and none of them reported

it. Since this show is “issue-based” there was no point to save Hannah before she

committed. The only professional adult was the school counselor who was a terrible

example of mandated reporters and trained professionals. As a Lisa said, it's really

offensive and maybe even triggering if you work at an education facility and you see you

are portrayed in the media. To think about people who may have suicidal thoughts prior

to watching the show they might assume that they are alone, no one will help them, they

will get revenge and everyone will talk about them. This is not the case. In my opinion,

no one really knows what happens when you're dead. You can’t guarantee that when

you're dead you can see how the life you could’ve lived played out. The false hope and

false allegations make this show one that brainwashes sensitive teens.
There might be some good things coming out of this whole project though.

Looking at some Google search data, there has been more searches for suicide

hotlines. This is where it gets tricky. Finding resources is good, but that also means they

are thinking about going through with the act, and the other prominent google searches

include exactly how to do so! Remember the teen that talked about watching it with his

girlfriend and being uneasy since his mom is a sexual assault victim? He made this

great point that no one else thought about. “I feel, like for the victims, it's harder to

watch, but for the bullies and for the people who've raped people, I feel like it would be

good for them to watch. And that's what I've been noticing as well: Bullies are the ones

who tend to like the show more than the victims.” I have even seen this in my own life.

It’s sad how true this is, but if you are bullying one or more people you can see how

your actions may play out.

To be more prepared for the future so we can make other shows that are issue-

based. First of all, when there is triggering content ALWAYS make sure there is a

trigger warning. If they want to make it clear about rough footage, it makes more sense

to have the characters talk about what happened rather than show it. These issue-

based are important to spread awareness about topics that may not be well known, but

also for people who feel like their voice isn’t being heard. This will give a chance for the

viewer to experience what the character is going through. Only in a way that won’t make

them too uneasy. It is natural for readers or viewers to care about a character because

we have a sense of ‘agency’ that is wired in us. This comes from our evolutionary
tendency to (mistakenly) project our own thoughts, motives and emotions onto other

people and things (psychology 24). Hence, the large amount of the audience who

associate themselves with the main character Hannah. Suicide is a very shaky

foundation to base a show upon, so other topics that are less mentioned in the media

such as being a black person in the modern world, or being muslim in america. There is

so many things that minorities want to share about their experience in the world we live

in today, and this topic was necessary to expose people to but not enough to make a

teen drama show about.

Works Cited

Huffington Post. www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/13-reasons-why-13-reasons-why-is-

dangerously-problematic_us_590b6df9e4b046ea176ae8e2.

Odyssey. www.theodysseyonline.com/13-pros-and-cons-for-watching-13-reasons-why.

Psychology24. www.psychology24.org/why-do-we-identify-with-fictional-characters/.

Psychology Today. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/promoting-hope-preventing-

suicide/201704/13-reasons-why-13-reasons-why-isn-t-getting-it-right.
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