How This Became the Sad Girl Era

It may have originated as a tumblr aesthetic, but now the sad girl is everywhere: the music of Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey and Phoebe Bridgers; TV shows like Fleabag, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, You’re The Worst, and Dickinson; and books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Normal People and Conversations with Friends. These huge cultural movements may not touch directly on contemporary women’s struggles, but the characters at their heart are all attempting to reflect a truth of what being a millennial or gen-z woman is, and create a space to talk about how difficult, traumatic, and just tiring it can be.
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We are The Take (formerly ScreenPrism).
00:00 Why we lean on the sad girl
01:04 How the sad girl took over pop culture
03:51 Refocusing her sorrowful point of view
07:13 Why is she sad in the first place?
09:46 How the sad girl helps up collectively heal

[@archer1949]

Lana Del Rey’s influence on the current Sad Girl aesthetic can never be underestimated.

[@palemoonlight96]

she truly captured and even inspired the spirit of a whole generation her music speaks to the soul on a deeper level because it validates even the most tragic parts of love and life and makes one feel understood

[@PokhrajRoy.]

The Brontë Sisters, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath were the Quartet of OG Sad Girls in the Recent Past.

[@AllieOk]

Forgot Emily Dickinson 👀

[@Ohboycommentsection]

As a Sad Girl of the 90s, I adored Fiona Apple, the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Dorothy Parker. For some reason I hated the Bell Jar yet I wanted a boyfriend who was as off as me, like Holden Caulfield. Found him at age 14. It's embarrassing looking back and admitting to how seductive it was on both ends. Yikes.

[@AllieOk]

@@Ohboycommentsection ooh Holden is the og sad boy

[@cwalker6911]

This!!

[@Hallows4]

There was also the early iteration of Lisa Simpson when she couldn’t even bring herself to participate in a dodgeball game because she was feeling so existentially depressed.

[@klawis]

I don’t think they are romanticizing depression, I think that they are just expressing their mental illness into art forms just like what artists do long ago, and this is immensely helpful for the people who have the same struggles. As a sad girl diagnosed with clinical depression, this kind of art really helped me a lot

[@AllieOk]

They didn't say that the artists mentioned are romanticizing it, they said that a part of the movement is. And that's true. I don't know if you've experienced early 2010s Tumblr but the discourse on mental illnesses was incredibly dangerous because of how romantized it was

[@nath7557]

@@AllieOk I know this is always claimed but to this day I fail to see the romaticisation. It was a bunch of depressed kids expressing themselves.

[@AllieOk]

@@nath7557 Of course there were people like that. As the video says, the sad girl aesthetic is good to let people express themselves and be okay with their feelings. But there CAN be a dark side to it. It's easy to forget that accepting your sadness doesn't mean you can't be happy. And the main problem was how little teens knew about mental health. The whole Effie Stonem aesthetic brought a lot of troublesome conversation about mental illnesses. There was such poor mental health representation back then. The knowledge kids have nowadays about mental health might not be perfect, but at least they have a general perception of what is healthy. I had middle school classmates in 2012 who tried to cut themselves because they thought it was cool to take pics of it. I myself got so deep into reading/looking at nothing but sad things when I was going through depression in high school, that I wasn't allowing myself to take a break from thinking about it. That happens

[@eileensnow6153]

Yeah, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend really helped me when I was trying to find a diagnosis for my mental health. I went through the same gambit of misdiagnoses and being prescribed countless medications that never helped. Watching Rebecca do it was helpful, but the best part was watching her do it _clumsily._ It’s okay to not get it exactly right the first time, or immediately after you get the correct diagnosis. Her having a happy ending despite all the mistakes she made (and crimes she committed…less relatable) encouraged me to keep moving forward.

[@mrttripz3236]

I’m not asking this question to patronise or downplay women, I’m asking because I would like to better emphasise with women as a man. But anyway Why are middle class millennial women feeling so sad these days? In other words what pieces are missing in the bigger picture? I know that my fellow men also are dealing with this same thing but because I am also a man I better understand their emotions.

[@trinaq]

Misery really loves company, which is why the Sad Girl is immensely relatable. It's impossible to be happy ALL of the time, so she shows us that it's perfectly fine to wallow in our emotions, so long as we don't let it consume all of our beings. 💙

[@kamsismith]

I agree with you. I feel like the best example of this is the book I read 3 years ago called Charlie and Dia. The female protagonist is part manic pixie dream girl and part sad girl. Though she's a beautiful woman with an outgoing personality, she hides behind that facade because she suffers from amnesia and some trauma before meeting the male protagonist.

[@cocobini]

We can't be happy all the time , and we especially cannot be happy in the year 2022. It's been a really bad year for women and as we go back into the middle ages with events like those unfolding in Iran and with the abortion laws coming back in the US, being a sad girl is especially relatable

[@grahamdamberger7130]

@@cocobini People must have watched The Handmaid's Tale and thought it was a show about simpler times, so they decided to turn our world into that world, where all couples were heterosexual, men were back in control of everything and women practically became servants to their partners, and children were raised as mindless puppets and properly groomed for marriage. I may be off base with this, but if this was like how the middle ages were during the early centuries of the previous millennium, then it is kind of scary to see how it may play out.

[@user-ux3vw6mb4k]

You worded it beautifully.

[@chunellemariavictoriaespan8752]

True... Makes you feel like other's had it worse then you get frustrated why your bag of sh*t still gets to you when others are still productive despite their heavier sh*t...

[@PokhrajRoy.]

