Oh, and let's not forget the profile picture. A grotesque green creature with one eye, large teeth spaced far apart, and a vacant look on its face that I'm certain is supposed to make him look "slow".
The page's purpose is to allow users to submit pictures of people they think are "not right in the head". They describe themselves thusly:
WELCOME
Hey, thanks for joining INRITH. You've taken a bold first step towards living a fuller, richer life by admitting that there are probably a few wires loose between your ears. It's okay, you’re not alone. In fact, we’re all Not Right in our own way. It’s what makes us interesting. So we’re here to celebrate that Not Rightness and have a good-natured laugh in its face.
Where do I even start? I can't tell them how offensive I think they are, though, because, as they say:
"We don’t attack one other. We just don’t. We’re here to build friendships. If you don't like a photo, please don’t tell everyone. Let the people who do like it have fun with it. We encourage you to find another photo that you like and build off of that one, instead of trying to tear down the one you don't like. The same goes for comments. If you don’t like someone’s comment, ignore it. Don’t attack them. If it’s super racist or offensive then, of course, let us know. But other than that, just let it slide. If you don't understand that spirit, if you don't agree with it - that's okay. But please unlike the page right now. This isn't the place for you. This isn’t a place for critical spirits. "Oh. Well then. I didn't realize that building friendships off of shared mockery of mental illness and deficiencies was such serious business. And of course, heaven forbid we call people out on their horrible behavior. This sort of "if you don't like it, leave" attitude really ruffles my feathers. I'm not sure what kind of "spirit" this is, exactly, that they're promoting, but it leaves me feeling very queasy.
If you go through all the photo albums that the page has, you'll see things sorted into categories. There's the Not Right School, Not Right Jobs, Not Right Art, etc. Many of the photos show people doing things that could be considered rather illogical, as though the people lack common sense. Some of the art pieces are just horrible art. But they're all posted with the implication that the people in them or the people who created them are "not right in the head".
And that just doesn't sit well with me.
623,110 people "like" the page on Facebook, which means that they are subscribed to the page and its updates. They are able to contribute the content that makes up all the photo albums. That's an awful lot of people who don't care one bit about how they are making mentally ill people feel.
They just want to have fun, and they don't appreciate it when people come in there and comment that their page is offensive. That's why they have those rules, to keep out anyone who wants to ruin their fun. See, having someone point out that they're being offensive would mean that they would have to confront that idea, and obviously they're not ready for that.
I feel that we should push people more to confront these things, though. Not just stigma around mental illness, but our privileges, our prejudices, our racism, our sexism... you get the idea. A lot of the time people don't realize that they are perpetuating stereotypes or stigma. Obviously these people do, or they wouldn't have those rules in place that discourage people from calling them out. But next time you hear someone use a word like "stupid", "idiot", "crazy", "psychotic", or they call someone "not right in the head", maybe you'll consider telling them that there are better words to use.
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