#when I have no obvious symptoms and we’re short on ppl

[curly-cottage-girl]

I feel like I’m losing the battle of treading water and am just starting to drown in exhaustion now

[neonstatic]

Everything wrong with 13RW

Firstly, the premise of the source book is distasteful and it should've never become a full show with 13 episodes of 1 hour each season.

The creators contacting health professionals to get advice on how to handle the themes in the show and ignoring ALL of the advice shows the little care given for “spreading a message” or “starting a conversation” (more like starting a controversy).

Now onto the points in which the show failed to convey a positive message in both season 1 & season 2.

I recommend watching this video for short indications on why the show does more bad than good.

And before anyone says anything, I am mentally ill and I study psychology so jot that down.

SEASON 1

Sensationalism of suicide

As a vehicle for vengeance (thru tapes)

As a tool to gain attention

The tapes are treated as words of truth and justice

If the tapes are ever criticized, it is done by characters featured on the tapes, which serves to delegitimize such opinions since they're the "bad guys" of the story

Act of committing suicide blamed on others (esp bad when the 11 persons’ wrongdoings cannot be equated in most cases)

Most people didn't deserve a tape:

Jessica cut ties with her over a misunderstanding

Zach emptied her encouragement mailbox (and quickly stopped after being called out) and she thought he threw away a personal letter she wrote him (this tape is extremely unwarranted)

Courtney claimed Hannah came onto her because she was afraid to be outed as lesbian but in the end, the photos and rumours affected them both anyway

Ryan published a poem of hers without her consent; disrespectful but not ill-intended

Clay walked away after she insisted for him to leave her alone (this tape is extremely unwarranted)

Sheri knocked down a sign and left Hannah out on the street because she didn’t want to call 911, which “caused” the death of a student (this tape is extremely unwarranted)

Those who deserved a tape (debatable in some cases):

Justin, for making up lies about her and spreading a revealing picture of her

Alex, for cutting ties, objectifying/publicly humiliating and submitting her to harassment in school

Bryce, for spreading a revealing picture of her and raping her

Marcus, for misleading, harassing and humiliating her in public

Tyler, for stalking and spreading pictures of [Courtney and] her

Mr Porter, for his very poor handling of her obvious distress

Hannah's story is no fair representation of real life

Technically, she’s a victim of social bullying (damaging someone's social reputation & lying and spreading rumours) but...

She's esp a victim of circumstances made by the creator - she's a fictional character whose purpose is to be a martyr in her story; in the real world, things would have played out much differently

Hannah tries to reach out once then gives up and justifies this bc the school counsellor didn't come running after her when she stormed out (again assuming ppl are mind readers)

Graphic rape scenes with the potential to trigger viewers - even those who aren’t survivors (replayed numerous times throughout the show as flashbacks)

Graphic and extended suicide scene (goes directly against professionals’ guidelines but screw vulnerable viewers I guess?)

Finality of suicide forgotten by the structure of narration = Hannah’s omnipresent even though she's literally dead, which grossly undermines the consequences of suicide

Adults portrayed as clueless and unable to help (not a good idea to put in teenagers’ head)

SEASON 2

Vague mention of mental illness

Implying anxiety runs in Hannah's maternal side but not diving into it

Sky being diagnosed with bipolar although there was no extensive portrayal of her symptoms (since she wasn’t onscreen for long) and immediately disappearing from the show while she’s the only character going through professional therapy and recovery (smth they would have rly benefited from showing)

Trivializing mental illness for plot use

Clay hallucinating Hannah - acknowledged but not addressed for being a serious psychotic symptom

Minors in sexual situations (too many times!)

Graphic scene of a brutal sexual battery (entirely for shock value, it didn’t have to be shown this way and you can't tell me otherwise)

Conflicting message regarding drug use

Severity of addiction (Justin getting clean then relapsing)

Recreational use (minors doing molly for fun... instead of marijuana which is less risky in comparison)

Trivializing school shooting

Advertisement tool (last episode of S1 heavily hinting at it)

Teased several times throughout the season

Blatant reference to Columbine

Not going through with it - worse move ever…

Irresponsible guide on how to approach an impulsive armed person

From a storytelling POV

Hannah the martyr

Hard to sympathize with when the tapes serve to exact vengeance more than it serves to explain how she felt and why she did what she did, making her manipulative at best

The fact that she was a bully herself in the past

(Plus being “shown” how Hannah was would've been better than being “told” how she was by other characters)

Overall terrible attempt at creating a suicide victim / mentally ill person ppl should sympathize with, the last thing the mentally ill needs is to be related to a character that is so easy to dislike

Clay as a main character

Lost his value since the story's progress doesn't rly depend on him (even tho we're forced to follow him)

Character development: he gets real snappy and no one calls him out? Increasingly unlikable

(Not that he was that likeable by the end of S1… spreading a naked picture of Tyler? #WelcomeToYourTape)

Tyler and his arc

Attempt at explaining the possible cause of school shooting? Failed.

Most school shooters aren’t victims of bullying, in fact many (if not all) are associated with hate groups like white supremacist, misogynists, etc.

Had plenty of reasons to commit suicide over mass shooting (and I don’t mean it in a ‘suicide can be justified’ sense but tbh besides his interest in guns, he’s never depicted as aggressively angry or remotely prone to violence)

Could've brought attention to male depression and male suicide far better than Alex’s story

Technical POV

Very lacking warnings. There should be hotlines at the end of every episode not at the beginning. Self-righteousness and superficial philosophy in both dialogue and narration show the shallowness and pretentiousness of the directors.

The show is presented as an objective representation instead of a media to consume and dissect and judge for oneself = in other words, the morale is laid out for you. Putting up content so shocking most of your target audience cannot watch for fear of being triggered is irresponsible. Trigger warnings don't solve that. Shooting implicit scenes and not explicit scenes is what protects viewers and still conveys the message.

Message

The show is depressing; there's barely any positive outcome. Every character is helpless to their situation. It would benefit greatly of some comic relief.

“We should be careful what we say to people.” Only when it comes to Hannah, everyone else we can be harsh to, apparently. “We should care more for people.” (True, but you can’t love depression away.) “We have power over nothing.” "We can't change anything.” “Adults don't understand us.” “We can't confide to anyone.” “We can't trust anyone.”

Seriously it's a fkg downer. This show highlights all the problems but gives no solution. You expect your audience of teenagers to figure it out for themselves? You expect your audience of teenagers to go out of their way to "start a conversation" with their parents over some sensationalist teen drama show? You must be kidding me. (Do you know how a conversation about 13RW goes? “I loved the show!” “I didn’t.” The end.)

Final note

The directors should have inserted a segment after each episode (or every couple) with the actors themselves discussing what happened to/between the characters and how it could have been handled better. If you want to act like your show is a PSA, treat it as such.