It’s a very tricky situation because of course sadness is being commodified for consumption but sometimes being sad is better than being toxically positive to the point of being manic.

[@iamV10010]

Agreed. In sadness there is this inherent ache. It almost feels good and certainly feels better than rage

[@tessarae9127]

Exactly! (About toxic positivity)… I love the movie Saved for this reason… though it takes a religious look at toxic positivity it kind of shows how messy we all really are. Totally recommend… I think it might be free on KZbin?

[@chunellemariavictoriaespan8752]

True... Like I entered in an MLM where everyone is highly happy and positive I feel like an awkward sore thumb while others are trying their best to get me going to earn my millions... Frankly I have a problem I still don't know how to deal with and now I am stuck between Syclla and Charybdis that can argued as just in my head...

[@thesevenkingswelove9554]

Exactly. We as humans need to balance our emotions. Feeling sad Or positive all the time doesn't work

[@luanasilva7341]

​​​​@@thesevenkingswelove9554 Liking sad songs mostly doesn't mean you're always sad. It might just evokes deeper emotions into some poeple that causes them a sort of well being and inspiration

[@WatchThatDene]

Effy was the quintessential TV sad girl for Millennials, Lana for music. Now for Gen Z, it seems to be Rue and Billie.

[@bobotrone]

Yessasss exactly

[@No-bv5hw]

Effy and Lana are so much better and relatable in my opinion as a gen z.

[@thebusybeanhomecafe4035]

Not Billie... Lana is definitely more popular in that sense

[@andreap3147]

I'm surprised there was no mention of Lorde. She isn't really part of the Sad Girl Era anymore, but her sophomore album is called Melodrama and it's still immensely popular.

[@jkim6140]

Or the way her first two albums were the epitome of Sad Girl but her third album, a much less melodramatic vibes, got backlash for being different and not sad enough.

[@andreap3147]

@@jkim6140 yes exactly! I was going to say that too. People were complaining it wasn't sad enough lol

[@Feliciatanktop]

I was waiting for her and Sky Ferreira to be brought up. Them, Lana, and marina & the diamonds had sad girl tumblr in a chokehold

[@firewind3509]

@@Feliciatanktop yes! I was so surprised at Sky not being mentioned

[@PrettyPrincess9609]

I really don’t like when people who aren’t suffering from depression romanticize it. Depression is a mental illness. It’s not something to romanticize. I wish I wasn’t suffering from depression. I suffered from depression and anxiety since I was 15 because of the trauma I experienced as victim of abuse by my mother , m word by my stepfather, the racism I experienced, being homeless for two years after my mom lost her job in 2008, being SA’d by my guy friend, and the passing of my grandfather. I didn’t even know I was suffering from it until I talked to my personal doctor. That’s when I realize wow I have been dealing with this since I was 15. When I was younger, I grew up ENVYING people who were happy with a normal childhood. I would give anything to be a happy regular person.

[@thedabara94]

I hope you find relief and happiness in the future. I say this as someone in her 40s who is just now beginning to seek help for my MDD(which I've been living with since I was 12)

[@jadehathaway4336]

I know how you feel but I've been hit with much of a double whammy and then I got hit with two more of them angry sad mad or crazy it's not pretty either I got ADD ADHD and when that mixture I have a dangerous cocktail I'm a waking Time Bomb on that one

[@kamsismith]

I'm sorry to hear that and I agree with you because I'm tired of mental illness being glorified and romanticized. As someone who is on the spectrum and has OCD and anxiety, there are times that I didn't want to accept it but at the same time, I realized that it's part of who I am. I feel like being an adult while it still lingers, you become more accepting of it than you're younger because most young people simply want to fit in.

[@susannehuber3996]

Depression is like living in hell 24/7 everything hurts and nothing feels good. Everything is empty.

[@mcgregorhumanities]

They're not romanticising depression, they're making it into art. What else can we do? There is no cure for depression, we all have to learn to live with it, and what better way to cope than through art. Their art is honest, it's not cheerful because they aren't cheerful. It takes a lot to be able to create what they do, and it takes a certain appreciation for art to be able to enjoy art that doesn't try to take away the sadness but rather make something with it.

[@creature_maria]

We gotta be less harsh on sad girls tbqh. Very often romanticising suffering is a coping mechanism. It might not be the healthiest one, but remember that sad girls themselves are hurting before you start shaming them for behaviour that can end up hurting others. And it's also pretty messed up to gatekeep who is really "sad" and who is "doing it for attention"; you can be sad and use romanticisation to cope even if you don't have a diagnosed/pathological mental health issue.

[@JB-zh7yx]

Fair point. We only see what people show us. I wonder if our coping mechanisms change as we age or they just stay the same...

[@katyadade1041]

As an ex-sad girl (aka clinically depressed and eventually diagnosed with ADHD), I would say you don't need a dead friend or a parent to be sad. Being abused as a child gives you enough fuel to be sad for a looooong time, you don't really need a lot more.

[@MushroomHat]

Please someone talk about Marina, she practically invented the sad girl aesthetic on tumblr back in 2012 and she’s barely ever talked about

[@sarairodriguezbalderrama7139]

Electra heart really is my teenage years😵‍💫😵‍💫 teen idle specially 🥲

[@clairewillow6475]

Numb, Teen Isdle, Primadona.. she has sooo many good songs !!

