The erratic front: YouTube and representations of mental illness.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, every fourth American adult and every tenth child suffers from a diagnosable mental illness, yet fewer than ten percent seek therapy or treatment. (1) Lack of health insurance coverage aside, consumer activist groups such as the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) report that cultural stigma inhibits members who fear receiving the indelible labels of "crazy," "wacko," "psycho," or "nuts." As Otto Wahl has documented in his Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness (1995), much of this prejudice and negative stereotyping can be directly traced to media, toys, bumper stickers, and even T-shirts--in other words, the entire image-producing apparatus of modern mass media. As Wahl argues, the media continues to circulate stock figures such as the deranged serial killer, psycho-rapist, child molester, homicidal maniac, loony artist, demented scientist, unstable roommate, rampaging escaped mental patient, insanely jealous lover, sociopathic murderer, and weird psychiatrist or psychotherapist. Such themes have haunted the fine art tradition as well, especially in the anti-rationalist work of Goya, Edvard Munch, and surrealist photographers such as Dora Maar and Man Ray.

This stigmatization persists despite a growing scientific appreciation of mental illnesses as a combination of environmental stressors and neurochemical events. Criminal justice statistics also demonstrate that the most common illnesses--depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia--actually render their sufferers far more prone to becoming victims of violence and theft than of becoming offenders themselves. Moreover, even educated members of the public commonly confuse schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder, depression with grief and sadness, bipolar highs with artistic inspiration, or mental illness with retardation (itself a stigmatizing label). When mental illness is linked with substance abuse, often due to attempts at self-medication, such misconceptions can sway legislators to withhold funding for research and facilities, judges and juries to disregard so-called insanity defenses, employers to not hire those with emotional disabilities, or citizens to petition against the placement of recovery facilities and halfway houses in their own neighborhoods. A case in point, recent electoral history has shown that no candidate can run for national office having had documented experience with mental illness of any sort.

Yet while popular culture and mainstream media have largely contributed to the prejudices against the mentally ill, people living with these disorders have persistently sought out venues for protest and change. NAMI, for example, has worked with broadcasters in the production of public service announcements often funded by government agencies including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). NAMI even conducts its own "StigmaBusting" and media watch activities. The anti-psychiatry movement, populated by those who have suffered abuse at the hands of mental health professionals, systematically use print, radio, and electronic publication with high levels of planning and sophistication, as per organizations such as MindFreedom International. Mental health advocates are now paying increasing attention to the growing number of Web-based video-sharing sites including blip.tv, Google Video, Metacafe, Veoh, and MySpace.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The experimentally growing number of shared video sites varies in terms of technical specification such as file size, downloading software, editorial control over content, fidelity to copyright restrictions, advertising and access costs, and longevity. Some sites act as clearinghouses for several others, digesting and selecting as per the consumer's preferences. Like so much of the Internet, "there is no there there" that allows for definitive analysis, although (again, like much of the Internet) the most frequently visited site is PornoTube. At this particular moment in time, YouTube appears to have garnered the greatest attention for itself and the wider dotcom video phenomenon, partly because of Google's $1.6 billion buyout of this small-startup Web site. Founded in 2005, YouTube currently captures over twenty million sets of eyeballs per month, as the terminology has it, and survives financially on copyrighted materials and advertising, mostly for music products or other video or cell phone downloads.

YouTube has quickly morphed from slightly underground to prominent above-ground status. CBS, NBC, Sony Music, and Warner Music have all come to formal terms with the site's owners after threats of legal action for copyright infringement. Posted videos have been publicized and reviewed by media heavies ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Sports Illustrated to the New York Times. While Google has pushed YouTube heavily in overseas markets, countries such as Iran, Morocco, Thailand, and Turkey have attempted to block access altogether for cultural and political reasons.

Immediately following the last episode of the HBO series The Sopranos, Hillary and Bill Clinton released a campaign clip closely based on its final scene. More recently, CNN hosted televised presidential debates during which YouTube users--including some in the live audiences had the opportunity to ask the candidates individual questions.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Yet, like so much of what Steven Johnson first identified as "Interface Culture," (2) the other side of You Tube's accessibility is a chaotic, highly distractive viewing environment. Like the interminable Chicken Soup series of books, You Tube depends almost entirely on individual user-submitted material for its offerings. Moreover, YouTube now combines general video-sharing with content selected on the basis of individual subscriber demand, real-time video popularity counts, discussion boards, and social networking features similar to MySpace. Some new video camera models even come with the complete hardware and software required for direct uploading to Internet sharing sites. In such a wide-open "wiki" situation, film studios and other accomplished media professionals compete for attention with the approximately 70,000 new video clips uploaded to the site daily by even school-aged youngsters from around the globe. Video-sharing draws in participants lured by the promise of a media commons in which all votes carry equal weight and value.

Such apparent democratization of the television production process recalls what many observers heralded about still photography when handheld Kodak cameras and industrialized photofinishing came of age. Enthusiasts, notably Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, have long celebrated the advent of the so-called Information Age and the emancipatory potential of "being digital." (3) More recently authors such as Johnson and Don Tapscott (4) have promoted the concept of the Internet as either an unanticipated new art form or a force for social engineering. Among these technofans inflated words such as "revolutionary," "transformative," and "profound" seem de rigeur. High culture curmudgeons and neo-Luddites father-figured by the late Neil Postman (5) issue jeremiads about computer depersonalization, desacralization, and disenchantment of realms of experience once considered intimate, private, and meaningful. Both camps often focus on the permeability of electronic media, the ready manner by which the Modernist mainstream/edges model of culture has been superseded by the reality that corporate media move quickly toward niche audiences while marginalized amateurs can be discovered and recruited into a variety of highly commercial venues, sometimes of their own choosing. Meanwhile, more permanent outsiders can resort to "mashing" Hollywood films by interposing elements of Brokeback Mountain (2005, by Ang Lee) with trailers for 300 (2007, by Zack Snyder).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

For those dealing with mental illness, the great attractions of YouTube lie in both sides of the video-sharing phenomenon. The site has been used as a secondary distribution channel for anti-stigma public service announcements (PSAs) produced by NAMI, SAMHSA, county agencies, religious ministries, and even Hallmark Cards--all aimed at dispelling common identification of mental illness with character flaws and the ostracism that follows. No doubt, many of these messages are produced out of organizational self-interest inasmuch as stigma restrains potential clients from seeking their services. This is obviously true for the law firms issuing warnings against prescription psychotropic medications while encouraging clients to contact them regarding lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Yet many PSAs engender chat board responses of considerable sincerity and individual appreciation for moving mental illness out of the media closet. Video blogs range from self-described "rants" to autobiographical testimonials and narratives to group discussions of mental conditions and treatments. The latter come across as especially valuable for clinicians interested in developing more empathic understandings of what life feels like for those with mental illness.

Since YouTube offerings shift and change on an hourly basis, it is difficult to offer any kind of comprehensive, organized review. Searching under the heading "insanity" brings up an entire breadth of choices, from the ridiculous to the heartfelt and profound. But some flavor of the virtual universe of clips--good, bad, and indifferent--can be gleaned by visiting the following: