"In 1974 the concept of the ‘Werther Effect’ was coined by David Philipps, who suggested that reporting on high profile suicides - such as a celebrity or one blamed on a novel - can cause a spike of copycat suicides. Notably this is about reports of real world suicides, not fictional ones.

Assuming Philipps theory is correct, the panicked reporting on ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ could have exacerbated any uptick in youth suicides - many of which may well have been wrongly blamed on the novel, reported as such and lead to more coverage and potentially more copycats.

Although even ‘the Werther Effect’ could be just another simplistic answer to a complex issue: youth suicide - and scapegoating media - real or fictional, a distraction from real mitigations."

https://newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-1774-novel-blamed-for-youth-suicide

#Literature #History #Goethe #Germany #MediaPanics #MediaEffects