Romanticisation has always been prevalent in every type of media though out every generation such as romanticisation of abusive relationships and movie tropes of different caricatures that seem cool or something to thrive for such us the femme fatale or a Bonnie and Clyde type of relationship. However due to the accessibility of media in the modern age and rampant use of the internet the romanticisation of self destruction is more prevalent than ever amongst the lonely Gen-Z. There are many different forms of self destruction all very different but all harmful in their own right. This explores the almost inevitable paths that the internet can lead curious and impressionable teens down that can lead to glorification and romanticisation of self destructive behaviours.

Almost if not all self destructive behaviour is due to trying to escape one’s self or one’s problems. Many Gen-Z individuals experience mental health conditions and with the failing or expensive healthcare systems around the world its harder to get help. For example, though 10% of zoomers in the US have severe major depression, only 40% received the care they needed. Within that 40%, only 27.3% received consistent treatment. (Gomez, 2021) Furthermore due to the internets archive of information, self-diagnosis has also increased. Teens and young-adults alike flock to websites like WebMD to find answers to their troubles rather than to through doctors for many reasons. Some being its inaccessibility and long waiting lists and for others the amount of money it costs to get therapy and a diagnosis. This can easily cause misidentification making easier for more lost kids to find themselves in questionable online spaces.

In our own morbid curiosity we can all find ourselves in deep internet holes where we stumble upon something we might regret seeing. But what happens when this is what a whole generation grows up seeing. Impressionable kids in the 2000s and 2010s seeing terrible things that our parents can’t control, how does this affect our developmental minds? How does it affect what we will seek out as adults. Seeing terrible things online that our parents can’t control seems almost taboo but the fact that this type of trauma is so common amongst Gen-Z is what makes it so morbidly intriguing. Whether it be seeing porn at a young age or stumbling on a snuff film; videos that depict real life people getting murdered for profit on the dark web, or seeing real life suicides by clicking a dodgy link it all adds ups. And if you’re a lonely teen or young adult its inevitable that you’ll end up on the internet to find some sort of mental stimulation.

What happens when people sought the taboo out, when they encourage finding it? When they find it and share it for the world to see to the point where it becomes a thriving internet culture? This is where my morbid curiosity lies.

Where there is loneliness the easiest thing to sought out is love. There is a clear obsession with love and finding a romantic relationship in my generation and in the dawn of social media there is a vapid need to be seen and acknowledged. When self gratification comes so easily in the form of likes and follows its easy to find yourself on the brink of obsession; looking for praise and validation, something or someone to boost your low self esteem. Wanting to be loved and adored online by the masses.

Love obsession could have always been present and the accessibility of social media has just made it easier to see the vastness of its effect. However in this generation the presence of social media has definitely made the idea of obsession more accessible especially to vulnerable young people.

Its clear why the idea of obsessive love is so appealing. Who wouldn’t want someone to be at their beck and call? For better or for worse. To love each other so much that they’d get each others name tattooed or branded in their skin forever. For it to be them against the world.

Pop culture has not made it any harder to be introduced to these obsessive ideals. For example the toxic and all consuming love of Bella and Edward in Twilight being catered to pre-teens. This reflects real life where the resurgence of fangirl culture increased drastically in the early 2010s as social media became more popular in teens. Although fangirl culture has always been alive for past muscians such as Elvis in the 50s or The Beatlemania hype created by The Beatles its arguably gotten more intense as seen with One Direction Where one girl at the One Direction Where We Are Tour had even forced open a hole in her respiratory tract and caused her lungs to collapse due to her excessive screaming. (Tiffany, 2022) Or with the ‘Cut For Bieber’ campaign that was started by fans to protest his alleged drug use. I think due to the accessibility created by social media fans are more likely to act out online to get their favourite celebrities attention.

What makes this generation so different isn’t just the obsession with love but the destruction and toxicity that comes with it. On Tumblr during the mid 2010s the romanticisation of self destruction and wanting someone to save you from yourself was incredibly popular especially in alternative circles. The influences of Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die debut as well as Marina and the Diamond’s Electric Heart album made the forlorn, broken hearted, beautiful but dying woman not just an aesthetic but something to thrive and romanticise for preteen girls. 

