Wk of 2.4.19

To take a viral phenomenon like a picture of an egg and to use the publicity it earned to promote mental health awareness and bring openness to a sensitive topic for many is genius and the analogy of the egg cracking under pressure fits so perfectly. In this day and age we live in it does not take a face to face encounter with an aggressor to affect ones state of mind. It does not take a bully at school to make you feel bad about yourself. It takes someone you don’t even know sitting in their boxers on their parents sofa to make you feel terrible, all because of social media. The horizons are much broader now, anyone from across the world can attack you and make you think less about yourself. For example if an overweight indiviadual attacks you and body shames you, chances are that like minded individuals globally will encourage this behavior. At the same time this insecurity one may have is worsened by all these beautiful models posting bikini pictures of themselves that are photoshopped to the max falsely adverting a true body image. This is a huge reason as to why mental health issues are at such an incline in this day and age, all your insecurities are attacked and the goals we set to compete at times are unrealistic or unattainable. The world is in a competition with each other to have the ideal social media lifestyle. People stop pursuing what makes them happy but instead pursue what social media has set as the threshold for happiness. That pursuit for social media happiness can lead down a few different paths all with a similar end result. First, say you reach a level in which you have the ideal social media lifestyle but you suppressed a part of you that wanted something else in life, you will never be happy. No matter how envious people are of you or how happy your falsely advertised life looks, you will never be happy. Actually there are studies to prove this. People who have everything in life, everything tangible at least, are usually very unhappy, thus leading to mental health issues. A different route this senerio may play out is like this; you try to attain an unrealistic goal for yourself and you fail. For example you think you have to become a doctor because thats what peers from the community are becoming and you see the praise they are receiving on social media and in order to stay in the race of life you pursue a field you weren’t mentally capable of pursuing. Now because material isn’t clicking the way that it should and you can’t keep up with your peers feel stupid, thus leading to mental health issues. Social media can even indirectly affect your mental health. For example in an Indian community, parents are constantly in competition with each other. There are only a few acceptable career choices which your child is allowed to pursue otherwise you can’t show your face in public. At a party the conversation includes what this person’s son is doing or what that persons daughter is doing and how happy everyone looks in the med school graduation pictures that were just posted to FB. This makes your parents feel insecure causing them to disregard your aspirations and suppress your happiness out of the fear of what other might think when they don’t have any med school photos to post on FB. Indirectly but ultimately this eventually leads to mental health issues for you. The powerful effect social media has on our state of mind is obvious so it is important to use this global podium for awareness of the mental and psychological effects it has on us. A great start to bring awareness to this sensitive issue is to use the most liked picture on Ig and use it as a platform to start dialogue about the severity of mental health issues and bring normality in seeking treatment.

A simple way not to have mental health issues from pressure of social media is not to be part of it. Just disconnect. We have lived with out it for thousands of years. I never understood why people want to know everything about everyone every minute of a day and share privacy of their lives with people they barely know. May be because they get a self esteem and self importance from it...I don't know. There is so much more satisfaction to interact with real humans if one has a need for it. I was on social media years ago for a brief time when I realised that it was a sinking whole that was sucking the life out of me. So I DISCONNECTED. This project is an oxymoron to me. Using social media to bring awareness of pressure created by social media. It's like talking about alcohol abuse impact during beer comercial. So we created an issue and now telling people how to cope with it by directing them for mental health reach out. Why not to tell them to stop using social media in the message? Well because no one would sign up or sponser this progect that would cause billions of dollars lost in revenues. And I understand this was not only about social media pressure but over all mental health and asking for help. After working in health care for 17 years, service in military, traveling around the country I can tell you people aware of it but they choose to ignore it for many reasons:stigma, upbringings, personal irresponsability. This is very different issue in other parts of the world. We need to make people aware of self accountability and if one needs help they know where to find it...and yes don't look for it on social media.

I believe that acknowledging the reality of mental health is a positive step. Using media especially during Superbowl to communicate this is just a smart move. What's next?
Continue the conversations,create communities and environments that fosters mental health.

I think using #TalkingEgg to discuss on mental health is quite clever. As I can tell from some of the passionate replies, it had its intended viral effect, which was to spread the word for deliberation.

Social media likes to use the word VIRAL, a (now) colloquial term for the young and hip generations to indicate “an image, video, or advertisement that is circulated rapidly on the Internet,” almost like an epidemic. Yet, if we think about a viral infection . . . an infection can spread rapidly OR insidiously.

Mental health and social media are very much similar in that regard.

Mental health can be insidious. Some moments a person can be so aware of their mental being, that the feeling is all around them. However, for others, it can be slow; it can crawl into the recesses of your mind and slowly take over before you realize what’s happening.

Now let’s think about social media. What’s clever about The World Record Egg is that someone’s Instagram had that same effect. You saw the picture. You slowly saw its progression: a tiny fissure to a spiderweb of cracks on its surface. Did you see it? Maybe. You might have seen it Instagram, heard an ad on your music stream, or maybe Jimmy Fallon made a reference when you flipped your tv channels. Either way, you were hyper-aware of it or its subliminal messages are sitting comfortably somewhere in your brain.

In this era, you cannot just disconnect from social media. It’s not that simple. Same goes for your mental health. You can feel like you are able to disconnect, but even some things come back, creeping in and enveloping you when you least expect it, especially when you’re not prepared.

Overall, ignoring the byproduct of self-promotion, I’m impressed that Hulu took on the challenge, using the Super Bowl’s platform and popularity to make people talk about a serious issue affecting people today. Had it been Netflix or Youtube, it would have spread quickly, but would we have cared as greatly?

Hulu is obviously not a prevalent media form for most, but it got people curious about an EGG and its representation: An egg under pressure from either its mental health or social media . . . or both. (Reminds me of the UK’s #ShareTheOrange for Alzheimer’s research in 2016.)