Curator's Note
Released on April 28, 2017, Logic’s song 1-800-273-8255 is titled after the United States National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number, subsequently replaced by 988, to call in case of a crisis (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2021; SAMHSA, 2022).[1] The song alternates the perspectives of a caller who is struggling emotionally and the Lifeline operator who answers his call.
The song’s official YouTube video, dropped on August 17, 2017, features the development of a queer interracial relationship between a Black and White teen boy. The video shows that the Black teenager faces rejection from family, peers, and other adults, foregrounding the intersection of suicidality with Blackness and queer masculinity.
For youth aged 10 to 24, suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States (CDC, 2025; AFSP, 2020; Seggi, 2022). Among Black youth, the “suicide rate rose from 2.55 per 100,000 in 2007 to 4.82 per 100,000 in 2017. Black youth under 13 years are two times more likely to die by suicide and when comparing by sex, Black males, 5 to 11 years, are more likely to die by suicide compared to their White peers” (Watson Coleman, 2019, p. 14). According to the JED Foundation, LGBTQAI+ youth and young adults have higher rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts than straight and cisgender youth; for LGBTQAI+ youth, the likelihood of attempting suicide in four times that of straight youth (Leventry, n.d.).[2]
People around the world responded to the authenticity of Logic’s song. As he tells us in his memoir, it “hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and since then it’s passed a billion streams and it’s seven times platinum and it’s on its way to going diamond for sure” (Hall, 2021, p. 324).[3] The song’s official YouTube video received over 454 million views as of this publication.[4] [5] The YouTube video of Logic’s September 1, 2017 live performance of this song at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) was viewed over 52 million times, while the YouTube video of his performance at the January 29, 2018 Grammys was viewed almost 13 million times.
By combining the powerful lyrics of the song with the urgent social themes of its video, YouTube became a formidable catalyst for Logic’s message: destigmatizing suicidality and queer masculinity, fostering a tighter sense of community, while ultimately standing up for inclusivity and positivity. It is hard to imagine how any of this could have been accomplished, before YouTube as a free-video sharing platform, with traditional mass media. TV viewership of the VMAs was lower than usual in 2017 (Blake, 2017). Additionally, as Logic himself put it, “award shows were already becoming a joke. Even the Grammys now, people don’t watch” (Hall, 2021, p. 317).
The song’s lyrics are built around the classic three-part narrative structure, with a beginning, middle and end, paired with three intense emotions: pain; empathy; and hope. First, the caller voices his emotional distress: “I’ve been on the low.” He is hurting to the point that life seems too hard to bear and death becomes desirable: “I don’t want to be alive. I don’t want to be alive. I just wanna die today. I just wanna die,” cries out Logic. The caller refers to feeling inconsequential (“my life don’t even matter”), displaced (“I never had a home”), and forgotten (“Ain’t nobody callin’ my phone?”).
In the second part of the song, the operator responds to the caller. He understands the immensity of pain the caller voices: “I know where you been, where you are, where you goin.” The operator also offers encouragement and hope: “You don’t gotta die today. […] you gotta live right now.” The operator brings up positive emotions in life: feeling alive (“It’s the very first breath…”); feeling exhilarated (“it’s the lightness in the air”); and persevering in life and having a positive attitude (“It’s holding on […] and seeing light in the darkest things”).[6] In the third and final part of the song, having been able to share his emotional struggles and now feeling both understood and encouraged, the caller resolves to live: “I finally wanna be alive […] I don’t even wanna die anymore.”
Within this three-part structure, each part incorporates a counterpoint. This adds complexity to the expected narrative arc, as well as beauty and power to the song’s overall life-affirming message. The first part about the emotional distress also includes a nod to the universality of such struggles—an acknowledgement, reminiscent of a Greek chorus, of the fact that other people, although not voicing their pain, may feel it nonetheless. Indeed, the question Logic sings “Who can relate?”—more of a rhetorical question than a real question—elevates the meaning of the song from one about a single individual’s struggles to one that echoes universal struggles.
In the second part, when the operator offers encouragement by listing (some of) the joys of life, he nonetheless acknowledges that life is difficult: “it can be hard. It can be so hard.” Although at times life is inherently hard, we should not give up: “What’s the day without a little night?” When hard times occur (and they inevitably do), they end up lending deeper value to the good times we do have.
In the last part of the song, the caller also says that he does “not want to cry anymore.” He says that not because he is stifling his emotions—which is what he had previously done: “I know I’m hurting deep down, but can’t show it”[7]—but because he wants to focus on positive experiences.
Without ever mentioning the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number in the lyrics once, this song centers a complex narrative around someone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts and who is eventually able to seek out help and benefit from it. This song exemplifies the kind of media representation of suicidality that can produce a protective effect against it, because overall it is life-affirming. In the field of suicidology we call this the Papageno effect or media representations that model help-seeking behavior, because they offer “stories of hope and recovery from suicidal crises” and of “coping and mastery of crises” (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2021, p. 1 and 7, respectively; Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2010; and Sisask & Värnik, 2012).
Focusing on key media events associated with the 1-800-273-8255 song—the release of the song itself, and Logic’s performances at the MTV Video Music Awards and at the Grammy Awards—researchers discovered that the song was associated with at least two noteworthy changes in people’s behavior toward suicide in the United States. Indeed, calls to the Lifeline number rose by almost 7%[8], while suicides declined by about 5.5% (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2021). Although neither shift can be causally attributed to the song itself, and more research is needed, this is an encouraging media phenomenon.
