A few random thoughts: it reminds me of the line from american beauty where mena suvari says "I don't think that there's anything worse than being ordinary." Women would rather be crazy which makes them interesting, than boring/ordinary.
There are less avenues for women to be interesting than men so maybe they over index on this avenue. For example more men play sports which even if you don't think is interesting, they think it makes them interesting.
Women seem to identify as "artists" more than men, and great art has a storied connection to pain/insanity.
Is it too cynical (or much too reductive) to reduce it to competitive performative attention seeking? Drawing a throughline via "femcel" is great inasmuch as this sort of romanticization of mental illness is a mirror to the nice guys of yesterdecades; when one can't compete in the "normal" arena the generically obvious next step is to try to stigmatize normal and distinguish oneself therefrom. I'm not like those dumb, brutish jocks, I'm nice and gentle. I'm not like those vapid, airheaded barbies, I'm edgy and crazy. Sides of the same coin, perhaps?
One wonders if mental illness is romanticized because it is typically the mentally unstable who have the most heightened romantic tendencies! I don't think we should romanticize it, but the alternative to mental illness seems to be framed as undesirable (the "vsco girls with madewell drip" description personally strikes me as an insult to authenticity).
The question I would ask is, what is a proper model of "healthy" that preserves the things we hold most dear (authenticity, interest in life, community)?
A few random thoughts: it reminds me of the line from american beauty where mena suvari says "I don't think that there's anything worse than being ordinary." Women would rather be crazy which makes them interesting, than boring/ordinary.
There are less avenues for women to be interesting than men so maybe they over index on this avenue. For example more men play sports which even if you don't think is interesting, they think it makes them interesting.
Women seem to identify as "artists" more than men, and great art has a storied connection to pain/insanity.
Manic pixie dream girl also comes to mind.
Is it too cynical (or much too reductive) to reduce it to competitive performative attention seeking? Drawing a throughline via "femcel" is great inasmuch as this sort of romanticization of mental illness is a mirror to the nice guys of yesterdecades; when one can't compete in the "normal" arena the generically obvious next step is to try to stigmatize normal and distinguish oneself therefrom. I'm not like those dumb, brutish jocks, I'm nice and gentle. I'm not like those vapid, airheaded barbies, I'm edgy and crazy. Sides of the same coin, perhaps?
One wonders if mental illness is romanticized because it is typically the mentally unstable who have the most heightened romantic tendencies! I don't think we should romanticize it, but the alternative to mental illness seems to be framed as undesirable (the "vsco girls with madewell drip" description personally strikes me as an insult to authenticity).
The question I would ask is, what is a proper model of "healthy" that preserves the things we hold most dear (authenticity, interest in life, community)?