Please note that I am not trying to romanticize suicide in any way or it’s an attempt to show that suicide is a good thing or is even acceptable. It’s absolutely not. It’s not an escape. It destroys lives.

‘Suicide memes’ is a thing. And no, they don’t exist just because we are trying to be edgy, there is more to these memes than their dankness – something we don’t want to acknowledge, something that we’re constantly masking through humor.

Millennials like to joke about suicide. You must have seen them too. Posts along the lines of ‘haha, I want to die, please kill me’ or ‘another day of this pointless existence’. These are not just jokes. Sure, they are humorous, but there is more to them. These memes are essentially a funny mask that people have put on to share their grief, depression, anxiety without the fear of getting judged.

The fear of judgment has made us turn towards humor. Think of it as a coping mechanism. Humor is THE most powerful way to talk about things that people don’t wanna talk about. In essence, memes about suicide are our way of showing how we feel about our current situation.

The question is – Do we want to kill ourselves?

No.

Then why do we talk so much about it?

Because we don’t really have anything to live for either.

Before you start calling us snowflakes and crybabies, hear me out.

There is nothing for us to look forward to in life. If we are lucky, we have to work 40-50 hours a week in a meaningless job. Getting paid just enough to survive till the next paycheck. Doing something that we don’t have any interest in but because we went to school and paid for it, we cannot back down. Living the same week over and over, for 50 years for an absurd fantasy that we will retire and then we’ll do what we always wanted.

We work in a system in which there is barely anything to look forward to. We cannot own a house, because they’re just too expensive. Even if we do try, we’ll spend the rest of our lives paying it off.

We already have loans for everything – our education, our car, hell things are so bad that we even need to a loan to buy a phone these days.

The cost of living keeps on increasing, while our salaries lie lifeless in a coma.

And don’t even get me started on jobs. The monotonous, soul-sucking, borderline slavery. Spending 9 hours each day to make some billionaires add a few more zeroes to their bank account. Traveling an hour (if we’re lucky) each side to stare at a computer screen for more than third of a day. Not even remembering the last time we even had a laugh.

Meanwhile, the planet is burning to ashes and the people who are responsible for it will die before facing any consequences. But we will. It has begun and we are still young. Think of all the crap pollution and climate change will bring with themselves when we get older.

Suicide memes are our vent. They are a way, an expression to show our powerlessness. With all the traffic and debt and computer screens and pollution and economy and politics and hatred, there is not much to look forward to in life, is there?

We know that we have people that love us (at least some of us do), and who’ll be devastated if we’re not around, so don’t worry, we are not going to kill ourselves. But with suicide memes at least we feel that we are not alone in this. That there are people who are going through the same thing and who will not judge us.

The point is there is nothing we can do to change this system, at least not for a while. We feel like living in this infinite loop, and it’s really depressing at times. Add to that people and media outlets constantly calling us lazy, immature and snowflakes, because we speak up about the mess that they made.

So yeah, next time you see a person sharing a suicide meme, talk to them (if you’re in a position to) or at the very least, don’t judge them.

Image Sources: Facebook, Reddit