“Let's be honest, what doesn't kill you doesn't always make you stronger, but do you know what does? It creates trauma for you. Congratulations, now you are funny.”
These words, taken from an Instagram reel - short videos often imported from TikTok - and translated from the original English portray the humor that has colonized the conversations of Generation Z. Because these ironic young people break with everything, in their own way. Also with his (bad) mental health, with jokes and memes.
Arturo Sánchez, 28 years old and a worker in an insurance company, uses this humor daily both on social networks and face to face. “For example, repeating 'I'm crazy' throughout the day or 'let's see when they take me to López Ibor', because on top of that I feel like they're going to treat me well there,” he ironically alludes to the exclusivity of the clinic. . His age puts him on the edge with millennials, but his jokes are genuinely Z.
Maite, who prefers that her last name not be included, also acknowledges the use of “I'm crazy.” However, this 22-year-old university student affirms that lately she tries not to abuse it “because then she noticed me more ‘crazy’ than normal.” For her, all this humor is used all the time, including the podcasts hosted by people of her generation that she consumes, such as La Pija and La Quinqui.
Social networks, the speaker par excellence for those born between the second half of the nineties and the beginning of the 2000s, are full of the most diverse and creative examples. They can even be grouped by theme. There are the jokes related to what was discussed in the psychological consultation – “There is a lot of jokes about what you say to the psychologist,” says Maite -, about traumas developed in childhood, taking psychotropic drugs, specific disorders or even the quality of care. of the public. In the case of girls, the emotional ups and downs of the days before menstruation are also included.
“I use it a lot when a situation has already arisen that makes me say it. Yesterday it happened to me with some colleagues. They told me that they were going to be late and I said: 'hey, no one loves me,'" says Fernando Alcaraz, a 25-year-old university student. Another example he gives is related to his ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder): “If I want to continue at a party, because I'm very stupid in this sense, and people tell me 'let's go home', I answer: ' Leave me alone, I have ADHD.'”
That the Zetas have chosen this content is no coincidence. On the one hand, it seems that psychological problems occur with this generation. According to the report “Generation Z: Shaping the Future of Consumer Trends” by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, carried out with a sample of 67 million people from various countries, although especially focused on the United Kingdom and the United States, 65% percent of Young people from Generation Z report dealing with a mental health problem such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
On the other hand, the so-called crystal generation has been the first to really put emotional discomfort on the table and address it. Thus, these young people emphasize that they now really deal with psychological issues that were previously ignored. Breaking the taboo of going to psychological therapy is, in fact, his merit.
“Side effect” is the expression that Alcaraz uses to talk about the humor of a generation so attentive to mental health. “The concept of crystal generation is something positive, but I see it as a differentiating point from other generations. Come on, it hasn't been said 'it's just that you are softies'. The other generations are proud of their own suffering. It's not that we are fragile, we all are, but we verbalize it. We have that courage,” he explains.
That the format chosen was humor also offers a portrait of a generation that laughs at itself - the three people interviewed answer with a resounding "yes" to this question -, is ironic, creative and is not ashamed.
“It is the escape route to talk about the subject,” in Sánchez's words, a topic that for him was only dealt with from a clinical or intellectual perspective and not so much "from going around the house." Thus, between jokes, you can have fairly open conversations with your peers.
“I wish more people from other generations would start doing it. Humor has always been a very easy resource to talk about topics that may be considered taboo. And in the end it is a bit of what is done here, in the end it is a matter of speaking about it publicly,” he adds.
This sharing is accompanied by a certain sense of belonging, of understanding. Seeing that it happens to other people and that you are not alone helps. It even allows us to relativize certain sufferings as a personal and group catharsis.
But everything beautiful has its dark side. In a generation where labeling and the search for self-definition prevail, building one's identity around mental discomfort, which is still discomfort no matter how many jokes soften it, also occurs on certain occasions.
“Everyone wants to be sad girls.” Maybe if you've really lived it a little, you see that it's not cool at all to be a sad girl and you want to be the complete opposite," says Maite. She is quite critical of the phenomenon: “I find it funny, but I would prefer it not to be there because it doesn't seem healthy to me. People I know who are going through hard things do this humor, but they just laugh. If they did something about it, well, but they just laugh and like to rejoice in it. There is even the fact that it becomes cool to say 'I have a lot of anxiety'. "It's not very cool to be bad."
Perhaps she has become more aware because she is experiencing certain mental health problems firsthand since “sometimes it goes hand in hand with trivializing mental illnesses and I don't like it.” Her limit is making jokes about suicide. The Alcaraz in eating disorders because she has not experienced them, so she can understand that "there are people who will not find it funny."
