Teen Suicide: Fanning the Flames of a Public Health Crisis

Until a few weeks ago (for nearly 2 months), the most popular television show in the United States, according to the Internet Movie Database, was about a teenager killing herself. A wildly engaging show binge-watched by children and teens on Netflix and advertised on posters pasted on subways and billboards across the nation, 13 Reasons Why is about an attractive, intelligent, and funny high school student who commits suicide, leaving behind 13 tapes about how people contributed to her death. Combining suicide, symbolic immortality, and revenge fantasy with teen drama, attractive actors, popular music, and cliffhanger endings, 13 Reasons Why covers the bases on how not to represent suicide in the popular media.
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Translations Source Type: research