Gen Z is embracing emotional distress — with a new name.
It was abundantly clear to everyone that Huda wasn’t doing well.
Huda Mustafa, the breakout villain on Love Island USA’s seventh season, spiraled after viewers voted to separate her from Jeremiah Brown, with whom she’d developed an intense connection early in the current season. Over several episodes, she eavesdropped on Jeremiah’s conversations, interrogated the woman he was re-coupled with, and broke down repeatedly. Her despondent face became a viral meme.
Viewers, and later Huda herself, had a simple and notably Gen Z explanation for what she was experiencing: The lovelorn reality star had officially “crashed out.”
Justin Bieber received the same label recently, for his strange behavior on social media and a viral standoff with paparazzi. While some of his fanbase voiced more serious concerns over the state of his mental health, many tagged the singer’s antics as telltale signs of a typical “crashout.”
It’s not just celebrities. Go on TikTok, and users are posting videos of themselves venting, sobbing, or throwing physical tantrums with some sort of caption claiming that they’ve “crashed out.” In other cases, they’re describing “crashing out” in response to other people.
The catchall phrase is shorthand for the unfiltered actions of a person who is angry, anxious, confused, stressed out, or experiencing mental health issues. It can describe a range of behavior, from emotional outbursts to altercations to withdrawals. There are a lot of ways that “crashing out” can look, but like obscenity, you know it when you see it.
The term has floated around on the internet for a while now; Know Your Meme credits its popularity to rapper NBA YoungBoy, who used the term in his 2017 song, “Stepped On.” Since the 2020s, the concept has been used both humorously and in earnest to discuss the fallout from issues as global as the state of the world, as personal as relationship or work stress, or as low stakes as struggling with a hairstyle. Practically any problem, big or small, can warrant a “crashout.”
One of the most striking things about the phrase is how general it is. Why is a generation raised on pop-psychology jargon, with more access to mental health resources and experience talking about their own needs, painting these episodes with such a broad brush? Is Gen Z abandoning traditional routes of managing their mental health, or has a burnout generation found a more radical way to cope?
It’s no secret that Gen Z is particularly stressed out.