It was easy to transition from this side of Tumblr to the darker side. The internet in itself is a place for misfits and curious individuals to explore and connect, and although it’s abundant in learning resources and can also be a place of endless inspiration and human connection it can also harbour more sinister things that young developing minds can latch onto. Tumblr was the perfect place for this. Its was almost inevitable to end up on the side of tumblr where you’d see ‘aesthetic’ black and white photos glorifying mental illness such as anorexia or self harm. Making it seem tragic and beautiful, something that the aforementioned individuals Lana del Rey and Marina popularised. Graphic imagery of bloody self harm wounds and bony sunken bodies covered in silk and ribbons were not rare.

In recent years there’s been a resurgence of this type of imagery and it can even be argued that its gotten even more extreme. Although not popular enough to be on the front pages of social media, knowing the right tags, you can easily find corners of the internet littered with this type of graphic imagery. You can even find people encouraging this self destructive behaviour in comment sections calling scars and cuts beautiful and telling people to try going deeper or try and get skinner. An example of this can be seen in the pro-ana (pro-anorexia) community. This community is pro-eating-disorders and can be found most active online although pro-ana meet ups are still on-going. They encourage self destructive behaviour through ‘thinspo’ and ‘meanspo’ which can be found in the form of text posts and photographs containing media that inspires one to be skinnier. Meanspo specifically uses mean or negative affirmations to encourage peoples eating disorders through degrading ones self-esteem.

Compared to the 2010s although self-harm and pro-ana culture still exists the popularity of drug abuse romanticisation as well as wanting mental disorders has increased too. Possibly due to rise of popular media that explores recreational use of drugs and drug addiction as well as its easy accessibility.

The cycle of media thats romanticises drug use and chaotic teen-hood continues into Gen-Z with the show Euphoria. Euphoria primarily follows Rue, a high-school student, through her struggle with drug addiction and how it affects her relationships, friendships, and family life. The show often depicts Rue’s life in bright neon colours in dark party settings. Although Rue can be coined an unreliable narrator since the show is based on her perception of events this fact can be easily forgotten by its captivating plot line, masterful filmography, and aesthetics. Therefore her glorified experience and view of drugs, that the aesthetics of he show reflects, can be encouraging towards young minds.

Theres a lot of opposing opinions around Euphoria’s portrayal of drug use on whether it is an accurate representation of drug addiction and abuse or if it is harmful to its majority teen and young adult audience. D.A.R.E, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, states “HBO’s television drama, 'Euphoria,' chooses to misguidedly glorify and erroneously depict high school student drug use, addiction, anonymous sex, violence, and other destructive behaviours as common and widespread in today’s world.” (Rosenblatt, 2022) Whereas others such as the creator of the show Sam Levinson claims that he took inspiration from his own life when writing the show, in a Page Six article he states “A lot of this stuff is very true. I was a drug addict for many years […] I got clean at the age of nineteen and have been clean for 14 years. “ (Kupfer, 2019)

The abuse of drugs in teens translates to social media just like obsessive love does; through trends and fads. Similarly to Cut For Bieber other trends have harmed and in this case killed Gen-Z youth. The Benadryl challenge, where users misuse Diphenhydramine and post their experiences online most popularly through TikTok, tragically took a 15-year-old Oklahoma girl’s life in 2020 after she took part in the challenge and overdosed. (Gomez, 2021)

TikTok is one of the fasted and effect ways these days that trends can be popularised. Its fast paced nature and short 15 second videos has made the spread and consumption of potentially self-destructive media more accessible to people of many ages and backgrounds, especially Gen-Z. For example movies like Thirteen and shows like Skins, that depict teenage-hood similarly to Euphoria in terms of drug misuse and risky sex, have cult followings where people anywhere and everywhere can use sound bits from the shows and lip sync to them placing themselves into these toxic narratives. Becoming these characters for themselves and identifying with them, even in a short TikTok, makes it easier for these lifestyles to manifest in their real life and perpetuate these ways of living. TikTok makes escapism easier than it is to do so online already. This is in no way to demonise this type of media because TikTok and escapism can be fun and creative but it is something to consider when so many young adults and teens are being influenced by it everyday.

