While Olya’s hoping-for-death sentiments and initiatives that can arise from anything are played for laughs, there were periods of time when I was struggling with the worst of my depression and I had thoughts in a similar fashion, but unironically and without humour.
- Waiting to cross the road at a red light: Maybe I should just dash across while all the cars are zooming past
- Looking out the window of a high-rise building: Maybe I should just throw myself down
- Waiting for the train and hearing it approaching: Maybe I should just jump onto the tracks now
and on and on it went, and everyday activities were assessed for suicide potential, and I could turn anything into a question of ‘how to die from this’.
Now I can put some distance from those periods, I can laugh at the Olya punchlines and appreciate the dark humour, but there’s another layer of darkness in relating to the character because once upon a time, those were not jokes to me, I was deadly serious. So this segment and character is just particularly poignant for me (I do get yes, mostly they’re poking fun of so-called first-world problems; but Olya is also fitting as a framing device for mental health issues-suicidal ideation arising from that, whether intentionally or otherwise.)
Also, this is my favourite Olya joke by far, just because of how unexpectedly dark it went:
Kate’s reaction to the audience’s audibly shocked gasps:
(I wondered if Kate came up with that herself, it just seems like a her-joke and she did previously say she liked the really dark ones...)