[@romeblanchard3419]

Teen Idle was my mantra

[@pinkkkkkkkkk]

Lana basically invented it, sorry not sorry

[@wtfaleisa]

I was looking for this comment. Electra Heart is an album near and dear to my heart

[@remidogger5472]

Effy from Skins was the sad girl that made me want to be the mysterious sad girl too when I was about 12 years old. Well fuck that, it turned out not to be that fun when I actually became one when I was older.

[@robchuk4136]

"Now, Phoebe Bridge's concerts have become known for ending with a cathartic mass scream along to her song "I Know the End." Without context, that clip looks like an emergency and something went very wrong!

[@roy.shrestha]

I know that certain depictions of sad girls tend to get romanticized, but as someone who has been clinically diagnosed with depression, I have found comfort in listening to those sad songs or watching shows/movies that portray sad girls as the main protagonists.

[@user-jj4pm2wr6o]

you know i have to say as a boy i like a lot of these sad girl artists as well, when you have things going on in your life that make you sad it can feel really gratifying to listen to a song about that kind of thing

[@CosmicKindness]

That's honestly why I make the music that I make some of its angry some of it's sad some of it's happy because we are always in a different mood and we need something perfect that can really take us there into the magic only music can do that it's so healing for a lot of my trauma but I guess I'll be a sad girl for life...👍😎

[@sentientsponge8570]

Would love to see a more complex portrayal of sad black girls and women. Great video as always 🎉

[@LoveAndSnapple]

I was thinking the same thing. Many times I see things change through the scope of only white women only and I think, "Is this really how most women think or just white women?" It seems that when white women pick something up or put something down is when things "matter". But that's just my observation.

[@Hallows4]

Not sure how this factors into the trope, but I’ve always thought it’s important to maintain a distinction between simply feeling depressed and actually being diagnosed with clinical depression. It’s not a distinction that most people can instantly make, but both have their own legitimacy and shouldn’t dismissed as “exaggerated” or “overly dramatic”, regardless of the person in question and their status in life.

[@melb6746]

This. I was accused of being dramatic and I got yelled at and shamed just for trying to seek help. I was trying to do the right thing and not even the people closest to me believed I was suffering even though I told them I was.

[@sorafanchick]

In the black community Erykah Badu was the quintessential "sad girl". Songs like On and On reflected the woes of being a black woman and working hard for little. Also Melanie Martinez was very much a sad girl that shaped what would become the modern era.

[@liamwhite1719]

the repeated Mitski erasure is killing me 😔 i'd argue she's one of the most exemplary sad girls. with lyrics ranging for sadness, to anger, or joy, or love, but filtered through a near constant layer of melancholy, she created a way to experience sadness as a reality and not just a singular emotion. I think this is also why her most recent album, the synth heavy Laurel Hell, was hated by fans. because of the synth, or didn't come across as all that sad, especially compared to her prior work. but in the lyrics you can still see that sadness and anger and love, even though it sounds happy. you could see this as a way of representing the sadness that lives in all of us, even when we feel happy. While artists like Lana and Pheobe write about sadness sadly, and anger angrily, Mitski writes about sad anger and angry love and melancholy love, making all these emotions more known to us in the process. i think even her rejection of her sad girl status is important to the notion of the sad girl. because humans, even sad girls, are not just sad. they are angry and joyous and loving, but that is all expressed through their sadness as longing, dismay, etc. Mitski could represent a new notion of the sad girl not just as a one-dimensional "sad girl", but as a girl who is sad.

[@dianag.9092]

Yes.

[@cwalker6911]

How is it erasure when they do mention Mitski? Do you mean you just think there should have been more references or expansion on her?

[@dprs0n]

I'm a huge fan of Lana but Mitski's music and lyrics hit different. Like I used to be somehow relieved by playing all Lana's songs on repeat, even though they are "sadly sad", but now when I listen to one song by Mitski I feel completely devastated. Her music isn't that daunting but the lyrics are just pure pain of simply being yourself, expressed through the most beautiful metaphors.

[@fantasticania]

interesting. as a gen X dinosaur, I definitely remember this stage in my life (teens/early 20s) when being a sad girl seemed to be something everybody sensitive went through… some of us got stuck in it a bit longer than others… anyways, life goes on and before you know it you're just not a sad girl anymore...

[@user-jj4pm2wr6o]

really liked this one and i think there right, everyone feels sad sometimes and that's ok. if someone says you shouldn't feel it's none of there business

[@RoninRen]

honestly, how is it that just feeling sad is often treated as the ultimate selfishness?

[@melb6746]

THIS! Damn it, when I'm stressed or tired I just want to be quiet and withdrawn and yes maybe even a little sad. But I'm expected to be bubbly and over the top all the time and I hate it.

[@natalie651]

I think it depends what you do with it. I've had sad people hide their sadness, get close to me, act all nice and sweet, and they get scared and pull away when I want to continue the relationship that they originally "wanted." It's not ok to use your sadness as an excuse to hurt otherwise. Otherwise, feeling sad can be everything. Remember Inside Out? Sad saves the day.

[@melb6746]

@@natalie651 yes, people who act like that are really selfish. Sadness is ok, it's something we all experience. But it's not ok for people to hurt others, ESPECIALLY when they act like they're the ONLY ones going through it. In short, agree with you.

[@RoninRen]

@@melb6746 am sorry to ask why then does it seem like a no win situation, read the room &don't spoil the mood, suppressing your feelings was hurting us more,

[@melb6746]

@@RoninRen there's a time and a place for expressing it.