On the mental health side of TikTok many users can be seen trauma dumping online and due to TikTok’s ‘for you page’ anything can be shown on anyones TikTok feed no matter who you are. There is also a big problem of self-diagnosis seen with Gen-Z TikTok users many claiming to have personality disorders such as dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder) and borderline personality disorder which is based around a fear of abandonment and can be linked to ideas of obsessive love and tumultuous relationships. The self identification and romanticisation of these disorders on TikTok isn’t just harmful to the people involved and encouraging this behaviour but also to actually diagnosed people since it can create more stigma around these already highly stigmatised and demonised mental illnesses. With viral sound bites on the alternative side of TikTok from emo/scenecore artists like Rebzyyx and Hoshie Star that frequently mention self destructive behaviours as well as mental illnesses in their songs such as self harm, anorexia, and BPD its easy for young adults together roped into more negative thinking patterns since music has a big effect on your brain. Some lyrics from Rebzyyx’s song ‘I’m so crazy for youuu </3’ include “You’re so upset with me / but I’m so obsessed with you / I’m fucking crazy / I don’t wanna damage you / but don’t fucking test me my mental unsteady / gonna kill self just like Rebzy / fucked up head and BPD / girl I know you wanted me.” And from the song Skinny by Rebzyyx featuring Hoshie Star and Ronin “I hate my life I really mean that / anorexic blood dripping down my body / kissing on the scars all on your body / skinny bitch and I really wanna hit that.”

Another destructive trope being exposed to teens on TikTok is the ‘nymphet’ caricature, the term was popularised by Vladimir Nabokov in his Novel ‘Lolita’ that, like Euphoria, is experienced through the perspective of a unreliable narrator however in this case that narrator is a paedophile explaining his grooming of 12 year old Dolores who he nicknames Lolita. Before TikTok the nymphet aesthetic and lifestyle was very prevalent on its predacessor Tumblr around the time Lana del Rey’s Born to Die album was released. In 2012 when Born to Die was taking tumblr by storm the track Lolita as well as her coquette aesthetic was inspired and appropriated by users all over the app. Although this aesthetic had been popular for a while and the ‘preteen femme fatale’ was already a trope seen in movies such as Pretty Baby (1978) about a child prostitute that starred twelve-year-old Brooke Shields and shows like Skins portraying ‘cool and mysterious girl’ characters like Effy Stonem. The self identification of this by minors online put them in danger of grooming by older men since the idea of being a young seductress seems enticing and powerful. Lana Del Rey really popularised this trope and it can be seen in the increase of age-gap movies where teens were coupled up with men in the mid to late twenties. Female and male directors alike such as Sara St. Onge directing Molly Maxwell (2013) and Mark Raso directing Copenhagen (2014). Although it can be argued that the age-gap relationships presented in these films aren’t necessarily as predatory or harmful as the paedophilic relations in Lolita or Pretty Baby these types of more socially acceptable age-gap relationships are very rare in real life and can disillusion young people to believe they aren’t in fact being taken advantage of. These blurred lines can cause a lot of confusion for minors and encourage them to sought out these types of relationships.

The cycle of trends and teens seems to never end seems to only get worse as social media and forms of connectivity online increases and reachers wider and younger audiences. All these harmful vices just seem to switch platforms and reach a new group of people to influence. Everything on Tumblr that I personally saw and took part in as a teen is now showing up again on TikTok, the only difference being that its easier to end up within these once niche and small communities of people, i.e. the nymphet community, or pro-ana community. However on a lighter note it seems that due to the resurgence of these communities there is more awareness around the harm they can cause usually brought to light by the older end Gen-Z as well as millennials who experienced these online phenomenons who are now trying to safeguard teens who are currently experiencing the same thing. As time goes on and the communities that encourage self destructive behaviours evolve and continue to thrive in the darker sides the internet the mentally ill and lonely youth involved in these still struggle to seek help by adults and film industries and people in power continue to jeopardise children and take advantage of them. There should be no censorship in art such as TV, film, and music however there is no denying that what people consume in the media can be very encouraging to self destructive behaviours. It is just interesting to see repeating patterns and how much faster the cycles become in this new era of social media.