Prozac and Pumpkin Spice: Sad-Girl Autumn and the Romanticization of Seasonal Affective Disorder
Sad-girl autumn embraces the loneliness of fall, whether that be using Rory Gilmore references or evangelizing pumpkin spice and isolated readings of Sylvia Plath.
By ZOE CURTIS ‘25
It’s starting to feel like fall again. The air is crisp, the leaves have just started turning, pumpkin chai has made its return to the DSquared menu, I’m well overdue for my yearly Gilmore Girls rewatch (in lieu of studying for midterms) and the unhinged sad-girl autumn posts have made their way back to my Instagram explore page. It starts mildly, something about staying home and watching “When Harry Met Sally” and drinking cider, then develops into a more sinister, Sylvia Plath-coated desire: total and complete isolation.
“Finally relating to this scene,” a post reads. The scene in question: a frame of the 2000s oeuvre that is the second installment of the “Twilight” Saga: New Moon. Bella sits in the same chair, months pass her by, seasons change from the same window’s view, and the dollied camera circles her stoic face, “Possibility” by Lykke Li in the background. I watch the clip on YouTube, if only for research purposes.
It’s easy to connote Bella’s depression with Edward’s departure, but the sentiment reads deeper upon looking through the comments. A couple of users comment on the cinematography or music choice, but it’s nearly impossible to ignore the slew of comments reading “literally me” and “this hits.” Not everyone gets left by their 105-year-old vampire boyfriend in September: there’s something else at play here.
It’s nice to think that the rhetoric online about face masks and The Smiths and pumpkin spice is simply surface-level and that there’s nothing more to it than good old-fashioned fall festivity and the nostalgia of porch side pumpkin carving, but the undertones say decidedly otherwise. Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as Seasonal Depression, affects approximately 5% of the American population in its most extreme diagnoses. However, 20- 30% of Americans experience some effect of S.A.D. in their lives (Cleveland Clinic). There are different types of S.A.D. for different seasons. Fall-onset, the most common type of S.A.D., begins in late September to early October and lasts throughout winter until the arrival of sunnier, warmer spring months.
Autumn, as a season itself, harbors some level of melancholy. It’s plenty with astronomical events; phenomena like Autumnal Equinox and an uptick in geomagnetic storms have a direct effect on regulatory systems that produce serotonin and melatonin. Barometric pressure is changing, leaves are reddening, and the air is biting. There’s a strong feeling of change about the season, and not necessarily towards the positive. As The Guardian’s mononymous “Alison” puts it, “When the winds of autumn sigh around us, their voice speaks not to us only, but to our kind; and the lesson they teach us is not that we alone decay, but that such also is the fate of all the generations of man.”
As individuals on social media, and especially as women, there’s a strong tendency towards commodifying emotion. Melancholia is defined by our fisherman-knit sweaters and cinnamon-scented candles, how many Sexton poems we’ve read, the number of times we’ve rented a Sofia Coppola film (brownie points if it’s The Virgin Suicides, by the way) or read The Bell Jar. It’s listening to Morrissey sing about the rain falling hard on a humdrum town on freshly purchased Koss Porta Pro headphones, buying cheap pearl earrings and red Chanel lipstick because Lana Del Rey said so, or attempting Ulysses alone in the dining hall because Rory did. Emotion, especially sadness, is something to be bought into, a brand in and of itself. The internet, slowly but surely, has “aestheticized” sadness, and sad-girl autumn is a direct example of this.
The real debate to be had here is whether or not this romanticization is ethical. If the strange, depression-promoting, isolationist posts are ignored, if they can be ignored, the rest of sad-girl autumn’s facets seem like effective self-care habits, coping mechanisms, even, for fall-onset symptoms
The commodification of this sadness, however capitalistic and oversimplistic it might be, creates a community online where users can empathize with each other over shared autumnal blues. Sad-girl autumn embraces the loneliness of fall, relishes in it, and uses The Cranberries, hot coffee, knitting, and Gilmore Girls as vehicles for comfort during a bleak season. Seasonal Affective Disorder is quick to become consumptive, but, in a twisted way, the romanticization of autumnal isolation serves to combat that. So, here at Exeter, no matter how many seniors proselytize nihilism come winter time exams, or how many days go by without the sun, no matter how late the foliage is, or how much history reading is assigned, you’ll always have Joni Mitchell and Dead Poet’s Society and artisanal yarn from Charlotte’s Web, the stadium loop trail and cable knit sweaters and the never-diminishing stash of apple cider at Elm; you’ll always have sad-girl autumn.
