Antidepressants are trendy. That’s a double-edged sword

‘Antidepressant use is not the kind of experience that vulnerable young people should be socially coerced into.’ Photograph: Christian Hopewell/Alamy

Antidepressants are all the rage now, so much so that influencers are promoting them on TikTok, where mostly millennial and gen Z women have built micro-communities around hashtags like #lexaprotok, #zoloftgang and #livelaughlexapro.

According to data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, content related to antidepressants has recently exploded. The hashtag #antidepressants has surpassed 1.3bn views, according to the data, and searches for #lexapro have more than tripled since 2022. The data also showed that user shares per video tagged #ssri nearly quadrupled from 2022 to 2025.