About

2meirl4meirl is a slang term used to describe a wide range of image macros, captioned GIFs and videos that explore the subject of clinical depression and other mood disorders in a humorous manner. It can be seen as a subgenre of Me IRL. It is also known by more generic names like depression memes and crippling memes.

Origin

Derived from two other internet slang terms, "me IRL" and "2edgy4me," 2meirl4me was coined by Redditor AhrmiintheUnseen with the creation of a subreddit with the same name, where its members can share humorous or relatable image macros about living with depression, on April 29th, 2016.

Precursors

While the neologism itself wasn't coined until 2016, commonly shared experiences in living with depression have long been a subject of comedy in pop culture for decades, mostly in the context of dark humor and anti-humor. Online, "jokes about depression" have been shared on various discussion forums since as early as May 2006. However, jokes about daily struggle with depression and contemplation of suicide didn't quite take off until "me IRL" became a popular storytelling device in late 2012. In the following years, living with clinical depression grew into one of the more popular motifs within the genre.

Spread

While the usage of 2meirl4meirl was initially limited to members of Reddit, has been used as a hashtag for sharing depression memes on Twitter and Pinterest.

Search Interest

External References