All in all, Logic has shown the ability to think back on his life experiences with a centeredness that makes this song all the more compelling. For instance, in his memoir, while contextualizing his MTV Video Music Awards performance of this song, he addresses social dynamics and he models behaviors that are worth reflecting on. First, Logic hints to the lingering stigma of suicide which prevents people from talking about suicidality with other people unless these individuals have already expressed acceptance, like he did by writing this song: “at every backstage meet-and-greet,” Logic writes, “everyone was coming to me with their saddest and most gruesome stories. […] And what I encountered in person was the tip of the iceberg compared to what was coming online. Social media was a constant stream of anguish and trauma and grief” (Hall, p. 325-326).[9]
Second, Logic acknowledges the toll the song took on him: “It was all these people with all this pain bottled up and they needed somewhere to let it out so they gave it to me. How was I supposed to even begin to process or take that on? Even the healthiest, most stable person on earth would buckle under that kind of emotional weight, and I was not the healthiest or most stable person on earth” (Hall, p. 326).
Importantly, he owns his emotions and articulates them. Hence, and most poignantly, Logic rejects the model of masculinity predicated on suppressing emotions. He embodies a different kind of masculinity, centered around being authentically human and thus true to oneself: “I kept fighting back the tears and fighting back the tears. Then finally the tears came. I broke down on stage and started crying” (Hall, p. 328).
By rejecting the normative emotion-suppressing masculinity, Logic of course challenged the status quo. Challenging the status quo meant retaliation: “And the people on the internet,” Logic matter-of-factly writes, “made fun of me” (Hall, p. 328).
As we retraced the ripple effects of the 1-800-273-8255 song, the raw power of YouTube and the internet to either amplify positivity or bash non-normative masculinities emerged. Going forward, it is up to each of us as media users and analysts to embrace our own humanity and harness that power for good. Just like Logic did.
References
988lifeline (2025). 988lifeline FAQ. Retrieved April 4, 2025 from https://988lifeline.org/faq/
AFSP (2020). What we know about LGBTQ youth mental health and suicide prevention. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://afsp.org/story/what-we-know-about-lgbtq-youth-mental-health-and-...
Blake, E. (2017, August 30). VMAs fail to turn heads on social media. Forbes. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyblake1/2017/08/30/vmas-2017-social-media/
CDC (2025). Health disparities in suicide. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/disparities/index.html
Hall, B. (2021). This bright future. A memoir. Simon & Schuster.
Leventry, A. (n.a.). Suicide in the LGBTQIA+ Community: What You Need to Know. The JED Foundation. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://jedfoundation.org/resource/suicide-in-the-lgbtqia-community-what...
Niederkrotenthaler, T., et al. (2010). Role of media reports in completed and pre- vented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(3), 234–243. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633
Niederkrotenthaler, T., et al. (2021). Association of Logic’s hip hop song “1-800-273-8255” with Lifeline calls and suicides in the United States: interrupted time series analysis
BMJ, 2021; 375 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067726
Russello, M. (2022, September 6). Talking About Suicide Helps Us Stay Alive. It all starts with listening. SLATE. Retrieved April 5, 2025 from https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/how-to-talk-about-suicide-alt2su.html
SAMHSA (2022). SAMHSA Spotlight. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https:// www.samhsa.gov/
Seggi, A. (2022). Youth and suicide in American cinema. Context, causes and consequences. Palgrave Macmillan.
Sisask, M., & Värnick, A. (2012). Media roles in suicide prevention: A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 9(1), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph9010123
Watson Coleman, B. (2019, December 17). Ring the Alarm. The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America. A Report to Congress from The Congressional Black Caucus Emergency TaskForce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. Retrieved April 8, 2025 from https://watsoncoleman.house.gov/imo/media/doc/full_taskforce_report.pdf
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RESOURCES WORLDWIDE
From the International Association for Suicide Prevention website
https://www.iasp.info/crisis-centres-helplines/
From the author’s website
https://www.alessandraseggi.com/resources-for-help/
RESOURCES in the United States
From the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website
https://afsp.org/suicide-prevention-resources/
24/7 Crisis Hotline: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available.
Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Veterans, press 1 when calling.
Text TALK to 741-741 to text with a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text Line for free, 24/7
Send a text to 838255
SAMHSA Treatment Referral Hotline (Substance Abuse)
1-800-662-HELP (4357)
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline
1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
1-866-331-9474
1-866-488-7386
Also visit your:
* Primary care provider
* Local psychiatric hospital
* Local walk-in clinic
* Local emergency department
* Local urgent care center
Finding mental health care
American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
National Association of Social Workers
FindTreatment.gov/ES (en español)
[1] On July 16, 2022, 988 replaced the old number, which is nonetheless going to remain in service (988lifeline; SAMHSA, 2022).
[2] Gathering reliable statistics about suicidality is difficult for several reasons, whose discussion is though beyond the scope of this writing.
[3] As of the end of 2020, the song had more than one billion streams on Spotify (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2021).
[4] April 4, 2025.
[5] The content of the video itself will not be discussed in this piece.
[6] This part of the song is performed by Alessia Cara.
[7] This part was sung by Khalid.
[8] The uptick in calls was significant, in decreasing order of intensity, after Logic’s MTV Video Music Award performance, his Grammy Award performance, and the release of the song itself (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2021).
[9] Indeed, both scholars and people with first person experiences of suicidality have commented on the power of sharing one’s struggles and suicidality with other people, because sharing constitutes a chance to overcome the crisis itself (Russello, 2022).
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