Essay: 

A lot of research has been done on the effect of the media and celebrity lifestyle on the life and behavior of young people. While many young people have been trying to imitate celebrities they see on television, in magazines and on social media, a problem has developed beyond just admiration and even obsession. According to the American Addiction Center, young people, especially teenagers, have been trying to imitate the problematic aspects of celebrity lives, copying their eating disorders, getting into substance abuse because they see their favourite celebrities doing it and carrying their unhealthy coping mechanisms with them in their daily lives. The problem doesn’t stop there, according to studies conducted by Mentaline.com and the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, teenagers are copying the mental illness symptoms of celebrities and subconsciously embedding them in their daily lives. Recent studies show that some of these impressionable teens would act like their favourite celebrity, knowing these are symptoms of a mental disorder encourages them even more. Given how our daily lives have become media saturated, representations of such issues in works of entertainment have further solidified this phenomena. Recently, Netflix shows have been building on the concept of female trauma for character development. A lot of their original productions have main characters suffering from some form of mental illness, which is not only normalizing the issue, but with the way Netflix is portraying these characters, who are mostly female, they are romanticizing and fetishizing mental illness. What started as an attempt at making female leads independent from male characters ended up being a problematic portrayal, in which the only way a female character would stick out and be special is by having a (glorified) mental illness. Young impressionable girls might see this and believe it is the only way to be special in real life, thus imitating those characters’ mental issues, as research suggests.

A survey done by mentaline.com, on a sample audience of teens aged 12 to 17, showed that most of them believe that “mental illness is trendy and unique” and 1 out of 3 of them said that they have faked or lied about having symptoms of mental illness at least once before (American Addiction Center, treatmentsolutions.com, September 2021), which is a huge number. The American Addiction Center has also linked this to increased drug and alcohol abuse among teenagers, this could be them adopting the unhealthy quirks and coping mechanisms of celebrities they fantasize about. I would correlate this with the romanticization of mental disorders, addiction and unhealthy coping mechanisms on Netflix shows as well. “These kids are actually faking mental illness” (American Addiction Center, treatmentsolutions.com, September 2021), this is dangerous on so many levels, as not only are they making their lives intentionally dysfunctional and they are putting themselves at risk. The American Addiction Center warns, that if they continue down this path they could end up in a treatment facility where medication will be used to ‘treat’ them, and obviously using psychiatric pills when you don’t truly need them can be massively harmful, physically and mentally. Furthermore, the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology suggests that faking mental illness could eventually lead to people actually believing they have it and this is where the real problem starts. So, even teens who end up developing real mental disorders might refuse treatment and reject help from friends, family and professionals. Instead they would further adopt these unhealthy coping mechanisms they see their favourite celebrities and TV/Netflix characters who they identify with. Ferris Jabr, contributing writer for the Scientific American, further argues that these teens would intentionally exaggerated symptoms when taking a physiological evaluation test, even when their answers are revised they would be allowed to retake the test, where they would further exaggerate in their answers. The study was intentionally designed to include "very bizarre and extreme symptoms that most real patients would not endorse," thus by the level of exaggerated answers given, the researchers could tell who is faking their symptoms and to what degree (Jabr, Scientific American, Mind and Brain, July 2010). Dr. Elizabeth Lofts, psychologist at the University of California, says “This study shows a couple ways people come to believe they have troubles they wouldn't otherwise endorse.” Eliana Needham argues that “The people to blame for this strange behavior are no other than the celebrities themselves, who teenagers feel have influenced them to look this way. Probably they happen to really take a liking to the actual problems of depression and angst faced by celebrities like Britney Spears and Kerry Katona” (Teens Faking Mental Illnesses to Look Cool: Survey, TopNewsUSA, December 2010). I would further add to Needham’s point, that now with Netflix this glorification of mental illness has taken a whole a new level, and these characters that play on the “fetishized female trauma” trope would serve as new role models for these impressionable young teens, trying to find their “identity.”

Research shows that in the last decade, there has been a huge increase of “faking mental illness” and considering mental disorders to be “trendy.” Official studies have related this to the fetishism of celebrities among youths, which led them to copy their unhealthy coping mechanisms. However, the rise of Netflix made this even more problematic, as the main model for their original shows is the traumatized female lead, whose mental disorders and unhealthy behaviors are romanticized and glorified, young people seeing this, particularly young girls, could easily be influenced by them in the wrong way and end up copying their dysfunctional lifestyle as a way to stick out, since that is what the show is telling them. Feminist critique of television has called out the traditional representation of female characters, as they are always dependent on the male protagonist. Netflix did change that, however, it created a new problem as they show female main characters who always suffer from mental health issues, which broke the dependency on the male characters, but implied that the only way a woman sticks out is through her mental illness, which has drastic consequences.