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The internet is often said to be a dangerous place for your mental health, but people often leave out why that is. It is not the porn or the violent imagery that could drive you absolutely bat shit crazy, but the constant stream of fake diagnoses from self proclaimed experts that can drive you mad. Everywhere you go online someone is trying to sell you something. The on demand mental health cartel currently ranking at the top of the search engines are doing you far more harm than good. By selling you products that don't work they initiate the placebo effect inside of you, making you believe that you are feeling better, while you are really getting worse. This mental health cartel is composed, for the most part, of complete amateurs who are looking to make a quick buck off of your misfortune. Social media platforms like Tiktok, Youtube, Twitter, and knowingly promote incorrect factoids about mental health all the live long day. One of the ways they do this is by stating that if you have certain symptoms then you also are suffering from a chronic mental illness that your family, friends and doctors have never noticed. They imply that, if you have certain character traits, then you are crazy, and that you need to do something about it urgently. But who benefits from such random and seemingly superfluous diagnoses. There are two main benefactors. Of course Big Pharma is playing a role, and in a bigger way than many realize. But there is also what I like to call Big Quackery: chumps like Joseph Mercola or Ray Peat who offer "alternative healing" methods. Though there is indeed a ban on the promotion of prescription drugs, there is no ban whatsoever on promoting over the counter drugs or herbal supplements some yahoo just yanked out of their backyard and melted into a pill or vile. On social media, Big Pharma has found a way around that ban. How? Legalese. Most of you do not read the terms and service agreement of your favorite social media platforms, and corporate goons are well aware of this. Check out this little doozy that I found in the fine print: "...Pharma companies are, however, allowed to share information impartially on social media, so long as they comply with the code." Now, riddle me this Batman. How on earth are companies worth billions of dollars supposed to promote anything impartially? They can't! That is an impossibility. These big companies are always trying to make money. A sales representative who works for a major medical corporation cannot even take a dump without trying to sell depends to the person in the next stall. But don't take my word for it; hear the awful truth from the internet marketers themselves: “We recently worked with a large pharmaceutical company on a social listening program,” says Page. “In developing a new drug and therefore a new therapeutic pathway, the company realised that by understanding patients’ experience of a condition, they could then use that information to close the gap between their own medical affairs team, marketing, the healthcare professionals they were targeting and the patients as the end user. The upshot, he says, is that the drug company will be able to go beyond their own science, and offer the patient meaningful real-world clinical benefits." Hey kids, I have a question for you, what is beyond science when it comes to your mental health? Come on, I know you know it. It starts with a B and ends with a T. That's right, bullshit! Great job little ones. I knew you could do it. But don't just blame big Pharma, the alternative healers are even more prevalent and efficient at using this technique. "In 2014, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson took a hard hit to the head during a conference championship game against the Green Bay Packers. The following day, however, Wilson had no serious head injury." (Quartz) He attributed the success of his rapid recovery to a supplemental water concoction. Buyer beware.
The internet is often said to be a dangerous place for your mental health, but people often leave out why that is. It is not the porn or the violent imagery that could drive you absolutely bat shit crazy, but the constant stream of fake diagnoses from self proclaimed experts that can drive you mad. Everywhere you go online someone is trying to sell you something. The on demand mental health cartel currently ranking at the top of the search engines are doing you far more harm than good. By selling you products that don't work they initiate the placebo effect inside of you, making you believe that you are feeling better, while you are really getting worse. This mental health cartel is composed, for the most part, of complete amateurs who are looking to make a quick buck off of your misfortune. Social media platforms like Tiktok, Youtube, Twitter, and knowingly promote incorrect factoids about mental health all the live long day. One of the ways they do this is by stating that if you have certain symptoms then you also are suffering from a chronic mental illness that your family, friends and doctors have never noticed. They imply that, if you have certain character traits, then you are crazy, and that you need to do something about it urgently. But who benefits from such random and seemingly superfluous diagnoses. There are two main benefactors. Of course Big Pharma is playing a role, and in a bigger way than many realize. But there is also what I like to call Big Quackery: chumps like Joseph Mercola or Ray Peat who offer "alternative healing" methods. Though there is indeed a ban on the promotion of prescription drugs, there is no ban whatsoever on promoting over the counter drugs or herbal supplements some yahoo just yanked out of their backyard and melted into a pill or vile. On social media, Big Pharma has found a way around that ban. How? Legalese. Most of you do not read the terms and service agreement of your favorite social media platforms, and corporate goons are well aware of this. Check out this little doozy that I found in the fine print: "...Pharma companies are, however, allowed to share information impartially on social media, so long as they comply with the code." Now, riddle me this Batman. How on earth are companies worth billions of dollars supposed to promote anything impartially? They can't! That is an impossibility. These big companies are always trying to make money. A sales representative who works for a major medical corporation cannot even take a dump without trying to sell depends to the person in the next stall. But don't take my word for it; hear the awful truth from the internet marketers themselves: “We recently worked with a large pharmaceutical company on a social listening program,” says Page. “In developing a new drug and therefore a new therapeutic pathway, the company realised that by understanding patients’ experience of a condition, they could then use that information to close the gap between their own medical affairs team, marketing, the healthcare professionals they were targeting and the patients as the end user. The upshot, he says, is that the drug company will be able to go beyond their own science, and offer the patient meaningful real-world clinical benefits." Hey kids, I have a question for you, what is beyond science when it comes to your mental health? Come on, I know you know it. It starts with a B and ends with a T. That's right, bullshit! Great job little ones. I knew you could do it. But don't just blame big Pharma, the alternative healers are even more prevalent and efficient at using this technique. "In 2014, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson took a hard hit to the head during a conference championship game against the Green Bay Packers. The following day, however, Wilson had no serious head injury." (Quartz) He attributed the success of his rapid recovery to a supplemental water concoction. Buyer beware.