Cope vs. Create
Tags: In The Know, Sad, Catharsis, Creativity, Depression

Change of season got you down? You’ve got plenty of company. While SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is known to affect only 5% of US adults every year, the symptoms — pervasive sadness, undue fatigue, difficulty concentrating, lost interest in normally enjoyed activities — may well be plaguing many millions more as a result of life under quarantine. And if doomscrolling panic, Zoom fatigue, SAD szn, remote work burnout and pent-up post-election hysteria aren’t already enough, with a second wave of coronavirus starting to hit and more stay-at-home orders sweeping the nation seasonal depression could soon get a whole lot worse.

What to do? Now that usual remedies like more in-person interaction and big social gatherings aren’t readily available, we need to find more creative ways to cope. Metapod, for one, to the rescue. It’s that big, green, Pokémon-inspired suit which doubles as a cocoon for humans and sold out less than seven hours after launching this month.

Unzip the Metapod, climb inside, and watch Sarah Cooper’s new Netflix comedy special Everything Is Fine, which feels like a tribute to the “this is fine” dog meme that first went viral in 2016 as our collective denial of a rapidly deteriorating situation. Everything, in fact, was certainly not fine back then, and still isn’t. An NPR review called the show “the first piece of pandemic entertainment to successfully convey the feelings of instability and emotional unsteadiness that have been part of so many of our lives since the spring.”

The “how it started vs. how it’s going” meme that people usually share to show glow-ups and big career moves has been overtaken by a more satirical view of the state of the world in 2020. How it started: blissful ignorance. How it’s going: dumpster fires everywhere.

When lockdown is officially Collins Dictionary’s word of the year and we can buy life-sized cocoons online, there’s no denying our months-long quarantine has forced us to turn inwards. The Pandemic Logs series from the New York Times features seemingly mundane but telling details from readers’ diary entries about living in self-isolation. “My ‘remembering Dad’ sunflower bloomed today,” wrote Ann Bovee of Redmond, WA. “I went on a three-mile walk alone with my podcasts and wished I had a walking buddy,” wrote Pam R. of Sarasota, FL.

And while fast food brands on Twitter may be the cheeriest corner on the Internet, even McDonald’s, purveyor of Happy Meals, is questioning our mental well-being.

This new kind of vulnerability in brand communications is refreshing. We want to get in touch with our anger, sadness and regret — emotions we experience but rarely discuss in public. America’s Secret Playlists, a research study that analyzed thousands of private Spotify playlists, called it a shift towards “emotional realism,” where 44% of Americans confess they have listened to music to purposely feel dark emotions.

So how do we find emotional release? Snack giant Mondelez International wants to help by “humaning”. That’s what the company calls its new global marketing strategy. The goal: Move away from pure data-driven tactics towards making more “human” connections with consumers. Not surprisingly, humaning has already racked up Pepsi levels of ridicule in the ad world for tone-deafness.

Who’s kidding whom? When it comes to releasing and providing relief from strong or repressed feelings, corporate America’s emotional range has so far been limited at best. Artists, on the other hand, know a thing or two about catharsis. “Make art. Talk to your family. Read. Watch a movie. Move a muscle — it changes a lot,” says Marilyn Minter in Hirshhorn Museum’s video diaries that take us inside artists’ studios as part of a living record of the worldwide pandemic.

People need the cathartic power of creativity now more than ever. As more of us feel the blues while being cooped up, the idea isn’t just to cope but to create. It’s why bedroom pop, with its homespun quality and lo-fi sounds, is one of the most popular genres today. Since 2018 it’s grown from an obscure Spotify playlist to one with more than 600,000 subscribers. Artists skew young and female, produce dreamy, contemplative music from their bedrooms and write about deeply personal issues. Your sad-music starter pack must include: mxmtoon, Clairo, FKA Twigs, Beabadoobee, Faye Webster.

In the gaming world, Animal Crossing’s popularity is similarly revealing. Says Bitch Media’s social media editor Marina Watanabe, everything about the social simulation game “from the cute aesthetic to the wholesome music to the mundane tasks and lack of combat or high stakes feels like it’s designed to keep me calm.”

Whether through DIY indie music or soothing virtual islands, more people are channeling their innermost thoughts and feelings in isolation by activating the imagination. The challenge for businesses, then, is to incubate creativity and fuel catharsis by providing an outlet for what can’t be shown or said. It makes us feel less alone.

When it comes to mental health, today’s marketing has been serving up the Four Seasons version when we clearly need more Total Landscaping — work and words that cut deeper, hit us right in the feels and snap us out of the numbness. As quarantine thickens my own cocoon of isolation and targeted ads about therapy from BetterHelp start to flood my social media feeds, the healing power of making is just what the doctor ordered.