You may be asking yourself what is so unbelievably special about the new show 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. I started watching it the moment it came out immediately after seeing an ad for it on Instagram the day prior to the release. To me, this show was absolutely riveting. Perhaps it may not have as strong of an impact on you as it did on me, since I ended up feeling as emotionally connected to Hannah as Clay feels, but I digress. So without further ado, here are the reasons (not numbered, and not on tapes) that you need to watch 13 Reasons Why.
You need to watch this show because it’s real. It might be one of the realest shows I’ve seen in a while. The sincerity of the message is coupled with raw emotion, which is so imperative when telling a story like this, because although fictional, this story needs to be heard.
The reality of this world is that, for a lot of people, high school sucks. Middle school sucks. College sucks. Life in these environments of social and educational archetypes just genuinely sucks. One little action may not seem like much, but when coupled with other scenarios, it can chip away at a person until they feel like they are left with nothing. Furthermore, each person reacts to situations differently, and that is just so important to understand.
People make up rumors about you. People blow your mistakes out of proportion. People use you as your scapegoat. People ditch you. People betray you. People violate you.
There are people who are picked apart, chewed up, spit out, and left to deal with it on their own. There are people who encounter so many hurtful moments, that eventually the smallest thing can make them snap.
Girls get raped. Their friends get raped. It can happen more than once. It can happen in different ways. No one deals with it the same way and that’s okay because what happened to those girls is not okay.
I think we live in a society where people have sympathy for these types of situations, but these same people lack the understanding to really put forth the effort to make a change. This show has two very important messages that make up the rest of the equally critical messages. Firstly, everyone’s unkind actions have some sort of detrimental impact. Secondly, every person on this planet is wired individually, and based on their personality and their experiences, they are bound to be affected differently by these said actions.
This show should serve as a reminder that we as a society need to come together and cut the bull shit. We’re all human beings and it’s unfair to judge people for their reactions to all of the crap that’s thrown their way. Instead of making assumptions that people are weak, we need to instead work to understand their perspective. In reality, sometimes it doesn’t take much more than that to save someone’s life. To be able to make someone’s life worth living just by entering a point of view separate from your own is a beautiful thing, and it’s a thing that this show reminds us we need to do.