There's no question that people are obsessed with 13 Reasons Why. The series has resonated with many fans thanks to its unflinching depiction of bullying, sexual assault, and suicide. It's one of the many reasons why the series was named the most popular show on social media. Unfortunately, not everyone is taking the show's heartbreaking material particularly seriously: The internet has been flooded with 13 Reasons Why memes, which some argue trivialize the show's disturbing and important subject matter. Unfortunately, if you thought the "Welcome to your tape" memes were bad, users on the app Musical.Ly are here to be the absolute worst.
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I totally missed the Musical.Ly boat, but from what I can gather from my 20-something perspective, it's an app that allows users to share short music videos, often in which they are lip syncing. That's super fun for when you can't get the latest Selena Gomez tune out of your head, but not so fun when you want to pay tribute to Gomez's new TV show's chilling message about a teenage girl's suicide.
Unfortunately, that's what the folks over at Musical.Ly are doing. People are sharing videos with a techno remixed version of Hannah's introduction to her 13 tapes — you know, the tapes in which she explained the reasons why she ended her own life. I can't discern if these videos are more creepy or just flat-out inappropriate — though I am heavily leaning towards the latter. Honestly, I'm just flabbergasted by the concept that anyone thought this was a good idea.
13 reasons why i hate musical.ly:
— lexi (@ttylexi) April 10, 2017
tape 1 side A pic.twitter.com/JBUAheNZrr
tape 1 side B pic.twitter.com/aHPCf7orvM
— lexi (@ttylexi) April 10, 2017
tape 2 side B ? pic.twitter.com/CLtEQABZ2S
— lexi (@ttylexi) April 10, 2017
tape 3 side B jdjdjd pic.twitter.com/3I6dQkNFOo
— lexi (@ttylexi) April 10, 2017
tape 3 side A (THE FISH I CANT BRWYAJDJD) pic.twitter.com/fNMrmzfrPP
— lexi (@ttylexi) April 10, 2017
This one, however, is BY FAR the worst thing I've seen:
13 reasons why I hate musical.ly. pic.twitter.com/EXRWQbNMfN
— jess (@jessicabrysonx) April 13, 2017
To be fair, most of these Musical.Ly videos seem to have been made by teenagers, who, as we learned from 13 Reasons Why, don't always do the appropriate thing. Still, I can't help but wonder... why?!? Why did Hannah's suicide tapes need to be memed? Why were so many people compelled to put these Musical.Ly videos out into the universe?
Fortunately, there are plenty of folks on Twitter who think these videos were equally as bad of an idea, even if their language is a little harsh:
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If you make a musical.ly to 13 Reasons Why, please know I hate you.
— ? (@itscalebryan) April 15, 2017
whenever i see a musical.ly with 13 reasons why audio, i hate people a little bit more
— taya (@TTTTAYA) April 12, 2017
Can people please stop making musical.ly videos about 13 reasons why this is not funny
— csenge 15, 98 (@roselikethis) April 16, 2017
Enough is enough, guys. Put down your iPhones.
If you are thinking about suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Suicide Crisis Line at 1-800-784-2433.