Conclusion

Abstract

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.

Introduction

“…And there is an endless stream of accounts that offer support for various diagnoses and general self-care, made up of both amateurs and mental health professionals who supply their followers with advice and relief. 6 How did the positive media landscape of the early 2000s turn into one that frequently addresses mental illness and trauma? 21 st Century Media and Female Mental Health: Profitable Vulnerability and Sad Girl Culture charts the shift in Western media culture from a primarily positive and upbeat affective register to one that has space for some talk of negative and downtrodden feelings.…”