Why Is Everyone So Depressed?

I enjoy browsing Reddit, particularly a few forums I've joined, but when logging onto the site, one is presented with a variety of topics, and many contain posts from Gen Z'ers asking a variation of "Who else is depressed?" or "How do you handle your depression?" I generally skip past those posts because I hate self-pity. Then I realized that depression has even invaded the music market.

Years ago when we were plugging our music I joined a few licensing sites. The only one that ever offered a return was AudioSparx, which isn't even listed among the top sites anymore. A few times a year we'd get a check for twenty or so dollars from them because they'd included a few of our tracks on their compilation CD's (although who was buying those CD's is a mystery to me). I'd forgotten that I'd joined Broadjam. It had to be a long time ago, because only our early songs existed on the site. But every once in a while I'll get an email from them offering a free submission credit. I generally take advantage of it because free, after all, is free. With our newer (better) tracks uploaded, I figure there must be one or two licensing opportunities we would fit. Not particularly.

There are a lot of calls for "melancholy". If this is what people are listening to, no wonder they're depressed! I don't do melancholy, and on the rare occasions something depressed me, the last thing I felt like doing was writing a song. Lie down and pull the covers over my heard, sure. Maybe kids need to steer clear of depressing music and everything else in their environment that encourages them to wallow. When, in what decade, was life ever easy? I must have missed it. But at least I could always count on music to lift my mood, and yes, as I've written before, even sad country songs can make one feel happy in a way. A pouring out of emotion is cathartic. "Hey, at least I don't have it as bad that singer does!"

I admit that my musical knowledge is antiquated. Apparently that's not necessarily a bad thing.