- Thinking About It by Zee Feed
- Posts
- WE R NOT OK.
I was 19 when R U OK? Day first started in 2009, so it’s been a thing for my whole working life. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen less buzz, and more resigned disdain, for the day than there was this year. Did you notice it too? The easy answer for why R U OK is flopping so hard is that it’s reaching the natural, final destination of the corporation-adoption-to-cultural-irrelevance pipeline. But I think the jokes about morning tea (see also: IWD) are getting at a more complicated question:
What place does R U OK? Day have at a time when we’re all really, very much, not ok?
We’re at what feels like peak awareness of mental health challenges. So much so there has been a 70% increase in demand for psychology sessions in the past three years. To speak only for my own circles – I know my people are struggling, as they know I am too. These aren’t the secrets they used to be. Gen Z is comfortable sharing their unwell mental state with whomever wants to know, which is both great (no stigma, we’re all suffering) and sad (why are we all suffering?)
Talking is great and should always be encouraged, but we’re running out of patience for movements that remain frozen at conversation-starting and never outline what actions will resolve the issue. R U OK? is a suicide prevention charity, so of course connection is incredibly important. Unfortunately, corporate and government-endorsed conversations rarely touch on the real-world conditions making us feel like this, because the responsibility would only end up back with them. We cannot ‘Meaningful Conversation’ our way out of the cost-of-living and housing crises.
There is a generational aspect to this. Whether or not people can put it in words, I think Millennials and Gen Z understand they are being lowkey gaslit about the source of our shitty wellbeing. The widespread nature of it is caused by neoliberal economics, plain and simple. Not saying depression would be eliminated in Australia if every person was comfortably housed… but I reckon the stats would be a lot lower.
Specificity is also crucial for these conversations, which is clearest in the push for men’s mental health. Staying in a very broad, for-everyone space has really diluted the message of R U OK? – I’d forgotten their focus is actually suicide, not overall mental health, because of how generalised the campaign and messaging is. Who are they talking to now, in 2023 and beyond?
I don’t want to go too hard on this one charity, because it applies to many organisations, campaigns and movements. R U OK? has had incredible positive influence up to now, and helped bring mental health into the mainstream in Australia. But our needs are shifting, so if they want to continue this work they will have to refine their focus.
The next evolution of charities and cause-driven campaigns are going to have to be more specific and instructional if they want to cut through and create change. This is the information age, baby! We know about problems. We’re bombarded with problems. Even just within Zee Feed’s audience there has been a distinct attitude shift in the past three years – it’s like, “don’t tell me about this horrible problem if you can’t also tell me something I can do to fix it.” Understandably!
It may be different for older generations, but I do think the overall impulse is the same. Don’t tell me to ask if my friend is struggling mentally, because we’ve been talking about that, and we’re still struggling. Tell me how to fix it, if you know how to fix it. And if you don’t know how to fix it, please leave the mic free for someone who does.
That’s a much harder conversation to have.
Good stuff on Zee Feed rn:
Consent activist Chanel Contos kindly let us publish an excerpt of her new book, which talks about the stats behind sexting and how early image-based abuse starts. If you know someone who thinks primary school is too early to teach kids about consent, show them this! CLICK HERE TO READ.
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Hasan Minhaj’s “Emotional Truths” on New York Magazine
I have loved Hasan’s comedy for a long time so this a conflicting read. Essentially, a lot of his emotional stories about racism and oppression are… not true. "[Comedians] have become the oddball public intellectuals of our time, and, in informing the public, they assume a certain status as moral arbiters. When fibs are told to prove a social point rather than to elicit an easy laugh, does their moral weight change?"
Gurner got his start with loans from his boss, grandfather on Australian Financial Review
I never recommend stuff in here from the AFR, but the savagery of this one is too good not to share. Tim Gurner is the inhumane almost-billionaire who went viral for saying Australian workers deserve to all lose their jobs. Columnist Mark Di Stefano calls out the truth to AFR readers: “The lump sum inheritance, or the familial guarantor. The financial backstop that’s always there in every story, though never in the headline. They are the foundational facts that are glazed over in the origin stories of Australia’s over-levered property wunderkinds.”
One-Minute Abstract Art Analysis of Tube Girl on Artlust TikTok
If you don’t know who Tube Girl is just ignore this. If you do know (and are obsessed with) Tube Girl, you might like Seema’s explanation of why THIS IS ART, ACTUALLY!
From now until the Oct 14 referendum, I’ll also recommend some perspectives from our big list of First Nations opinions on the Voice each week:
YES: All Indigenous people want is a say in our own affairs. A voice will help us get it from Pat Turner (READ)
NO: Speaking To the Voice an Instagram account run by Jennetta Quinn-Bates features quotes from Indigenous people on why they’re voting no (SOCIAL)
UNDECIDED: If the voice is rejected, my heart will break. But First Nations progress won’t be stopped by Aaron Fa’Aoso (READ)
CONTEXT: Treaties, parliaments, Voice: How do we compare to the rest of the world? (LISTEN)