<p>I remember a time (back in high school) where it was considered normal for someone to joke about suicide (themselves or others) when something mildly annoying happened. Eventually as we grew up, it entered our collective consciousness that doing so increased suicide rates in the community.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, there were a lot ads in the media at the time cautioning against joking about this sort of thing, with resources online with peer reviewed references available. However, the exact public message about what not to joke about is proving hard to find for me right now. I want to be provided with a peer reviewed reference on the idea that suicidal jokes increase likelihood of suicide amongst the people who hear them.</p>
<p>Does such a reference exist? Ideally Im looking for a long term and reproduced study. I'm open to the idea that this could be a misconception.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-08T13:39:10.760Z
I don't think this was ever considered normal; my understanding is it became popular to say among kids who didn't know better (or, rather, who were taking advantage of it being clearly inappropriate and testing boundaries by saying inappropriate things), and perhaps as they got older people told them how inappropriate it was or they discovered themselves how inappropriate it was once they knew someone who actually did kill themselves, but it was never "considered normal".
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-19T22:35:13.383Z
I don't have studies, but I often heard jokes about suicide within groups where suicidality was prevalent. I don't necessarily think it increases likelihood of suicide if it comes from within a group, however if you were bullied with jokes about suicide that definitely can have an impact on suicidality
Moritz Roessler
<reference-request>
Do messages joking about suicide increase likelihood of suicide?
user400188
# Do messages joking about suicide increase likelihood of suicide?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-12-08)

I remember a time (back in high school) where it was considered normal for someone to joke about suicide (themselves or others) when something mildly annoying happened. Eventually as we grew up, it entered our collective consciousness that doing so increased suicide rates in the community.

If I remember correctly, there were a lot ads in the media at the time cautioning against joking about this sort of thing, with resources online with peer reviewed references available. However, the exact public message about what not to joke about is proving hard to find for me right now. I want to be provided with a peer reviewed reference on the idea that suicidal jokes increase likelihood of suicide amongst the people who hear them.

Does such a reference exist? Ideally Im looking for a long term and reproduced study. I'm open to the idea that this could be a misconception.

**Tags:** reference-request

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don't think this was ever considered normal; my understanding is it became popular to say among kids who didn't know better (or, rather, who were taking advantage of it being clearly inappropriate and testing boundaries by saying inappropriate things), and perhaps as they got older people told them how inappropriate it was or they discovered themselves how inappropriate it was once they knew someone who actually did kill themselves, but it was never "considered normal".  
> **username_2**: I don't have studies, but I often heard jokes about suicide within groups where suicidality was prevalent. I don't necessarily think it increases likelihood of suicide if it comes from within a group, however if you were bullied with jokes about suicide that definitely can have an impact on suicidality  

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## 0 answers