[@manolocorp]

The world often requires us to put on a cheerful facade, but beneath the surface, there's a lot of sadness and regret that we can't express for fear of being weird or a loser. What music can do is reassure us of the normality of pain. Music fights the false optimism of commercial society and is there to remind us, with dignity, that every good life has extraordinary amounts of confusion, suffering, loneliness, and distress within it. Some of the most remarkable pieces of music are loved for their capacity to make human feelings public and relatable. By understanding and creating music, we know that feelings are part of the human condition.

[@ayla8345]

If you think right now is the sad girl era then you weren’t paying attention during the tumblr era. Every girl was / acted like they were depressed. Now it’s A LOT more focused on “that girl” and clean girl aesthetic. Now more people are in therapy etc. No one got treatment for their mental illness back then they just went on tumblr. Yes being depressed, was an aesthetic back then, for boys and girls, but behind the facade people really were struggling especially with eating disorders and self harm. They were just trying to make it look pretty. Nowadays everyone seems to have anxiety and most of the time it sounds like a lie, they just want to relatable.

[@sarairodriguezbalderrama7139]

We all wanted to be effy stonem lol

[@aurora6920]

i agree, we always had this, we used to call it 'Emo' which meant emotional/sad. It's not a gen z thing, it's a teen thing as at that age you start to express emotion, even though life is harder as an adult you grow to hide emotions.

[@imafraidicantdothat.9203]

Could you guys do a video about what it was like growing up in the depression and then as soon as you become an adult you have to go off and fight a world war against fascism? It was probably pretty depressing to grow up in the depression.

[@imafraidicantdothat.9203]

@Kirk Wolfe - Indie Music No you didn’t live through an actual depression and no you’re not being sent off to fight a world war against Fascism. It’s disrespectful for you to imply that anything you’ve been through is even close to the same.

[@imafraidicantdothat.9203]

@Kirk Wolfe - Indie Music I’m sorry but right now is not even as bad as the 1970s when they had a crazy gas shortages and massive inflation. Not to mention 50 Americans held hostage in a foreign country. They also lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. No matter what you say the past was always worse. The Iraq war is not comparable to the Vietnam war and the Vietnam war is not comparable to World War II and World War II is not comparable to World War I. There were people in this country that didn’t have running water or electricity until the early 80s. You have mass communication in the palm of your hand. You use it to try to get exposure for your music from the hundreds of millions of people on KZbin instead of having to go on the road and starve for years playing shit hole bars, clubs and venues. You say “At Risk”. Being at risk of something is not comparable to the actual something.

[@nath7557]

@Kirk Wolfe - Indie Music you're embarrassing

[@thenachoandthecheeze]

@@imafraidicantdothat.9203 it was trashy they tried to promote their music but breh you have the most fuckin unnuanced boomer take you could possibly have. Not to mention incredibly white centric too.

[@nath7557]

@Kirk Wolfe - Indie Music such a shame nobody's going to listen to it

[@demogorgonslayer8493]

2022 has been a depressing/rocky year for me, my friends kinda stopped talking to me, I developed extreme anxiety and sadness, I've also noticed I've been starting to listen to artists like Mitski and Lana Del Rey, and romanticizing characters like Effy from skins and Cassie and Rue from Euphoria, this was also around the time I discovered the Tumblr sad girl aesthetic, watching this makes all of my questions answered on why I never wanted therapy for my anxiety

[@aishamuze]

Lana Del Rey helped me access my sadness in a society that often requires me to be "on" all the time. I had buried it to cope, but her music allowed me to feel & express the depths of it. Girls & Fleabag were instrumental for me in seeing messy women portrayed onscreen & helped me access my creativity in expressing this. Art is so cathartic xo

[@starsign0805]

Making sad music this mainstream aesthetic doesn't sit right with me. I'm mentally in a much better space now and on certain days I find sad music quite cathartic at this point, but when I was at the worst points of my mental health struggles, sad songs were super triggering for me. I wanted to have nothing to do with them. When everything is actually bad, you don't want constant reminders of what bad feels like. I needed music and pop-culture to be a space that could help me reconnect with lost feelings of hope, comfort and happiness, and I'm so glad I found k-pop and kdramas back then because they really helped me out of it. I was 14 when I got into k-content and I'm 25 now. I might have outgrown the genre, but I will probably never let go of it because how much it means to me and I'll always be thankful to it.

[@alyonamikhajlova8318]

Wow I had a very similar experience. In my early teens, I was constantly sad because of family problems and pressure at school and I listened to sad music and cried all the time. And then I discovered k-pop and it became my way of escapism, escape from the hard reality. That is, I had the idea that somewhere there is something better, something beautiful and bright. I started listening to Twice and other bands whose songs made me smile and feel more confident. I know that I am a very sensitive and impressionable person, so music and films can have a very strong effect on my mood, both for better and for worse.

[@fortune_roses]

GenZ is truly the *Piscean* generation of *mermaids* swimming with the current... lots of *nostalgia,* sadness (you got it), emotions, *creative,* theatrical, *artistic* ☆ almost like mourning/paying tribute to previous generations

[@mukta4689]

Almost justifying how previous generations think they had it better while they actually struggled a lot to give us the good life.

[@iamV10010]

I like the way you put it. That's a beautiful way to see things in my opinion

[@sorafanchick]

Most of Gen Z has the ruling planet of Neptune in Aquarius in their natal chart, which gives them a counter-cultural edge.

