Mental Illnesses as Paintings

About

Mental Illnesses as Paintings refers to a series of artworks that metaphorically reimagine various non-mental illnesses, disorders and conditions, such as color blindness and testicular torsion, as pieces of art. The paintings, which parody the earlier Drawing Mental Illnesses trend, were shared by artist @Schmrgl on X / Twitter in mid-October 2024 and went viral on the platform that month.

Origin

On October 17th, 2024, artist and X user @Schmrgl posted two artworks metaphorically depicting lactose intolerance, captioned, "my new series Mental illnesses as paintings: lactose intolerance." Neither lactose intolerance nor any other disorders and conditions depicted in the following paintings can be classified as mental illnesses. The post (shown below) garnered over 5.3 million views, 15,000 reposts and 191,000 likes on X^[1] in four days.

Spread

Starting on October 17th, 2024, @Schmrgl posted more artworks metaphorically interpreting various health conditions and disorders, none of them mental, such as hernia, diarrhea, color blindness and male pattern baldness.

For example, on October 17th, @Schmrgl posted an artwork captioned "kidney stone" depicting the condition as a horned red creature. The post (shown below) garnered over 5.9 million views, 1,900 reposts and 29,000 likes on X^[2] in four days.

On October 19th, 2024, @Schmrgl posted an artwork of left-handedness that garnered over 6.4 million views, 17,000 reposts and 202,000 likes on X^[3] in two days (shown below).

In the following days, @Schmrgl posted more similar artworks, with the posts consistently going viral on X / Twitter.

Related Memes

Drawing Mental Illnesses

Drawing Mental Illnesses is a social media trend where artists draw their interpretation of various mental illnesses and disorders. Artists including Shawn Cee and Toby Allen helped popularize the trend throughout the mid-2010s. The trend became notably popularized on TikTok throughout 2021 and 2022, inspiring viral and ironic versions of the meme where ironic disorders like lactose intolerance and being British are drawn as if they were mental illnesses. While similar in name, the trend does not share the same exploitable format used in the Drawings Made By People With Mental Illness meme.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References