Although this meme is dark I thought it was important to highlight. This meme started as a joke that the father comes into his son’s room to kind of cheer him up and see how he’s doing while he is playing video games. Slowly it progressed into weirder and more dark things until it ended up at this point. I saw this meme and ones just like it many times on my social media feeds and many people laughed at it and thought it was a funny joke. Knowing so many people that struggle with mental health and also struggling with it myself at some points, I believe memes like this are very dangerous. When people laugh and poke fun at images like this, it makes it very hard for someone struggling with mental health to seek help. To them it might feel like what they are dealing with is nothing more than a joke to most people. Furthermore, this meme was particularly poking fun at people that play video games, which made it really hard for me to believe in my identity and the fact that so much of what I do is through video games. Video games are a way for me to connect with friends and enjoy the time that I have with them.

Although this meme would not have any of the same viral nature to it. This is what I feel like this meme should encompass. The problem with meme culture is that there is a real problem with dark humor and shock value. This meme is wholesome and comforting where the previous one is dark and morbid. Many people have normalized these dark, harmful memes that only discourage people from dealing with their mental health problems. I think for the internet to spread more positive messages, we need to react appropriately to inappropriate and morbid depictions online.

I did want to include a link to Some Good News which is a YouTube channel that was started by John Krasinski during the pandemic that was used to promote good, heartwarming stories while we were all trapped inside. Although they haven’t posted a video in nearly one year, those videos were really enjoyable and made me smile during the first year or so of the Covid-19 pandemic.