[@miaposamarie226]

@@mukta4689 I wouldnt call historic wealth inequality, a dying planet, and no ability to retire in our lifetime "a good life"

[@elisedelaserre9453]

We had the same “sad depressed girls”, “pretty when you cry” in 2000s (emo), 2010s (sad Tumblr girl/indie girl) and now this… with plastic surgery😅 It’s really nothing new

[@LoveAndSnapple]

It really isn't. Why haven't people learned that everything comes in cycles? I feel like the young people on social media and IRL can be so dramatic despite people constantly telling them that there is nothing new under the sun and that everything comes in cycles and everything is going to be okay. But they just HAVE to experience ALL the feelings, all the fear, all the sadness...

[@nickyp2234]

I think, as with anything, there needs to be balance. Toxic positivity is definitely a thing and you don’t need to happy all the time, it’s actually very healthy to express negative emotions in the right way, but you don’t need to stay in that place. One of my biggest concerns with modern mental health discord, specifically on social media, is that it’s almost as if we’re just going from one extreme to the other. There was so much stigma towards mental health that people were told to “suck it up” or “think positive” that now we’re going to the other extreme where if you’re not hyper focused on your struggles, people claim you’re not really traumatized or just having toxic positivity. I was around for early 2010s tumblr’s glamorization of depression and poor mental health and I think we’re still seeing the effects of that time period now. There’s no magic fix for mental health, it’s something you have to work on everyday, people improve at different rates, and everyone’s journey is different

[@rightweaponry908]

As much as i personally distain this as an romanticized esthetic, i actually really appreciate this video for breaking it down in a nuanced way.

[@StephenYuan]

Only teenagers could think they invented being sad. "No one has ever been this sad before.". Seriously, no. It just feels that way.

[@aurora6920]

I know right, I remember teenagers in the 2000's just called themselves 'Emo' which means emotional.. which means sad.. it's the same thing. it's not new even in music. If anything emo 2000 music was more expressive/emotional. The irony is as you grow up 20s/30s you realise life is so much harder and you had it easy as a teen, adults hide their emotions more.

[@tylerhackner9731]

I think this era romanticizes the very real issue of depression too much

[@amondadias]

I don't think so. When I met Lana, I felt like someone understood my nostalgic sad feelings. It felt like home, I didn't need to pretend I was someone else, it made me understand my soul and celebrate it

[@madisoncontroversial7348]

Are they, or you just upset that you have to make space for depressed people?

[@trade21]

@@madisoncontroversial7348 bro what, they are absolutely romanticizing depression. what are you even talking about.

[@LoveAndSnapple]

@@madisoncontroversial7348 They said, "THE VERY REAL ISSUE OF DEPRESSION". Take what people say at face value and not some weird interpretation or implication. Don't pick fights for no reason.

[@sarairodriguezbalderrama7139]

Babe Lana, Marina and Melanie are the og sad pop girls for millenials and older genz anddd effy stonem was who we all wanted to be lol also looking for Alaska was the sad girls book back then 😩 oh the Tumblr days

[@dotcombabytm4644]

What I find interesting about this sad girl trope and trend is 2 things: 1. that it's easy to fetishize and romanticize depression and anxiety (which I already kinda cringe at cause depression and anxiety are mental illnesses), but when it gets to various mental health issues and personality disorders society deems dark or scary, like bipolar, schizophrenia, BPD, antisocial personality disorder, etc. society tends to demonize them. 2. And sad girls are almost always white, whereas WOC (especially darker and browned skinned WOC) don't get that same visibility or compassion....especially if we suffer from any aforementioned dark or scary mental illnesses and personality disorders.

[@KaylaNoelle1]

I think a lot of it, especially for me as a teen on late 2010s Tumblr, is about aestheticizing your own oppression so that you can find some beauty and even power in it. I took a toxic pride in my ability to manipulate grown men better than they could manipulate me. There wasn’t much I could do about my youth and mental illness being fetishized so I packaged it all up and used it as a weapon. I wouldn’t want that for my future daughter but it helped me survive.

[@sonnyblacktr24]

It's fitting that all the examples is of white women being sad, women of color are seen by society as too tough to experience mental illness, heartbreak, anxiety etc but Becky is so adorable when she's sad

[@brownelllandrum4650]

It's one thing to own your emotions. It's another to wallow in them.

[@natalia2m]

I'm getting pissed about people saying that Sally Rooney's characters have no reason at all to be sad. Is Marianne supposed to be a happy-go-lucky girl while having grown up with an abusive father and enduring the relentless abuse from her brother and coldness from her mother, just because she's white and rich? Frances from Conversations with Friends also has to deal with a background of domestic abuse and being dependent on her unreliable, alcoholic father. I think they have reasons for their emotional pain

[@thedabara94]

What? no mention of Mazzy Star as influence as well? Tsk, tsk

[@Ohboycommentsection]

Honestly, I only remember Fade into You by Mazzy . Lots of people listened to Portishead though in the late 90s/early 2000s for a dose of sadness.

[@bluestocking1870]

@@Ohboycommentsection i was surprized portishead and beth gibbons in particular werent mentioned in the video, without them there wouldnt be billie eilish, she is standing on their shoulders

[@withinwithout6263]

Well, they’re talking largely about the mainstreaming of the sad girl aesthetic. Obviously various independent artists ranging from dream pop, shoegaze, slow/sadcore etc. have been doing it longer. But mentioning them wouldn’t really be speaking to the cultural moment. Also, shhhh, they’ve already taken Mitski, don’t tell them about Mazzy Star or Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions.

