The show, 13 Reasons Why, garnered a large audience when it premiered its first season on Netflix. The story follows the life of Clay Jensen, a boy in high school who is not really one of the most popular kids in school. One day, he receives a box full of audio tapes, 13 to be specific. When he steals his friends Walkman, he begins to listen to the tapes but little did he know that he was listening to Hannah Baker explain the 13 reasons that pushed her to take her own life. He received them because he, in fact, is one of those reasons. The first seasons investigates why Hannah killed herself, who and what circumstances pushed her to do so, and while learning of these reasons, Clay begins to try and find answers and seek a type of justice for Hannah Baker.

It garnered a lot of buzz because it was shedding light on suicide awareness and exploring what warning signs there may be if someone may be at risk for taking their own life. But it also received criticism. One rule of suicide awareness is to never show the suicide to the public and the show did just that when they showed Hannah Baker slitting her wrists in her bathtub. A show aimed to bring awareness to suicide and suicide prevention completely negated a well-known rule as to what shouldn’t be done.

Tanvi Kapatral ‘18 had this to say on the show: “I did like the show at first but I felt like it was taking the wrong and immoral route to bringing awareness to suicide. It was hard to watch and it felt extremely ignorant.”

The first season was a good attempt at suicide awareness and it should have ended there. But Netflix announced there would be a season 2. Season 2 goes more in-depth on the reasons Hannah took her own life and begins to actually trivialize whether Hannah was lying or not. It tackles other issues like bullying, school shooting, and rape, which are all very intense scenes for an audience that is predominantly young teenagers.

Keren Gekker ‘18 said this: “I only watched the second season to see what was going on and I can honestly say that I was horrified. This show had so many opportunities to do it right and they just did it all wrong.”

Bringing awareness to issues like these is amazing but the producers are doing it the wrong way. This show trivializes reasons for someone to take their life and essentially negates them as being “reasons” while excusing rape, bullying, and school-shooting. The show took the title of being a show to bring awareness and completely adds to the ignorance of the general population on topics such as these.

Keren Gekker ‘18 said this: “I only watched the second season to see what was going on and I can honestly say that I was horrified. This show had so many opportunities to do it right and they just did it all wrong.”

Bringing awareness to issues like these is amazing but the producers are doing it the wrong way. This show trivializes reasons for someone to take their life and essentially negates them as being “reasons” while excusing rape, bullying, and school-shooting. The show took the title of being a show to bring awareness and completely adds to the ignorance of the general population on topics such as these.