There is a constant stream of words, photos, likes, dislikes and tags throughout social media. The current and next generations of youths live fully in an online world and in a “real world.” There are certain expectations of being online that put a certain type of social pressure on young people. All the various pressures of appearing happy, doing well and being perfect can all put a large amount of stress on a young person’s self-esteem and their own well being. “It’s prompting us for attention,” explained Longwood University’s professor of psychology Dr. Chris Bjornsen. “It’s controlling us.”
Students are often put under various types of stresses ranging from academic to personal struggles. Dr. David Davino, counselor and training coordinator for the Longwood counseling and psychological services center, explains, “The number one issue [for] college students is stress and anxiety…That stress can come from many different sources.” These struggles combined with the added pressure of always appearing to be well can add to the continued stress. “We are social beings by nature,” explained Bjornsen. Imagine these pressures on top of putting out an entertaining video each week as a professional YouTube personality. Many professionals that appear on YouTube are the same ages of most students who attend Longwood University. However, the added stress of being a YouTube personality on top of personal anxieties may add too much stress on that individual’s body and psyche, “And that is stressful,” said Bjornsen. The stress of “popularity” combined with the stress of “narcissism” and the constant stress of “it must be important” can cause a severe negative impact on a young person’s mind, said Bjornsen.
Cyndago, a comedy sketch group on YouTube featuring three young men, was a slowly growing channel with views on videos reaching close to, or above, one million views each week. According to an official statement released by the members of the YouTube channel Cyndago, on September 18, 2015 Daniel Kyre, a member of the group, “suffered irreversible brain damage” and “passed away” from his suicide attempt. “We’ll never know why this happened,” stated David Kyre, Daniel’s father, in an official statement. Daniel was living in California alongside the rest of the Cyndago team and the famous YouTube personality, Markiplier. Although details have not been fully released on his suicide with so much going right in Daniel’s life people have wondered what could have gone so wrong to cause him to take his own life.
There are many YouTube personalities throughout the world who all experience the same phenomenon of having to deal with having an online personality and offline one in similar situations to that of Daniel Kyre’s. For some, this may create an added stress on top of creating constant content for a YouTube channel with a steady upload schedule. One YouTube personality who has been expressive about her struggles with depression and similar issues of stress is the Australian native, alternative culture guru Nibbles. Since 2012, Nibbles has been a young female YouTube personality that uses beauty, body modification and life advice tutorials on her channel to connect with her viewers and help her audience feel empowered to communicate. Her audience is a of a similar age demographic to Cyndago’s assumed demographic of young people, though Nibble’s stating that she has a larger audience of “mainly young women.”
“No one wants to watch a video of someone being miserable and unenthusiastic,” Nibbles explained via email. She explained that doing YouTube on top of her other “full time job” makes her life filled with pressure and that makes it “extremely stressful.” “Being an online personality is extremely consuming,” she continued. In the interview she addressed her own thoughts of depression and stress that is directly related to her online life, she explains“The negative will always shine through.” She feels that YouTube has given her a way to connect with people going through similar struggles and she considers herself a form of “guidance” particularly on topics that are “hard to find help about” such as self-esteem issues, body issues and anxiety. “I use those thoughts constructively to try and help other people,” she explained regarding her video content.
When it comes to social media and its stress-inducing environment, the stress can be equal if not more than other factors within one’s life. “Over the past year we probably see several hundred students with well over one thousand [counseling] sessions,” said Davino. However, there are certain ways of combatting the stress. The counseling center offers group and individual therapy sessions tailored specifically for stress and anxiety. “All you need to do is the process,” said Davino. For Nibbles, she explained that it means pushing against the grain and being one’s self. She explained it is best to respond and retort to those creating negative stress. “That is so rude, why would you say that to someone,” she said to her audience in her video “Nibbles, you got fat” in an empowerment video on accepting one’s body image. “There’s more to life than appearances,” she explained.
