As a reaction to previous trends, anonymous volunteers are now running hundreds of unofficial suicide hotline-style blogs, which welcome emergency chats and questions, as they prowl the site for suicidal users with hashtags like #help, #depression, #suicide and #anxiety.
Nicole Krawsek, 15, started her own blog that functions much like a “suicide anonymous” group. The teenager answers over 15 questions a week from strangers who suffer from depression. She is offline friends with four of the 60 Tumblr users she communicates with regularly and she follows over 200 similar, teen-run blogs. Krawsek places a high value in having suicidal teens get advice from their own peers.
“I know one girl who got professional help because of our Tumblr network,” she said. “Connecting with my followers have given me hope and confidence that we can all be helped together.”