A deep dive into Femcels and Mental Illness on the Internet
Mental illness and the Internet have always gone hand in hand. Anyone on Tumblr during its golden age will remember the romanticisation of depression, anxiety and eating disorders rampant on the website. Black and white photos of emaciated girls and fuzzy, lo-fi pictures of Bart Simpson with edgy quotes overlayed. While this openness about mental suffering helped jumpstart the conversation surrounding mental health, it’s safe to say being depressed was all the rage. Tumblr was also the place many of us first learned about feminism, allowing a generation to become the face of social justice. Today, with TikTok as the trendy new teen social media platform, there has been a resurgence in memes and culture surrounding mental illness as we see evidence once again that history is doomed to repeat itself. ‘Incels’, short for involuntary celibates, are an online community of men who struggle to attract women sexually, leading them to foster an atmosphere of hatred and misogyny. While originall...