13 Reasons Why
Case Study: The "Welcome to Your Tape" Meme
Netflix's controversial teen drama show, 13 Reasons Why, received an abundance of criticism for its portrayal of suicide from some parties. Others praised it for starting an important conversation our young people need to be having. The internet, however, did what it does best: transformed one of the key messages from the series into a viral meme frame.
Check out this recap of 13 Reasons Why: Season 1 for the context surrounding the memes that will be discussed in this case study.
Autoethnography: My Experience
Having lost a friend to suicide several months before this show was released, I found 13 Reasons Why to be profoundly moving. and real. However, when the "welcome to your tape" memes began plastering over my social media feeds, I found myself for the first time unable to appreciate the humour behind the meme. Until this point, I'd been pretty accepting over darker meme humour. Even if something wasn't to my taste, there was no reason others couldn't poke fun - right? Nevertheless, I found my limit with this meme frame.
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So what does this have to do with the portrayal of women in memes? A little too much.
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I came across this frame again recently whilst doing preliminary research for this project. From a firm, feminist lens, I noticed tropes beyond the suicidal satire: the woman in the image, Katherine Langford, is painted as stupid, irrational and over-emotional about 'trivial' problems. This is the same binary identity as a range (dare I say most?) of memes featuring females. Hannah's suicide is put down to her inherent femininity in a negative way. In the story, she was bullied, hurt, slut-shamed and raped. These memes trivialise all of these issues. Being fully aware of my strong bias and opinion, I will strive to ensure I remain objective in the presence of my focus group to generate authentic qualitative data.
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The Focus Group
Stimulus I
Source: Know Your Meme
The focus group participants were unianimous that this meme is absolutely not funny. The majority claimed that if they saw this on their facebook timeline, they’d keep scrolling. Most said if a friend tagged them, they’d respond just to be friendly, but most said they’d still ignore the image.
One participant acknowledged that although he didn’t think the meme was funny, he wasn’t sure of the purpose behind it:
“I’m not hating on the person that made it because I don’t know what they meant by it.”
A mae saw the link between the meme and a poor representation of women:
“It makes women’s (bad) experiences look meaningless.”
Stimulus II
Source: Know Your Meme
Source: Know Your Meme
This exchange occurred several days after the Hannah Baker meme frame went viral. Although there’s no image, the message is the same. Interestingly, most participants did not feel this was as offensive to women (despite not approving of the meme frame itself) as the same meme with Hannah’s despaired face plastered on it:
“I can see the attempt at humour, but they shouldn’t have done it. I don’t think it has anything to do with degrading women.” (a male participant).
A second participant, a female, said Netflix is "justifying the humiliation of women."
Stimulus III: Viral Frames
Source: The Odyssey
Source: Know Your Meme
“These memes both portray women as dramatic, too emotional and overreacting”, was the response of one male participant. A female agreed with him, stating that these memes say women "exaggerate their emotions."
Another female said that although these memes could offend people, they're also a clever and funny way to spin off the show.