[@BloodyMary74]

I remember reading an article on what music where the most popular among people feeling sad and it was Tori Amos, Nick Cave, Pink Floyd, Tom Waits and tons of sad music. Maybe it makes people feel less alone in their sandness. There are reports that in the UK during world war 2 mental health was on an all time height since it felt as if everybody is united in their hardships.

[@lionelmcmullen7067]

when your to too early and just Don't want to say I guess I'll say I hope you all are stay strong in tough times and don't let these tough times break your soul as hard as that may be don't give up on yourself your truly worth fight for

[@soja8044]

I was (still am honestly) that sad (depressed but didn't knew that at the time) girl (at the time i thought i was a cis girl), sad teen and finding all those people suffering like i was on tumblr was both cathartic and dangerous. Cathartic because we could suffer together, dangerous because it's those posts are not only about being "sad" and crying until you fall asleep and if you've been on that sad/emo/angsty/depression tumblr in the 2010's you probably know what i'm talking about. I've been depressed since i can even remember anything, and growing up in that environment probably made it worse for me. It teached me how to do terrible things to myself without ever realizing that i was mentally ill. I just thought "hey it's me, i'm sad". I think this sad girl era today might be less harmful because so many people now know that being sad all the time isn't a normal behaviour, and there is a lot of discussions regarding mental health ; i still find this trend kind of dangerous. I just wish we could romanticize being happy and recovering from depression instead of romanticizing the worst aspects of it. I also don't think it's really interesting to look down on that "sad girl" because they're teen, white cis privileged girls. Doesn't make them immune to mental health struggles. And there will always be someone out there who had it worst than us ; trying to say who has the right to feel bad or not basing on their lives makes no sense to me. Talking about depression online was always for me a way to make it better. Because if all the sadness, anger, rage, and all the other emotions that i felt was online, they were not in me anymore. Same thing when i felt nothing at all, talking on the internet helped me to actually get some feeling back before going back into that void of emptiness. As for artists, i know Halsey Badlands helped me a lot when i was at my worst, to try to understand what i was going through. I wasn't alone at least. "Sad girls" stick together, that's the good i can see in it. We understand each other better than anybody can understand us. The feelings all over the place, the urge to cry, and cry and cry and scream and let it out until there is nothing more, i don't thing it's a thing people can really help us with except if they experienced it before. But those sad girls, they understand it with us, and they remind us that we are not alone in this. I think it's important, especially for teenagers, especially today with the world falling apart. I just wish we could do this the right way and i hope we can offer more today than the sad girl tumblr era.

[@giselle-qk2qm]

i tend to romanticize my depression sometimes just because i can’t get through it without doing so

[@bogwoman]

I really like the idea of Fleabag breaking the manic pixie dream girl trope wide open ... and kind of putting it to bed forever, by exposing the 'manic pixie' of it all as a coping mechanism for trauma which needs to be faced, and the 'dream girl' as a male projection (which is why it's notable she doesn't end up with hot priest). Maybe the funeral of that trope was part of what made it resonate so deeply in the culture. I feel as though the media copycats of fleabag fail to understand what was so special about it.

[@karupe9982]

Maybe it's mostly girl artists dominating this scene but this is a Sad-everyone Era We were raised by the last emo/goth strong wave, darkness and sadness was doomed to comeback aesthetically and emotionally

[@user-jj4pm2wr6o]

i think your right there, i mean really look at the world, is there much reason to be happy

[@karupe9982]

@@user-jj4pm2wr6o personally i feel like there is, health and positivity or conformity come and work in different ways for each. I am a very child like person so i find joy in the stupidest things, like a bird singing, my mom hugging me, one of my students understanding a new theme. That doesnt mean there arent wars raging, that many children do not get the education they should and that sometimes my mother can be the opposite of sunshine. The thing is aknowledging and going after balance. So yes, i am an emotional piece of shit who grew up emo and sad girl and manic dream girl, but i dont let it define me, and i hope no one gets defined by their sadness.

[@fezmel]

It was Lana Del Rey’s doing. I mean, we have to stan.

[@aurora6920]

Adele also wrote sad music, so did Kelly Clarkson, Avril etc women often write about emotions in music.

[@MegaXavi999]

@@aurora6920 Not the same though.

[@aurora6920]

@@MegaXavi999 there's always been 'sad girl' music/books/films. Emo's were a big thing when i was a teen but it's existed before that, it is the same.

[@MegaXavi999]

@@aurora6920 I’m saying that it’s not the same with Kelly, Avril and Adele than with Lana because they never talked about being depressed or having a generally melancholic state of mind, sure they had a couple of sad song (as most artists) but that’s it. I’m not saying Lana invented it but the trend surely started with her.

[@aurora6920]

@@MegaXavi999 The trend didn't start with Lana, people sang about being depressed/sad loads of times. When i was young we had Emo music, a genre dedicated to singing about sadness/depression, it was very trendy then. also it doesn't need to be about the mental illness depression to be a 'sad song' which is what the 'sad girl' theme is about. Also Avril did sing about depression e.g. "Nobody's Home" is about depression "Her feelings she hides Her dreams she can't find She's losing her mind She's falling behind She can't find her place She's losing her faith She's falling from grace She's all over the place She's lost inside, lost inside"

[@solkrantzer2302]

I understand the appeal of the "sad girl" in teens and maybe YA. But as someone who suffered from clinical mayor depression it feels a little out of touch romantizasing it. When you put what feels the only 1000% of your remain energy to do even the smaller task. And then even worse when something really tragic is happening in your life but you dont get to have the "privilige" of feeling sad because someone is counting on you in order to keep things from crumbling down. In my case my father is dying from cancer. And i know that my past history with mental health is not in my favor but there is no room to stay sad crying in bed all the time. There is not even room for depression (maybe it'll kick me eventually) because i have to work, pay the bills, help my family my younger brothers.. there is nothing glamorous about sadness for the sake of sadness. Especially if there is a chance you can be happy and experience joy. Cherish those moments. Because for some of us at some point specially as we grow older there will be ocasions for sadness that has absolutly no glamour and that you would give anything to feel that precious joy again.

