Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness

About

Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness is an exploitable photoshop meme featuring a collection of black and white sketches depicting unsettling figures with a third image added to the lower right corner. Typically the photoshopped image is poorly drawn or funny and often references other memes. The two artists whose drawings are used in the format do not have mental illnesses despite the association with the meme.

Origin

The meme uses two different drawings aside from the photoshopped panel. The large image on the left (shown below) was originally drawn by Lebanese artist Naji Chalhoub in 2017 and posted to his Instagram^[1] account on November 8th, 2019.

The second image (seen below) on the top right panel of the meme was originally drawn by British artist Adam Riches, titled “Mindful,” in 2018 and posted to his Instagram^[2] account on March 11th, 2019.

Spread

On November 29th, 2019, Facebook^[3] user Miguel Arteaga uploaded three images to the page Macabre Art with the caption “Drawings made by people with mental illness” depicting the two original drawings next to the Bad Sasuke Drawing meme. The post (shown below) received over 5,000 likes, 8,600 shares and 111 comments.

This meme was then uploaded to 9GAG^[4] shortly after on November 29th, 2019, where it garnered over 11,000 points and 303 comments, helping to spread the format further.

On Reddit, another version was posted by Redditor^[5] Skullrocks on February 6th, 2020, to the r/memes sub using the image of Buff Kirby. The meme (seen below) received over 60,000 upvotes, two Reddit awards and almost 300 comments.

On March 7th, 2020, Redditor^[6] blasticbag uploaded a variant with Patrick Star redrawn as a minion (shown below) to the r/dankmemes sub where it was upvoted over 30,000 times and given a Reddit award.

Original Artist’s Reaction

On December 9th, 2019, Naji Chalhoub, who drew the large image on the left side of the meme, made a post (seen below) addressing the use of the drawing to his Instagram^[7] page stating “I don't have a mental illness.”

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References