The series “13 Reasons Why” gives the viewer 13 reasons as to why the fictional character Hannah Baker chose to end her life — I’ll give you two reasons as to why you shouldn’t watch the show.

The show illustrates suicide and depression as a theatrical production and sets a tone of ingenuity through the actors’ portrayals of their emotions and actions.

The series graphically shows Baker’s suicide, along with many other upsetting real life events.

The suicide scene adds to the theme of distasteful inclusions in the telling of Hannah Baker’s life.

Would it not have been possible to imply Hannah’s death? Or simply break to a scene shortly after?

To those who haven’t experienced depression and suicidal ideations, it may not seem like such a noteworthy point of discussion.

But to the people who have dealt with those types of feelings and urges, it can come across as triggering.

Making a simple change in scenes in order to shelter those who may react negatively or impulsively may have been the better route to go for this particular show.

But as we all know, censorship  in the media doesn’t get quite as many views as certain streaming platforms, such as Netflix, would like.

The second issue I had with this show is that the simple video production of the story displaces the importance of suicide awareness and mental illness onto superficial things like love triangles and fickle high-school problems.

“13 Reasons Why” was originally a book. Reading the story yourself and creating your own version of what the characters looked like and creating your own voice inflections when the characters spoke makes the story much more personal and thus reinstalls the severity of the overarching issues being written about.

Mental illness is serious. It should be conveyed as so in the media, not through fictitious TV shows that place more importance on character relationships, interpersonal drama and publicity.