Mental Illness is trendy UwU

[Music] hey guys what's up welcome back to my channel changed my setup I'm still figuring it out but it'll get back to normal in a few days hopefully so today we're here to talk about Corona cops merch now a lot of people are angry about it which honestly anytime that you include mental illness on merch what can you really expect honestly so we're gonna talk about the multiple perspectives on this it's clearly not a black-and-white issue it's complicated and it has a lot to do with intention which makes it even more complicated because it's not like there's an intention sign over your head that tells you this is what I meant so critic op is part of the vlog squad I actually quite enjoy her vlogs I'm not subscribed I never watched her prior to doing research for this video but I actually was able to sit through one which is more than I can say for most vlogs generally she seems very likable to me she seems a little bit different from other vloggers that I've seen there's no bimbo act which is refreshing because my my brain cells are just depleting here let's look at this merch before we talk about the tea so there's a hoodie it's $44.95 the front says my anxieties have anxieties back says anxiety and then has this whole long copy and pasted dictionary definition now she didn't state this anywhere officially but when I checked in the comments section under an Instagram picture where she was announcing the merch she did say that a certain amount of proceeds would be going to a charity we're gonna get to that reactions so I posted on Twitter asking you guys what you thought about it I also posted on Instagram the response is on Twitter people are not happy most people can see what she was maybe trying to do but most people still aren't on board even giving her that benefit of the doubt they just don't think that it's a good idea because a it's lazy which I completely agree with lacking originality on top of this sand color you're just gonna blend into the [ __ ] walls be will this bring awareness which people are saying maybe was her intention which totally fine maybe that was her intention people were questioning does this really bring awareness is it really doing that or are we making it trendy which the biggest problem I saw which was a recurring theme in most responses is a problem with execution so people aren't necessarily mad at the idea as much as how the idea was put into play and the final product which I tend to agree with I can see the potential good intention here but the way it panned out just know then I asked in a poll on my Instagram on polls there's obviously only two options on Instagram so you know like I put two extremes just to see a general idea of what people thought 87% think that it's glamorizing anxiety and 13% said that it helps awareness that's with over 2,500 votes in total that being said let's talk about some Twitter responses specifically now Sarah Hawkins Center responded and I think she made a really good point so this is what she said she said I'm glad she's donating money and from what I understand she suffers from anxiety there's an argument that's some find empowering to have their mental illness on clothing but you would never catch me with seasonal affective disorder on a shirt she also says it's also worth noting there are a handful of trendy mental illnesses and not all are created equal you probably would never see merch created for borderline personality disorder although I've seen schizophrenia merch before then she said anxiety is one of the most common mental illnesses therefore the most relatable which transfers to being sold and more money now I agree with that and it's kind of funny because I was doing this kind of mental exercise when I was thinking about this merch when I was like okay let's take one of the array of my mental illnesses let's just pick one right so I was like okay let's think of when I had my eating disorder I had anorexia at one point which then shifted to general disordered eating that's what my doctor called because it was a [ __ ] show and then bulimia I think of having merch that says my bulimia has bulimia and then on the back the definition of bulimia it suddenly shifts gears we assume her intention is hey I have anxiety I laugh about it to cope okay like I think that's the intention anyway but when I think of something that's less commonly discussed or less trendy maybe less common I don't know which one is more common but its anxiety and depression are talked about more than bulimia and my experience I don't know if I would have the same vibe here I really don't know if I would take it the same way the same way that Sarah was mentioning seasonal affective disorder it would be suddenly different I do think it's important to talk about what mental illnesses are acceptable in the sense that we talk about them a lot at least in the states now the conversation around mental health is improving but still it's very focused on say depression anxiety those are the two main ones now sometimes you're there there's eating disorders but even then most time I see them being stereotypes like an hour anorexia means you weigh 0 pounds and also bulimia means you you're thin all of a sudden which just is not accurate but anyway man ask me a few questions I answered those questions as honestly as I could next thing I know I'm walking out the door with meds for borderline personality disorder you see that's how you get [ __ ] done no fact that anxiety was taken here and used for this is acceptable my question to you guys is if we said my anorexia has anorexia or my bulimia has bulimia would we still kind of be like haha I personally don't think so but you guys can let me know in the comments let's talk about intention here I think that her intention here was to voice that her coping mechanism is humor because a lot of us use humor as a coping mechanism I do it with myself my friends and I always joke around in a kind of dark humor way about you know our depression or whatever because that's how we cope and genuinely starting to cope with humor has been one of the best things that's happened to me I think it allows me to get up and you know be okay with the fact that some days I just want to [ __ ] kill myself it looks like he may commit suicide if that's her way of dealing totally on board we're on the same page the thing is this if you want to make merch that is a little bit