About

Psych Ward Socks, also known as Hospital Socks, refers to the grippy, low-cut, ankle socks that one is given when admitted to a psychiatric ward. The socks are meant to be comfortable and anti-slipping for patient safety. The term was first used in a blog post from March 2012 but received more attention as a term and group concept on Reddit starting in January 2016. Memes and image macros involving the likeness of psych ward socks evolved across Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram starting most notably in 2018.

Origin

On March 10th, 2012, Jennifer Marshall, a public speaker and mental health advocate who suffers from bipolar disorder,^[1] published a blog post^[2] to her website titled, "Psych Ward Socks." The blog post spoke poetically about the lasting significance of the socks to Marshall who admits she still wears them and reaches for them in her sock drawer. She even asked for another pair of "cozy socks" when she left the psych ward after her most recent hospitalization. Marshall also provided an image of her wearing her psych ward socks (shown below).

Spread

On January 24th, 2016, Reddit user rukgst made a post in the subreddit /r/bipolar^[3] titled, "Psych Ward Socks." The post (shown below) asked if anyone in the subreddit knew about the socks and if they could possibly buy them in bulk. Over the course of six years, the post received six upvotes and four comments, one of them being a link to "Hospital Socks" on Amazon.^[4]

On June 18th, 2018, mental health Twitter meme account @edmemes5 tweeted a screenshot of a now-deleted tweet from an unknown account. The meme used a photoshopped image of a psych ward sock being slipped onto Cinderella's foot. The tweet^[5] (shown below, left) received 119 likes over the course of four years. On June 21st, 2018, Twitter user @kaitxmemez also used the Cinderella image. Her tweet^[6] (shown below, right) received 13 likes over the course of four years.

Screenshots of @kaitxmemez's tweet also spread to Tumblr.^[7] For example, on March 11th, 2019, a screenshot of @kaitxmemez's tweet was also posted to Reddit's /r/bipolar,^[8] essentially coming full circle.

On November 28th, 2018, Twitter^[9] user @costarsam tweeted about the clothing brand Free People selling psych ward socks on their website (shown below, left). In 2019, another clothing brand, Urban Outfitters, was also referenced by a Twitter user for selling psych ward socks on their website. On July 15th, 2019, Twitter user @ceoofmilfs shared a tweet^[10] (shown below, right) joking about the Urban Outfitters socks and received roughly 4,400 likes over the course of three years.

On March 13th, 2020, Reddit user mediumfirmtofu uploaded a photo to /r/bipolar of a turtleneck sweater they made entirely out of psych ward socks. The post^[11] (shown below, left) received roughly 2,300 upvotes over the course of one year. On the same day, in a comment to their turtleneck post, Redditor mediumfirmtofu shared an Imgur link to another photo of a clothing item they'd made out of psych ward socks, this time being a pair of high-heeled boots. The Imgur^[12] photo (shown below, right) received roughly 6,800 views and 124 upvotes over the course of one year.

The psych ward sock sweater was reposted to Twitter by user @synsyborg on March 30th, 2020. The tweet^[13] received roughly 124,100 likes and 14,600 retweets over the course of one year. Many more tweets and memes began surfacing across platforms using the likeness and concept of psych ward socks. Multiple memes used the socks in conjunction with the idea of "crazy sock day." Additionally, the images of the psych ward sweater and psych ward boots were used in multiple memes since their conception in 2020.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References