About

Depression Blue Body Scan is an image macro based on an emotion "body atlas," which depicted where on the body people feel various emotions. Online, people used the diagram to express jokes about depression, depicting people as blue, the atlas' color for the emotional state.

Origin

On December 30th, 2012, the blog for Discover^[1] magazine published the article "Body Atlas Reveals Where We Feel Happiness and Shame." The post included a diagram that represented where on the body people feel a variety of emotions, including anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, depression and more (shown below).

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Two years later, on December 30th, 2014, Tumblr ^[2] user nevver posted the atlas. The post received more than 900,000 notes in less than five years. The following year, Memedroid^[3] user kickinthesticks shared the image, receving more than 1,500 points (74% upvoted).

On March 16th, 2017, ShitpostBot 5000 ^[4] user retrybucja posted the image with the color of "depression" removed (shown below, left). The image was meant to be used as a template.

In early September 2019, some began using the image as the setup to a joke about depression, posting the scan above an image of a blue-colored subject. On September 2nd, 2019, for example, Redditor ^[5] ChickenNDip shared the image above a photograph of the Blue Man Group. The post received more than 82,000 points (93% upvoted) and 580 comments in 24 hours (shown below, center).

That day, others began to use the format. Redditor^[6] kanajiro shared the image above a photograph of the famously blue animated character the Smurfs. The post received more than 36,000 (96% upvoted) points in 24 hours (shown below, right).

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External References