Most importantly, the study argues, 13 Reasons Why created a conversation. Moreover, the study adds, viewers “reported helping others and engaging in other empathetic behaviors after watching.” “ 13 Reasons Why resonated with teens and young adults, and they felt it was beneficial for them and people their age to watch,” concludes the study, which draws on surveys of more than 5,000 teens, young adults, and parents in four regions of the world. Northwestern’s study of 13 Reasons Why, written by three professors with backgrounds in communications and psychology, seems to show that it was by and large beneficial. Netflix commissioned a study on all the ways 13 Reasons Why started a conversation. Spoilers for 13 Reasons Why season two follow. Please be advised that this piece contains graphic discussion of rape and suicide. In its second season, 13 Reasons Why abandons one harmful myth only to embrace another. It’s interested in shocking, and it does not care how cheaply it might go about creating that shock. And finally, the show made an effort in its second season to discuss all the reasons suicide is not the answer for troubled teens.īut that strategy couldn’t quite make up for what the second season revealed, which is that 13 Reasons Why is not fundamentally interested in starting a conversation. Second, it added a spoken trigger warning to the season premiere, added content warnings to the episodes that include graphic violence and sexual assault, and advertised resources for viewers who might be struggling with suicidal ideation at the end of each episode. And it seems to have developed a three-pronged approach in response.įirst, Netflix commissioned and published a study from the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University, which focused on the good the show did by sparking a conversation among teens about rape and suicide. So Netflix had some damage control to do going into the show’s second season, which premiered on May 19. Suicide prevention experts say it’s dangerous.Īll of which means that shortly after the release of its first season, 13 Reasons Why was officially a critically acclaimed hit that experts suggested could also lead to the deaths of children.
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At least one school district reported a rise in self-harm after the series aired, and there appears to have been at least one copycat death.Ĭritics say 13 Reasons Why has artistic merit. That was made very clear to me.”Ī study published last fall found that Google searches about suicide - including “how to commit suicide” - spiked after the show’s release. He told them that it shouldn’t come out at all, he says, “but that wasn’t an option. One suicide expert says Netflix hired him to review the series before it came out to guide its release. Research suggests that after graphic depictions of suicide, suicide rates go up because of the phenomenon of suicide contagion. There are numbers to back up that criticism. “ 13 Reasons Why is trauma porn parading as woke media & I’d advise anyone considering suicide, ESPECIALLY teen girls, to stay far away from it,” writer Laura Zak tweeted. And while the first season was critically lauded for its addictively propulsive storytelling and the smart way it thought about the by turns intimate and vicious friendships of adolescence, it was also accused of dangerous storytelling for its decision to show Hannah’s rape and her subsequent suicide in graphic detail. Nevertheless, Netflix announced on Wednesday that the show will be returning for a third season.īased on a 2007 YA novel by Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Why tells the story of a 17-year-old girl named Hannah who dies by suicide, leaving behind 13 audio cassette tapes for 13 of her classmates on which she explains exactly why she blames them for her death. The second season attempts to move away from the controversy, and fails.
When Netflix dropped the first season of 13 Reasons Why last summer, it had a genuine hit on its hands.