Friendly talks with difficult people
and four other mental health adjacent distractions, many with funny videos
I don’t charge for this newsletter and heaven knows you can listen to the Depresh Mode podcast, for free if you so choose. That’s because the whole thing is donation-driven. It’s public radio style, depending on people recognizing that to make this stuff costs money. If enough people donate, we can exist. If they don’t, the whole thing will shut down. Would you like it to keep happening, go here, pick a level that works for you, then select DEPRESH MODE from the list of shows. And thank you.
What is humanity in the context of online comments?
The comment section is generally the scuzziest, most dispiriting neighborhood of the internet. On YouTube, on Facebook, just about anywhere people can post their thoughts. Those thoughts are often negative, cruel, bigoted, and the kinds of things you would never say to someone’s face in the real world to a real human.
Of course, there are humans involved, across the board. So why the dissociative rift between how discourse occurs online, among bits and pixels, versus how it happens out in the world of atoms and human organisms?
That’s what Dylan Marron wondered about after getting some pretty vile and hateful comments in response to his comedy videos. So Dylan saved a lot of these comments in what he called his Hate Folder and began incorporating them into his comedy shows, to kind of reclaim his humanity from people who were being jerks, and worse.
Here he is on the phone:
The result was his podcast, Conversations With People Who Hate Me, which is now a book.
Dylan is on Depresh Mode this week. He talks about finding a lot of the pain and fear in the people who had the most vicious things to say to him. Dylan never directly confronts his haters, doesn’t condemn them or counter-attack. Mostly he just asks questions and finds out what led them to say such things.
Dylan and I also talk about the mental health toll taken on us by our respective shows. How marinating in hate or depression or anxiety or generally painful feelings can affect a person in the long run.
Listening to music can have a similar mental health benefit to exercise. Or sort of.
That’s according to an article that confused me a bit. It concerns a study and meta-analysis of 26 different pieces of research and was recently published in JAMA.
According to the study authors, the mental health boost from music is "within the range, albeit on the low end" of the same sort of impact seen in people who commit to physical exercise or weight loss programs.
"This meta-analysis of 26 studies of music interventions provided clear and quantitative moderate-quality evidence that music interventions are associated with clinically significant changes in mental HRQOL," write the researchers.
"Additionally, a subset of 8 studies demonstrated that adding music interventions to usual treatment was associated with clinically significant changes to mental HRQOL in a range of conditions."
At the same time, the researchers point out that there was substantial variation between individuals in the studies regarding how well the various musical interventions worked – even if the overall picture was a positive one. This isn't necessarily something that's going to work for everyone.
So quit exercising and crank up the Pink Floyd! Or something!
Good luck!
Racing up the charts!
That’s when the World Health Organization says that depression will hit number one among contributors to disease. Up from number three.
And yeah, covid hasn’t helped but this trend started before that. A lot of it is these kids today and their ding dang Facebooks and Tickety Tocks:
The W.H.O.’s World Burden of Health Study found young people who are a part of the social media generation are among the hardest hit.
“There's more a message of perfection which puts on a whole different burden and leads to high rates of anxiety,” Bharvage explained.
The W.H.O. also reported that the pandemic has exposed gaps in mental healthcare in some parts of the world, including a lack of on-line resources.
“The global changes in the patterns of people's sleep is affecting the rates of depression,” Dr. Bhargave also noted. “That includes not getting enough sleep and includes the quality of sleep. The more we talk about these things, these conversations are going to make a real difference.”
A small good thing
Indeed, yes, there is a lot to be sad about in media, in social media, in Madea in general. But I am always thankful for things that are effortlessly funny and humane. Apparently a lot of people agree with me because this tweet has 404.6k likes at the time I write this:
It’s part of a longer thread of Kaitlin’s father’s belief in this ideal and theoretical taco that is, everyone keeps telling him, a burrito. Also, Kaitlin’s dad is Mexican.
I am not exaggerating when I say that this whole thread makes me love humanity more.
Honestly, the thread goes on and on and on and never falters, just goes deeper.
Our friend Jen Kirkman has a new album out
And she covers her mother’s bold anti-gratitude stance: