> And what I've seen is that it has become cool or fashionable to be depressed, anxious and to have some mild mental disorder

I think this has always been the case. Isn't this what being emo, metal, punk, etc. was about in the early 2000s, 90s and 80s? Calling for attention is common at that age, and with so many and so intense feelings as one feels during teenage years, I have always assumed this is common.

> Kids "brag" about it on social media and sometimes discuss who is more miserable and make fun on people who are "wholesome" or "happy" as being shallow.

This sounds like punk subculture. And really a lot of other sub and counter-cultures. IMO this is also healthy. In the context of college I know people who went to schools where, they told me, the overarching social dynamic was "showing a put-together facade". They said this was very stressing. Not only would you struggle, but on top of that you'd have to hide it.

I went to a college where the overarching social dynamic was to complain and talk about how miserable we were, how much work we had, how stressed we all were, etc. It is very refreshing to not have to pretend you've got everything under control and to know that other people are struggling in the same way you are.

On that note, IMO it's worth having a look at wether it is in the other side of the coin that this problem resides— those "wholesome" kids. Especially in some areas of the US, kids are under immense amounts of pressure. Many times the people you'd less think are at risk of committing suicide are the ones who do [1].

It makes sense. If the middle-class keeps disappearing, this becomes an all-or-nothing game. Getting into a good college to study a lucrative career can sound like a ticket to a drastically better life. In the US you hear the word "success" a lot. If everyone around you is a high achiever in one monoculture, not fitting into that monoculture or not achieving the same things your community has can make you feel alone and inadequate. Here are some quotes from that article I linked [1]:

> A goofy basketball player with short brown hair and a pixie face, Cam, as he was known to friends, was the last kid anyone would have suspected of being troubled. His classmates describe him as having been happy, nonchalant, and popular, and that’s exactly how he appears in the homecoming photos posted on so many Facebook pages before his death: a handsome, grinning kid, standing smack in the center of his clique. “If you told me that someone in my friend group would commit suicide, he would be my straight-up last guess,” says Lisa Hao.

> “There’s no middle point for success. There’s no ‘I’m here and I’m happy with where I am.’ It’s always ‘I need to be up there,’” she says. The kids paint a picture of a sort of academic coliseum, where students look down their noses at peers in a lower math “lane,” guard their grade point averages like state secrets, brag about 2 a.m. cramming sessions, and consider a B a disaster.

> “Because we live in this extraordinary place that really has some singular qualities,” says Ken Dauber, a Palo Alto father and a member of the school board, “we think somehow that our kids are also singular and extraordinary. But they are just kids.”

[1]: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-are-Palo-Alto-s-k...