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Niche Meme Therapy

How the Modern Approach to Communication Is Aiding as a Coping Mechanism for Modern Day Mentally Ill Teens

By Blaire LizabellePublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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When you think of a meme, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

If you peruse Facebook frequently, you may immediately think of wine jokes and light humour about family dynamics, and the stresses of being a parent.

Though these are whimsical and fun, there's a more personal side to memes that the media commonly doesn't show.

Niche memes, labeled to represent memes that appeal to a certain minority, commonly cater to those with a darker sense of humour around their own mental illnesses. Some seeming passive aggressive, such as 'My Depressed Look', or others more personal, such as 'Things I Do During a Panic Attack', niche memes are commonly used by teens and young adults as a means to vent their personal mental health struggles to an accepting audience.

Niche memes commonly revolve around an ideology similar to that of Neo Dadaism, a movement started in the 1960s to represent specific, isolated aspects of reality, while remaining as neutral and non-emotional as possible. The humour is commonly used to poke fun at one's struggles, making light of them so that the creator of the meme feels less held down by these issues.

However, the similarity stops there, as one can easily see by scrolling through a niche memer's account that their posts are far from lackluster in emotion. Rather, with posts of their personal struggles with mental illness, made into an artistic form through the use of editing, many of these teens seem to use their niche meme accounts as more of an online diary than solely just an emotionless vent.

With mental illness gaining speed as one of the most commonly discussed topics within modern media, it's surprising to learn just how much stigma still surrounds diagnosis. It's stated that one-in-four people ages 13 to 19 experience or are diagnosed with a mood disorder, such as anxiety or depression. Yet, even though these numbers are high, the assumptions that mental illness sufferers fake their symptoms for attention or validation are still just as prevalent as they have been in the past.

Thus, many teens and young adults turn their inward self loathing and depressive tendencies to the niche meme community, a large collection of people on social media platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter that reveal their personal struggles for others to see and relate to.

A lot of issues have been seen in media when it comes to mental illness, predominantly depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa being romanticised, and therefore diluted to being a symptom of someone needing saved, rather than being treated as the severe mental illnesses that they are. However, a lot of mental illnesses and afflictions, such as psychosis, BPD, bipolar disorder, and many others are left out completely during times of representation, as their symptoms are harder to romanticise.

However, the niche meme community has made headway in eliminating this issue, speaking out about their own personal struggles with symptoms and mental disorders that are commonly more taboo than others to discuss on a public level.

"Aggressive episodes or black out anger are usually forgotten when people talk about being mentally ill," one niche memer stated,

"You don't see coverage about people forgetting where they are, or wanting to scream for mundane reasons during a breakdown. It's always pretty teens that are painted as 'sad,' and just need someone to love them. That's not how this works."

With personal stories becoming headlines, and the realities of many finally becoming real to those who don't suffer from mental illness, niche memers are now opening a doorway to better, and sometimes humourous, ways to cope with and understand the hidden realities of mental disorders.

"When I'm making content or thinking about content, it's like escapism," says Instagram user @kerosenememes

"It's just me, putting my thoughts onto a platform. I never started with the intention of getting big and I only found out about the (niche meme) community after I started making them."

"There are definitely struggles with being so open," Kerosenememes continued. "People start to think that they know who you are when they really kinda don't."

He then added, "Sometimes you just want to get your thoughts out there, even if no one is listening."

With that being said, it's apparent that the niche meme community has created one of the fastest growing means of communicating personal struggles, while making them both entertaining or appealing and factual to their point. With many of the meme account owners having been creating content for multiple years (sometimes called 'Gen 1 niche memers') they've seen the community rise, fall, and rise again with new people joining in with the hopes of expressing what it's like to live as themselves to others.

Overall, the rapid growth of the niche meme community has also sparked a rapid sense of awareness within the community that no person suffering from mental illness is alone. Whether it be depressive thoughts, body dysmorphia, an eating disorder, psychosis, or frequent panic attacks and disassociation, rest assured, there is a niche memer on one platform or the other that has made content you can relate to. With that, you can sleep well knowing that your struggles are heard, are recognized, and that whatever the case, there is someone just like you that can help to remind you that you will make it through whatever battle you're facing with your mental health.

"Remember though, that some things you can't, or won't be able to voice," said Kerosenememes on a final note,

"Discussing everything may not help you heal. What helped me more was other (niche meme) accounts being so supportive, so patient, and so accepting."

Mental illness is one of the most frustrating things a person can have to deal with. One of the most important parts of being within any community is recognizing that, what you may be comfortable with, someone else might not be, and vice versa. What's best is to nonetheless validate that person's struggles, and remember that mental disorders are not black and white. Rather, they manifest in all different ways and severities, and in that, will always differ slightly from story to story, and from niche meme to niche meme.

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