This guest post was contributed by Kathy Cooperman, author of The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield and Crimes Against a Book Club.
I just read that the national teen suicide rate jumped dramatically after the Netflix release of 13 Reasons Why back in 2017. We can pussyfoot around causation issues all we want. Would a mentally healthy teen off herself because of a Netflix show? No. But would someone teetering on the edge do it? Yup, I think so.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s all you need to know about the show’s first season: A smart, hip and ethereally beautiful teenage girl kills herself, and a smart, way-too-attractive-to-be-an-outcast boy becomes obsessed with her. He falls more than a little in love with her as he listens to 13 hours of her explaining—on audio cassettes—the mean things everyone in her life has done to her. The audience doesn’t listen to the tapes. Instead, we get to watch well-lit re-enactments of the girl’s victimization because, unlike the fictional boy, there is no way anyone would listen to a teen girl drone on for 13 hours. After listening to each tape, the boy avenger rushes out to confront everyone who has “done her wrong.”
This show is a 13-hour commercial brought to you by suicide. Think about it. The show teaches teenage girls that if they off themselves, THEY WILL NOT DIE. No, they will live on gloriously forever in the head of a besotted, sensitive Romeo. And he will avenge every wrong ever done to them BY ANYONE (adults, other teens—his jurisdiction knows no bounds). Everyone who ever dissed, loved or even faintly knew the suicidal girl will think about her CONSTANTLY. She will, emotionally, go viral.
The makers of the show claim they wanted to start a conversation about suicide. Fine, but you don’t start a responsible conversation by shouting, “SUICIDE IS SO COOL!” The show’s words do not explicitly state this, but every dramatic and visual choice made in the first season does.
Cinematically, the girl does not die. No, suicide makes her more vibrant—more thematically important and worthy of worry (via re-enactments)—than any other character. Even better, she will never age or fade. No, suicide will preserve a well-lit, beautifully coiffed Instagrammable version of her forever.
The filmmakers claim they wanted to repulse viewers—put them off suicide—by showing them an especially graphic wrist-cutting scene, but that scene can just as easily be used as a gruesome how-to video. Prior to watching it, many teens might have botched the counter-intuitive best method for doing this. Thanks, Netflix!
If the filmmakers actually wanted to condemn suicide, they easily could have done so. They could have shown the audio tapes being recorded by the girl’s decaying zombie-self. Or they could have cross-cut their re-enactment scenes with images of the girl lying in her coffin being eaten by worms. Or—most repulsive of all—they could have shown the presumably modern, screen-addled teen Romeo dozing off while listening to the first of the girl’s poorly produced 13 audio tapes. Or maybe he’d start the tapes but then get distracted by a living, breathing girl on his own astral plane.
Okay, I know I sound angry. But well...I’m angry. I have four kids myself. I spent the past fifteen years lovingly building these four human Jenga towers, and it only takes one stupid choice—one horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad day—to knock any one of them down. I am not stupid enough to believe that my kids will be impervious to idiotic, harmful drivel if it’s been “sensitively” and slickly produced.
THE BASICSThough well-educated, I’ve made plenty of dopey choices myself. I bought an electric ab toning belt at 3 a.m.—and I was almost forty! But the commercial was so promising, and they told me just what I wanted to hear ("Buy this, you exhausted, nursing-baby mom, and you’ll never have to do another sit-up!").
Sadly, unlike me, a vulnerable teen who watches 13 Reasons will not have just an embarrassing credit card purchase and a few burns on her tummy to defend. She may have something much worse to explain...and no ability to explain anything—to anyone—ever again.
Resources in the U.S.:
Immediate help, 24/7: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK, or Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
Suicide Essential Reads
Suicides Today Have Reached Epidemic Levels 
It's Hard to Enjoy the Bridge Without Thinking About the Suicides The Trevor Project, aimed for bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth, 1-866-488-7386
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
To locate a therapist trained in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicidal behaviors, go to Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Therapist Directory or Psychology Today Therapist Database
Resources in Canada:
Canada Suicide Prevention Service: Immediate help, 24/7, Toll-free phone number: 1-833-456-4566, or text message number: 45645
http://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/
International Resources:
International Association for Suicide Prevention: http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/