Yume Nikki.

under the right circumstances any one of us would stand over our enemy, covered in blood, breathing and smiling like a chimpanzee with the bloodied corpse of his former foraging mate at his feet.

“Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.”

- Quark, Star Trek: Deep Space 9

Cyberpunk dystopias are depressing because we have all of the bad stuff (corporations running everything) and none of the cool stuff (cybernetic augments).

I guess it’s easier to tell when someone has a physical injury, which probably removes some of the stigma around talking about it.

Yup, pretty much the premise of the comic. When someone has a visible injury, (most) people will show empathy and acknowledge it’s a problem. But an invisible ailment like depression? Meh, no big deal, get over it.

One of many futuristic “dystopias” that actually ended up being far too optimistic compared to reality.

“This plague…the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.”

“Why contain it? Let it spill over the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end they’ll beg us to save them.”

Reality: “In the end they’ll refuse to be vaccinated anyway.”

Ah, the classic Zelda location the spoom tsol.

“Aren’t people going to see through that?”

I actually never interpreted it that way - I though it was just showing it getting worse - but that’s a good point and you may be right. It could be showing that he “fixed” the problem by pretending it doesn’t exist as much as he can around others, since none of them take it seriously anyway. Of course, that won’t help anything and will likely make it worse.

Yeah, but unless we’re mercifully nuked into oblivion, it will be a very slow, painful demise.

Sure, but that’s not this situation. First they have to actually care to get to that point.

True!

It’s a very imperfect one, yes. But the comic is trusting that the reader will understand the metaphor. A big ask for some, it seems.

Then he could say, “I’m sorry to hear that you’re not doing great. I hope things get better!”

“You don’t take your depression seriously enough for me” helps me to understand where some people who don’t understand (or don’t care to understand) depression at all are coming from.

By “guy in the comic” I meant the original comic I posted. The one you posted comes off as mean to me. It’s great that “not great” guy isn’t doing badly enough that he feels the need to talk about his problems and he even acknowledges that he’s considering the other guy’s feelings, while the other guy comes off as, “Phew, I was just making small talk and don’t actually care how you’re doing.”

That’s great that you didn’t have chronic depression! Millions of others do.

Correct. And many of the comments immediately jump to (probably personal) experiences where a friend or loved one had depression and despite their best efforts to help, they were unable to. That’s not what this comic is about.

I wish so many comments on this post didn’t support what you’re saying. And the guy in the comic isn’t even asking for help, just showing that he’s suffering.

A lot of these comments are really proving the point of the comic. Nowhere does it say that anybody took his ailment seriously, yet it’s the victim who’s at fault.