Disregarding the annoying background music (you can’t unhear that now), this pop culture event brings up two really good questions: 1) What effect does using the term “bipolar” as an adjective have? and 2) Can the popularity of this usage actually be a good thing?
Everyone probably remembers when people used to say “that’s so gay” — or maybe people still use that word, but I wouldn’t know because I live in a library hunched over my laptop writing research papers. Anyway, in the same vein, “That’s so bipolar” or any variation of “____ is bipolar” and “I feel so bipolar right now” seem to be the hip lingo that kids these days are all over. However, when words become careless, so do their meanings.
According to the English language, “bipolar” is actually an adjective (for those who had any doubts), with a few definitions (courtesy of the online Merriam-Webster dictionary) to its name:
- being marked by two mutually repelling forces
- involving the use of two poles
- occurring in both polar regions
- being characteristic of a bipolar disorder
Obviously the fourth is the one pop culture seems to be using the most. However, as the video demonstrates, this term often seems to be applied to scenarios involving frequent changes in opinion and/or action in situations one might consider trivial. This contributes to the stigma associated with bipolar disorders by having .0001% relevance to the actual disorder. If having a bipolar disorder at its worst suddenly meant having a different hair colour every month, then we might finally understand the meaning behind the hair colour company “Manic Panic.”
But I digress. Now for the second point I want to explore — can this actually be helpful? The quick response is, of course, no; anything that contributes to negative images of what it’s like to have a bipolar disorder is inappropriate under any circumstance. However, since this is widespread in society — and so far the weather forecast is still “cloudy with a chance of stigma” — we might be able to find a silver lining. I feel like the saying “any press is good press” can be applied here. Having a celebrity outwardly contributing to stigma is not a good thing because of however many lads and lasses out there will use such celebrities as a role models. But there are people out there, like us mental health correspondents here at the MHAC, that are vigilant for these kinds of things and take action when we need to. And chances are some of those young and impressionable kids will see people fighting the stigma and they’ll find new role models to look up to.
It’s by no means a fantastic situation, but it’s a nice reminder that people are out there working to break down the stigma associated with mental illness and their voices are becoming louder every day. Perhaps this is a good moment to consider the following: What do you do to fight stigma?
