Well, here’s a lesson learned. Snarky memes are great and we all share millions of them every day, but there’s a real human behind a lot of them. In the case of Overly-Attached Girlfriend, there’s a person who found Internet fame and wants right the heck out.
The Overly-Attached Girlfriend meme sprung to life from a video of a Justin Bieber fan parody song. Online snarksters took the concept and ran with it (you know what online snarksters are like) and soon, the unfortunate woman was associated with all kinds of overbearing-girlfriend jokes like, I was looking through your texts earlier… who’s ‘Mom?’
Heck, we all know that. We’ve seen her everywhere. What we may not know is that the woman whose faced launched a thousand hilarious/cringy memes is called Laina, and all of this attention propelled her to the heady heights of Internet fame. For many, this is a dream situation, but sadly, there’s so much more to the story.
The tragic recent passing of beloved gaming YouTuber Etika has thrown a harsh light on just what it means to be an online personality. The pressures to keep pumping out content, the hours and hours of editing afterwards, the pedestal fans put these personalities on, the influence they have on the community (often in a negative sense)… it can be overwhelming and isolating.
Often, people just don’t understand the hours of work that go into successful YouTubers’ careers, and the strain that puts on every aspect of their lives. For Laina, who was already struggling with depression and anxiety, continuing was just too much. In recent years, she has taken long breaks from uploading, but now it’s time to officially end her career on the platform.
In a remarkably candid final video, she lays it all on the line for her fans: sessions with a psychiatrist, depression, anxiety, the strain of moving a long distance and leaving friends, her relationship… the works:
It’s a heavy-hitting break-up with the web’s own Overly-Attached Girlfriend, but her message is a crucial one: take care of yourself. Do not be afraid to make a change, to seek support if you feel you need it. It’s the strongest, bravest and most important thing you could ever do.
