Editorial

American’s Mental Health Crisis Is So Bad That Millions Of People Are Venting To Elmo’s Twitter Account

BLOG
US-WEATHER

(Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

Kay Smythe News and Commentary Writer
Font Size:

“Sesame Street” icon Elmo became the go-to therapist for millions of people at some point in the recent past and it’s really getting out of control in 2024.

“Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” the puppet’s Twitter account posted Sunday. And it turns out, we’re really not doing okay. As of Wednesday morning, there were more than 12,000 responses, along with 174,200,000 views, and it’s hard to stop reading them once you start.

It’s hard to separate fact from fiction throughout the replies. Given the overall misery of them all and the countless responses spurred from each reply, it looks like millions of people are having a bad time.

“The world is burning around us, Elmo,” wrote YouTuber Steven McInerney.

“People have lost all hope in a [dystopian] nightmare that was once called ‘America.’ We are told not to trust our eyes and to ‘believe the science,'” replied another user. “Unless the science has to do with gender. We are on the edge of a civil war , a world war and a culture war. In the absence of god, there is only Taylor Swift.”

When comparing the replies to the fact that U.S. adults are visiting therapists in record numbers, it suggests we might be in a mental health crisis, Axios wrote in the most “WELL DUH” article I’ve seen on their site for a while.


On a more serious note, roughly half of U.S. adults have reported how lonely they feel. Personally, I’m not surprised. My family and I try not to use our phones when we’re around each other because (a) it’s rude, and (b) the purpose of a phone is to get in contact with friends and family, so why would you need one when you’re with them.

But most of the people I know spend hours a day doom-scrolling through content that is positioned as “aspirational,” but is mostly just a lie. Our brains mutate to these lies and make us feel like we’re not social enough, not rich enough, not stylish enough, et cetera. In reality, we’re depressed because we’re not grateful for how good we actually have it when compared to literally billions of other people around the world. (RELATED: US Surgeon General Suggests Age Restrictions For Social Media)

So, how about we stop complaining to Elmo about our problems and start focusing on the extremely practical ways to help our mental health. Put down your phone. Put on your shoes. Get outside. And stop engaging in the warped world of social media. No one ever cares about your posts anyway.

UPDATE: Just in case this situation wasn’t ridiculous enough already, the president of the United States — yes, the guy with the nuclear codes — is now tweeting at a puppet. We are not a serious country.