It can feel special, understandably, to adopt a label around which to frame one’s identity, if not outright cool. And the internet rewards it: “Whereas a therapist might question the usefulness of identifying oneself as permanently aligned with whatever struggle one is experiencing, engagement-driven platforms help frame conditions as points of identity, badges of honor,” explains Isabel Munson in a piece on Real Life. People in our own lives may reward it, too: As writer and TikToker Rayne Fisher-Quann pointed out, friends and family tend to be much more forgiving and understanding when you can excuse behavior using a label, as opposed to trying to articulate the complexities of the human mind at any particular moment.

Treating mental illness like subculture, though, can have unintended consequences. Just a few days ago, I was served a TikTok ad for a direct-to-consumer startup centered on delivering cutely branded ADHD medicine to your door. Was this an ad targeted to me based on what TikTok assumes? Or was this sent out to the general public, implying that there are enough people on TikTok who have or think they have ADHD to make the ad a worthwhile investment?

In a story on internet pathologization for i-D, James Greig writes that easily categorizable people are also easy to market to. “While there is genuine support out there and a lot of good intentions, it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the people involved in pushing these diagnoses have a vested interest in doing so,” he writes. (Consider the zillions of products that claim to quell anxiety, a market that’s exploded over the past decade.)

Read more:

Jennings, R. (2021, September 30). How mental health became a social media minefield. Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/9/30/22696338/pathologizing-adhd-autism-anxiety-internet-tiktok-twitter