It's not cool to be depressed (Cropbot).

Lana Del Rey has had a pretty amazing run in these past two and a half years. She released her album “Born to Die” in January 2012, and since then has skyrocketed to being one of the most popular artists of our generation. “Born to Die” debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, and ended up being the fifth best-selling album of 2012, while a remix of Born to Die’s “Summertime Sadness” peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. Following that success (and an equally successful tour), she released her album “Ultraviolence” on January 23rd of this year, an album that sold 880,000 copies worldwide in its first week.

More than finding success in her music, however, Del Rey has found success through the creation of her image. At least 50 percent of what most people think of when they hear the name "Lana Del Rey" has less to do with her music, and more to do with the dark, brooding, hip vibe that seems to follow her wherever she goes. 

A lot of musicians have an “image” – in fact, many of the most successful musicians are at least partially successful because of how they look and the things that they do and say as opposed to just their talent (Miley Cyrus comes to mind).

SEE ALSO: Lana Del Ray's 7 Best Songs

But should there be a limit on how far musicians like Del Rey will go to craft a memorable image? In a recent interview with The Guardian, Del Rey discussed her music and attempted to once again hit every literate person over the head with just how hipster she is by discussing a rather questionable topic: death. During the interview, Del Rey named Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain as heroes, leading Guardian reporter Tim Jonze to ask Del Rey if Cobain and Winehouse’s early deaths were one of the things that made them so attractive to her. She affirmed this, adding that she wished she “was dead already,” too. Jonze responded, “Don’t say that”. Del Rey answered: “But I do… I do! I don’t want to have to keep doing this. But I am.”

Jonze published his article using Del Rey’s “I wish I was dead already” quote as a headline which, as expected, sparked significant Internet backlash. Perhaps the most notable responses were from Frances Bean Cobain and from Lana Del Rey herself. Cobain (daughter of Kurt Cobain, the frontman of grunge band Nirvana who committed suicide at age 27) composed a series of tweets discussing Del Rey’s death wish and scolding her for glamorizing the young death of musicians.

“The death of young musicians isn’t something to romanticize”, she wrote. “I’ll never know my father because he died young, and it becomes a desirable feat because people like you think it’s ‘cool’. Well, it’s fucking not.” Del Rey then responded by tweeting that she didn’t really mean what she had said about wanting to be dead, blaming Jonze for leading her to make this statement. She expressed regret for “…trusting The Guadian,” saying that Jonze “…was masked as a fan, but was hiding sinister ambitions and angles.”

Jonze released the audio of the interview, allowing readers to decide for themselves. To me, it does not sound like Jonze led Del Rey into saying anything at all, leading me to believe that Del Rey decided to act suicidal because she thinks it is so cool, so hip to be dark and brooding and depressed, and because she thought it would add to her image.  

It is possible that Del Rey's comments in The Guardian reflected how she actually feels, but that just doesn't seem likely to me. After all, Del Rey has spent a huge amount of time and money crafting her image, and it’s a bit too convenient that she just so happened to discuss her “mental health issues” in a very public forum when those “issues” fit so well into her existing brand. Regardless of her motivations, Del Rey is romanticizing depression and suicide not only to herself but to hundreds of thousands of her young fans as well, contributing to a horrible trend.

For many years, people have connected depression and addiction to the most successful and creative members of our society, like Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse (as Del Rey so aptly noted in her interview). But, more recently, suicide, addiction and depression have become attractive and beautiful to many more people, perhaps due to social media. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Anne-Sophie Bine discussed how online communities like Tumblr perpetuate images of depressed people as being tragically beautiful and how that affects young girls. She tells the story of a girl named Laura scrolling through Tumblr and wishing she were “mysterious, haunted, fascinating, like the other people her age that she saw in black and white photos with scars along their wrists, from taking razor blades to their skin,” and goes further, discussing how the proliferation of “exhibitionism of self-harm, suicide, depression or self-loathing under the pretext that it is beautiful, romantic, or deep” leads to increased levels of depression in teenage girls. According to the article, between 2008 and 2010, 12 percent of teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 17 suffered from a major depressive episode, a rate that is three times higher than that of their male counterparts. 

Del Rey is not the only one with responsibility in this case; don't get me wrong. Del Rey makes depression seem cool, but perhaps only because she knows that, in some way, the majority of her teenage fans already feel that way. We as teenagers, and perhaps particularly as teenage women, believe that depression is cool no matter how many times we hear otherwise. Furthermore, we are the ones who need to change our attitudes and educate ourselves on mental illness and the very real effects that it has on the lives of our families, friends and neighbors. The mental health stigma is very much alive, and it makes many people who are actually victims of mental illnesses like depression or addiction hide their stories instead of speaking out.

SEE ALSO: What Columbine, 'Slender Man' And Elliot Rodger Tell Us About Mental Health Stigma

On the other hand, social media and celebrity culture has created an atmosphere where it's okay to talk about mental illness – as long as you make it look cool and as long as you don't actually suffer from it. Del Rey shouldn't be talking about mental illness like she is, but at the same time, we as consumers should not be buying it. 

Clearly, teenage girls need someone to look up to – someone who assures them that it is not cool or hip to be depressed but also lets them know that if they are depressed, then it is okay and admirable to ask for help. Many teenage girls already look up to Lana Del Rey, take note of her image and the things that she says, wears and does and try to emulate them. I know this from experience – Lana Del Rey had a concert at the Shrine Auditorium steps from my apartment several weeks ago, and the area was swarmed with teenage girls in red lipstick, American flag tanks and flowered headbands like Del Rey wears.

Del Rey is in the public eye, and she is failing each and every one of her fans by continuing to romanticize depression and suicide. But, her fans are also failing themselves by blindly accepting depression as part of a cool-girl "image," instead of taking the time to learn the facts.

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