self-deprecating or just poking fun at yourself you know in order to cope that's fine the thing is execution if you want to do that I feel like it has to be obvious that you're being humorous in that I need to know that you're making a joke at your own expense for the purpose of coping and I'm not saying you need to write a [ __ ] disclaimer like this is for coping but my anxieties have anxieties that I can almost see a bit of humor like oh haha like you're saying that your anxiety is so big that even your anxieties have anxiety sure but then when you add a definition I'm like so are we trying to be factual here are we trying to have a laugh like are we trying to do both even though they kind of seem to be going in different directions that's what I have a little bit of an issue with now the most egregious thing here let's be clear is the laziness the absolute laziness of just pasting a definition and calling it a day especially when you have a million subscribers and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have plenty of ideas of fan art or graphics or tag lines of all the things putting a definition and just like really you need it to turn to oxford american dictionary to figure out the merge situation and then that's coming from someone who has super minimal merch so I'm not saying you need to have a huge big thing out of your merch but this seems a little bit lazy in just last minute like I said to me here it's not obvious that it's trying to be humorous maybe that's me maybe that's because I'm not part of this whole scene or vlog squad and aside from that someone actually geography and said that this looks like it would be sold at forever 21 which to be honest I think is the perfect encapsulation of this like I genuinely could see this being sold at forever 21 if someone told me this was from forever 21 i 100% believe it i just feel like there are a lot of things that went wrong here so first of all when she posted it on her instagram she just said anxiety sucks new drop which you know like if you're really trying to either raise awareness about anxiety or poke fun at yourself or do both at the same time you think that maybe at least on Instagram you'd kind of say something so we know how to interpret it in the sense that you can be like hey I'm struggled with anxiety for you know many years it has affected my life and one of the ways in which I deal with it is by laughing at myself see now that would have allowed me to know your intention because you're writing it out but the fact that there's no place where there's some kind of explanation like even on the website I was thinking that maybe there would be you know there's a description and sometimes they just like explain the thought process behind it and there's nothing no place that really just says what she was thinking when she made this and like what her perspective is I think that's also a problem because it would be so easy to it just write two lines on Instagram about you know why you're doing this and what your thought process is second that I said that then in the comments she said that she was going to be donating a part of it to a mental health organization as you can see here and I thought that was interesting because I was like surely you could have written this in the caption or put it somewhere even on the [ __ ] website I was like you could put that 10 to 15 percent however much it is it's going towards a charity so I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist here but to me it seems like the charity thing is an afterthought because if it was never officially stated until the comments section where it's hidden by like the massive comments who's really gonna know I went because I was looking an average person who's just not looking and wants to comment won't see that so I'm wondering why that was never said also because that's kind of a big deal right usually when people make merch and they're gonna give whatever percentage to charity they'll make sure to say it wherever they can because it's important to give to charity and I'm sure you want people to know that when they're buying this hoodie they're also contributing to organization X so I thought that was an afterthought and a way to get people to have a better reception to this hoodie I don't like that with influencers I just have this line of do something and stand behind what you do or admit that you were wrong and make amends this [ __ ] is in the middle where you're not going to it that maybe this was a little ill-thought-out but you're also gonna do something to be more likable and to make this merch more likeable by putting the link to charity which I don't like I like taking accountability or standing behind your ideas I don't like the middle ground where you kind of dodged the bullet and you just make yourself look better now of course giving to a charity is good at no matter what so there is a good outcome with that but the whole way this this was managed I think was not thought out the reviews on the website are frankly some of my favorite things so there's someone I don't even know if it's the real I'm Alex but it says oh my god I can't believe how good this is I used to have anxiety and now I have cancer Jesus Christ oh my god then you're gay said oh my god oh my god gosh I'm so glad that this merch has cured my anxiety someone else said it quirky me and my friends all have this to celebrate our mental illnesses gay anxiety please make a depression one my friend who has depression feels left out this all comes down to intention which I think has been clear for the majority of the video I think a lot of the scandal could have easily been avoided if she had even just put out a mission statement I genuinely think that now I still don't like this March I still think it's lazy I still think it's boring uninteresting uninspiring just no but with a mission statement at least we would have known the purpose and the goal anyways guys let me know what you guys think in the comments let me know if you think this is offensive if it's lazy generally if you're a fan let me know what your opinion is thank you guys so much for watching and thank you to my patrons as always and let's get right into the fan art [Music]

Channel: READY TO GLARE

Views: 448,693

Rating: 4.9511733 out of 5

Keywords: corinna kopf, vlog squad, pouty girl, merch

Id: YkkUljtpNwk

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2019