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This entry reviews the ways in which “traditional” intimacy concerning sex and relationships have been transformed by communication technologies, as well as how these technologies have made a range of other connections “intimate.” It does so by discussing three different kinds of mediated intimacy as it is expressed in the Global North. The first meaning refers to work on the way in which discourses of sex and relationship advice are mediated in women's magazines and other kinds of self‐help literature. This concerns a more traditional understanding of intimacy as relating to one‐on‐one romantic relationships that involve sex and the family and explores how these relationships are portrayed in various media sites. The second meaning of mediated intimacy refers to intimacy and social media, and concerns how digital communication technologies have transformed personal relationships and added a level of intimacy to a wide range of relationships. Most of our friendships are now maintained through personalized networked publics on various social media platforms, in which we display intimate connections in front of imagined audiences. The last definition of mediated intimacy pertains to the way celebrities (self‐made microcelebrities or conventionally famous people) use social media to create intimate relationships with fans. Communication technologies have transformed the relation between celebrity and audience to make almost all contemporary interactions between famous person and fan inflected by intimacy.

This chapter turns to social media platforms and looks at the figure of the sad girl as she emerged online as an indirect response to a popular culture overtly focused on happiness. It discusses how she appeared on primarily Tumblr and Instagram, exploring the general sad girl discourses on these platforms as well as some examples that received extra attention. These include the artist Audrey Wollen and her sad girl theory, the girl group Sad Girls Y Qué, the Instagram club Sad Girls Club, the social media brand My Therapist Says, and prominent Instagram accounts. Here I look at the critical and acritical tendencies within the figure, acknowledging both the potentially subversive aspects of the activist-oriented sad girls and the more commercialized versions of popular sad girls. This chapter explores how Tumblr sad girls might be seen as resting in sadness; how relatability is employed as a political strategy by some Instagram sad girls; the ambivalence of normalization; and the limits of using commercial social media platforms for meaningful social action.

This final chapter is a conclusion that discusses how, across the three sites, conversations around depression, anxiety, and general mental illness have taken shape post-2008. By tying together the constructions of mental health in magazines, among celebrities, and on social media, the conclusion highlights how a changing media landscape and neoliberal calls for self-optimization have made way for a profitable vulnerability that exists in tension with more radical understandings of psychic wellbeing. I end the chapter with a brief contemplation about the future of mediated mental health.