[@solkrantzer2302]

As a disclaimer. Feeling sad is as normal as feeling happy. We all feel a wide range of emotions. The only thing i can advise is to be careful not to get trapped in that spiral. And if you feel that its getting out of your control and its not just a little sadness rather something in the likes of ie depression, please reach out and seek help. Nobody deserves to live in constant pain.

[@DragonGeeGee21]

Before I continue with this video: I’ve struggled with sadness my entire life. Stress, anxiety. It’s obvious I am a child victim of things and therefore I’ve lived a life of just constant sadness. I appreciate all the depictions of my depression on screen, even if it’s culturally selective. I think the Esa Sad Girl Gangster Chick was my only and best representation of myself and my culture.

[@jessicavictoriacarrillo7254]

Please do the BBW and how she struggles like the Bombshell. Is it me or some videos shorter?

[@whatsup3519]

please make a video about sexual revolution of 1960s in America. What r the reason to changed their attitude towards sex from taboo to sexually liberated culture?

[@lucypreece7581]

While romanticising stuff like depression is not good, embracing your feelings and allowing yourself to sit with them and embrace them and express them is healthy. Women especially are told by society to not express certain emotions. We must look happy and smiley and cheerful all the time and look pretty but sometimes we just want the freedom to say "yeah things kind of suck at the moment and I feel sad about that" cus life isn't all happiness and smiles and joy. Sometimes life does suck and we are allowed to feel sad about or circumstances. A bad breakup, a falling out with a close friend, money worries. Whatever it is that is making you feel that way is valid and your feelings are valid. Sit with those feelings. Embrace them in the moment. Let them out in whatever healthy way you can. Don't bottle them up. They will pass and then you will be able to just move one and feel better. Catharsis is sometimes the best thing.

[@angelajohnsonkeys4199]

No mention of "I'm in a sexy French depression"!!! IYKYK

[@LeahWalentosky]

There can’t be joy without sadness

[@karmaismyboyfriend8]

I mean....Marianne's sadness is connected to the abuse and emotional neglect of her family and Connell loses his friend and struggles with the trauma of poverty so maybe saying their sadness is self indulgent and bourgeois misses the mark a bit.

[@marista20]

The read of Marianne in Normal People seems way off. She says she saw her dad physically abuse her mom growing up (I think in the book she was also getting abused by him). She is getting emotionally abused by her brother and it eventually escalates into physical violence. Her mom doesn't ever intervene, and in the book it's explained that her mom thinks Marianne is fundamentally unlovable and cold because instead of begging the men in her life to stop, she goes frozen and out of her body when she experiences abuse. On top of that, she's bullied at school, and the guy she has an intense romantic/physical connection with is emotionally guarded, prone to miscommunication, and straight up pretends they're not together cause what will his friends think. For teen/early 20s all that would understandably make anyone more than sad. And at the end of the series, when she's worked things out w Connell, stoped dating abusive guys, distanced herself from the frenemy people in her social circle, strengthened her connection w her real friends, and, most importantly, has cut ties w her abusive brother and distant mom, not even relying on them financially anymore, she actually says 'I feel content.' She goes from sad girl to self possessed adult, having overcome some real intense stuff. It's weird that the read on that is 'Ah poor little rich girl.' Yes we can call out the fact that in casting and writing description she's pretty conventionally attractive, but why ignore what's in the text: she's going through some deeply sad experiences as a person.

[@littlemothbigwings6765]

Marianne literally went through shit her entirely life, it’s not because she has money it means her pain is less valid

[@tamarathejudeochristianmedium]

I thought it was just a mood, music you listen too when you’re sad or chill 😌

[@erikavaleries]

Is Laura Clery's Helen Horbath a comic take on Hannah Horvath from Girls?

[@hinobonnefoy]

i like how they featured billie but they are forgetting about lorde???? pure heroine was such a huge part of the development into my "sad girl" era lol. i know im not the only one who thinks that.

[@crystalcastillo7575]

I remember pretending to be sad in middle school while listening to Lana del Rey and scrolling on Tumblr. Now that I’ve been fighting depression since high school... I’d give anything to be “happy” and mentally sound again. The sad girl is definitely a romanization of depression no doubt. And listening to sad girl music makes me feel worse in the long run. Which is why I stopped listening to “sad” music in hopes to get out of my depression cycle

[@seaglass7375]

Making women's melancholy socially acceptable was a big step forward for society, it put a stop to sexist comments like men telling girls to smile more. No my dude, it's ok to be broody and moody, it's not your privilege. It's normal for people to have moods and sadness, it's just living life. It put a stop to women being ornamental, and having to perform fake happiness and fake toxic positivity in social settings.

[@giovannadelimaramos6264]

Marianne's dad beat her mother. Also, she was a really mom towards her and allowed the abuses of her brother. Saying that her pain is "cis, white" or anything in that sense it's really stupid. She went to boys who didn't love her because she didn't got any love at home. How that can't be relatable?

