New Suicide Prevention Campaign Encourages Teens To Wait Until They’re Middle-Aged

NEW YORK—In collaboration with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Ad Council released a new suicide prevention campaign Tuesday that encourages teens to wait to kill themselves until they are middle-aged. “Don’t give up yet—give it 20 years,” says the voiceover in the campaign’s first 30-second ad spot, which urges young people struggling with their mental health to forestall their suicides until they are balding, unsuccessful losers with little to no social networks whose deaths will at least be a little more understandable. “Do you really want to make all your classmates hold a weepy candlelight vigil for you? God, no way. What’s the rush? Come on, what exactly do you have to write down in a suicide note anyway, with only 15 years of life experience?” At press time, the campaign released a second ad featuring a photo of a 45-year-old man sitting on the edge of a bed at a Holiday Inn with a text overlay reading “Go right ahead.”