Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/25/on-her-final-video-laina-the.html
…
4 Likes
Chasing after fame and wealth on YouTube or social media has always struck me as a very unhealthy choice of career and lifestyle, pre-existing mental health issues or not. Good on her for getting out before it destroyed her.
38 Likes
Without an actual audience in the room while filming I can imagine that the negative feedback loop is a bit overwhelming for many YouTubers.
16 Likes
She’s lovely, I wish her all the luck.
Depression is…
… sad.
My experience with the medications is that it hurts to be on them
but hurts much worse to stop.
33 Likes
I completely sympathize with the depression and anxiety that she must’ve gone through. If she ends up doing something creative again like Youtube that’d be great but if not i still wish her the best.
9 Likes
I’ve always been terrified to take drugs for it. My only advantage is that my mental health issues are usually low grade, like background white noise. It’s barely there but constant, so there’s good and bad that comes with it. I can typically manage it on my own but it makes it very hard to ask for help because it doesnt seem all that bad.
The friends of mine that did take medication said it helped immensely but that it also took a toll on their physical and mental well being.
11 Likes
Yeah, don’t if you can help it (can I say that?) (I’m not sure if I can say that) (what if something bad happened) (pretend I didn’t say that).
Paxil is the very worst thing that I ever kicked. I turkeyed, it sucked BALLS!
5 Likes
My hope is that at the very least CBD will be legal here in Texas. It kind of is but to qualify requires a very narrow and specific use-case that excludes a lot of people that would need it.
Granted i don’t think that THC or CBD are magical fixes but if i was having a truly rough moment i would trust to take them more than i would some other prescribed drug.
7 Likes
15 Likes
I think I have only seen one video with her, and I thought she had the stuff to break into television acting. Get a regular paid role on The Daily Show, something like that. Like @frauenfelder says, she was witty and smart.
Er.
I have to confess, I am writing my comments in two parts. Until now, I haven’t seen the “Last Video”. I will go watch it.
Okay, 4 minutes in, I am learning a lot about the YouTube culture that I was not aware of. Consider me one of the ten thousand. I like the recap.
Seven minutes in, I am getting a gonzo vibe in a good sense. The reporter is the subject, and it’s pretty raw. As the over 50 guy watching this, it is a weird experience.
It has courage, and it is an inadvertently great documentary. A reminder that these people are people. And that what makes this more like writing is that these videos are solo works.
And it begs the question, I feel, of whether it’s the solo artist aspect plays a role. If we should recognise more the dangers involved. But I don’t want to take anything from her message. I feel like an intruder, since this is the first long-form video I have seen that she made.
Yeah, 19 minutes in, what she is saying is still dead on. I think her message will help someone out there. Good for you, Laina!
And now it’s over. It was raw, but well worth looking at. May she find success in whatever she does from here on out.
Just thought I would write my opinion as I viewed it. And as corny as my words look as I re-read them, in the spirit of gonzo I will keep them as is.
23 Likes
Both of those things were true for me too. I had pretty crippling social anxiety and depression through a lot of my 20s. The meds (Effexor for me) had numerous unpleasant side effects but also helped significantly with the depression and anxiety so the cognitive behavioral therapy (talk therapy) had a chance to work.
Regardless of which path you choose, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Our brains are amazing things, which makes them amazing enemies when they turn on us.
15 Likes
I only wish I lived in a country where I didn’t feel paralyzed to find help due to finances. I even had the thought “Well, if my creative career takes off maybe Patreon can pay for a therapist and psychiatry.”
Maybe I could even afford it now at a stretch, but I’m being pulled in so many directions already, and the thought of it not working out devastates me. Fuck this country.
12 Likes
I get the sense youtube fame can be a really difficult scenario: all the downsides of fame: weird stalkers, haters, demanding fans, with not enough money to make those things worth it. not enough money to hire people to make those problems and stress go away so you can focus on work like movie and TV celebrities have.
9 Likes
I have more stability in my life which helps a lot, i would hesitate to say i have a handle on things but i am much happier now than i’ve been in a long time. There’s more i need to be doing for my own self improvement but I appreciate the kind words 
I also hope you find yourself in a good place. Thanks for sharing your own experience and thoughts
10 Likes
That’s a bad characterization of what she was doing. She was a comedy performer, and she had been putting sketch and stand up material online for a while. Overly attached girlfriend was basically one of her bits (and not a particularly good one) that garnered a bit of attention online and a still from the one video went viral as a meme. But she was out there doing stage and writing work like any comedian. Though she leaned into the meme (like anyone in that position would and should) much of what she was putting out there had nothing to do with it.
She was funny, I just dunno if she was good enough to get over the meme famous thing she got pigeon holed into.
This is less good for her for getting out before chasing internet fame ate her alive. Than an, honestly, pretty charming artist dropping her career to deal with her shit. That’s strong. But its fairly sad, she’d cobbled together a way to get paid doing this. And most people never even get close to that.
5 Likes
Oh my. It must be my european sensitivity but… To capitalize on a meme… Victim of a meme sounds better. I hope she’ll get through it.
23 Likes
Oh, she wasn’t trying to make money and become well-known on YouTube. My mistake!
4 Likes
How dare the person who would like to be a performer try to be a performer!
2 Likes
You know that wasn’t my point. I made a factual statement agreed with by (at the moment) 26 people; if you want to misinterpret it for whatever reason, be my guest. I’m done debating you on this.
2 Likes
One of the interviews I read with her some years back was along the lines of, “I think it is funny how it has taken on a life of its own. But I have these moments like, ‘Oh God, that’s my face on it’”.
4 Likes