[@jacky-zoederode6877]

Fully agree with you on the Marianne character. This feels like a gross misinterpretation of her sadness. She's an adolescent grappling with a background of physical, substance and emotional abuse at home (and bullying at school). To call her sadness a form of whining is imo very insulting to people of whichever class, ethnicity or gender who have lived through something similar.

[@amandaredd3057]

Friendly Space Ninja did a really good video on Fleabag.

[@JustJen1386]

UMMMM how is Taylor swift on this list and HALSEY is not?!???

[@TerraAcox]

Tori Amos is the original sad girl, waaaaay before Fiona Apple. But I do remember Fiona being more mainstream and popular soon after Tori.

[@Andrea-tm4rw]

there's an with some of this sad girl thing romanticizing depression and making desireble, but at the same time people with actual mental illness find comfort on those same works. It's very much complex than what we think, the glamorizing of female pain it is still something created to be consumeble specially by men.

[@dunnejos8423]

I think that's why Florence welch never fell quite into the same genres as Lana Del Rey. After her first album Lungs, most of her songs about her destructive tendencies are too raw, not glamorous, not seen as good or healthy. Ship to Wreck is about her at the peak of her destructive tendencies, and it's not a girlboss moment. She's suffering from her grief, it isn't pretty in the slightest. It's an all consuming mania.

[@mariaskabardonis8353]

As a girl sometimes we get sad lol. There was a time, when I was overly sad in my teens and maybe during the pandemic. However to me it takes way to much energy to be sad all the time. Simple things make me happy watching Rom Coms, laundered clothes, perfume lol

[@mariaskabardonis8353]

Of course not. I am going to get sad especially over hard stuff such as grief. Now I don't have depression, which that is harder to control. However, I personally will try to cope with that emotion of sadness or anger even went to therapy for some harder stuff. However, for the smaller stuff I try to cheer myself up by listening music , TV, etc. I feel we don't control emotion but we can choose if we stay in those emotions unless one has depression

[@hilalk-b]

I was a deeply depressed teenage, I was literal sad girl. I kinda left out for that in high school, then my parents brought me to a psychiatrist and I started to use antidepressants. That year Lana Del Rey made a debut, being sad was cool and I was unnecessarily bubbly 😂 I am so so so uncool for eras I live 😅

[@Rainjojo]

0:50 ILL BE THE ONLY HEARTBREEAKERRR!!!!

[@jad1910]

What about the sad emo/punk boy ? Jxdn, MGK, Mod Sun, YungBlud......

[@samaniegoyessi2830]

As someone who's been diagnosed with depression, and as a female I must say... Fleabag completely shows how it feels (at least for me). That alternation between trying to cope with it and trying not to show your true feelings by adopting a funny personality; having trouble with almost everything and no one to help you nor listen you truthfully and if they do either way you're still alone with all of it and finally having moments where you completely loose it, cause the pressure it's being too much. Tragicomically right, I approve 👍. The rest is bullshit

[@badbanana494]

Sad girls have always been around.

[@sydneystudds]

I think you could add Maria and the Diamonds and Bjork to you list of sad girl music :)

[@mayln163]

7:38 that was pretty funny and so true lol

[@inescastellano7960]

Lana Del Rey deserves her own video analysis.

[@Elwin_MMA]

"Leave Britney alone " was the original sad girl

[@Carocarocaroline]

Sad girl era.. it think Amy from evanescence already owned that back in the days. Let’s not forget the whole emo phase..

[@frankinsaneandmyrrh1202]

(reads title excitedly) omg... I AM THE MOMENT

[@koleenhansen9888]

That is a part of having depression and mental health issues sometimes is not relatable until you actually go through it sadness and depression is a chemical in the brain that's not functioning correctly some people have a genetic vulnerability to it

[@piazhang1541]

to me the most relatable character is Fleabag

[@chelseagirlnyc]

Holy crap. My book!

[@ayanabeads1614]

Art is meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

[@deelistdaisy]

I would prefer to see a more in depth analysis over a longer period of time

[@XeaRae]

Evanescence was music I used to connect with both my sadness and anger.

[@RoninRen]

I think part of the problem, of why they give focus on the rich part of sad girls, is probably related to even when somethings are taken care of, that doesn't automatically solve real root problems, that very few know how to handle,

[@Missmagazinebura]

I love Billie eilish

[@verygoodfreelancer]

was this video meant to come out in 2012…

[@eliadavis3881]

Can Relate...

[@artcorbeau]

they are sad because they cant find the rich mysterious and adventurous chad

[@bluestocking1870]

I think Portishead should have been mentioned

[@orchidcapitalofitaly9780]

Please make a video on crazy ex girlfriend! If you haven’t already

[@julenegarcia7322]

Fiona Apple created an album about how her ex boyfriend SA her. She gave victims in dangerous relationships a voice. She created music that helped herself & others process all the anger , shame and trauma. It's disappointing that you'd belittle her art & the profound impact she has had on vicious of SA.

[@AliFareedMC]

After playing What Remains of Edith Finch and Life is Strange? That's true

[@wellnessbynorah]

Fiona Apple came to mind right away - loved her as a teenager.

[@anneheba]

Banks, although not as well known as the other musicians, could also be included in this. She's peak sad girl imho at least.

[@dinalva_santos15]

I think its bc we are finally appreciating women, right at the moment when everybody is feeling sad...

[@samueledouardd.2613]

Jeanne Mas did in French music in the 1980's