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A key question when suicide is depicted on media is whether there is a contagious spread, which is called a Werther effect because of the legendary increase in suicides (that mimicked method and garb) after publication of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, which depicted suicide after unrequited love. To ascertain whether 13 Reasons Why, the recent television portrayal of a teenage girl completing suicide, produced Werther effects, an online survey was conducted of viewers liking the show on Facebook and a control group who liked Netflix show pages but not this show.
Of 280,973 watchers aged 12 to 19 in the U.S. and Brazil, 21,062 responded and had analyzable data (mean age, 15; 89% female, 65% with prior suicidal ideation, 80% with prio…