Unfriended

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes bullying, anti-fat bias, suicide, and stigmatizing language about mental health.

Big Pond symbolizes danger, and Vail advances the representation with the story of the boys who play on the pond. They fall into it and wind up in the hospital. Overwhelmed by the conflicts online and at school, Truly leaves school and goes to Big Pond. Her choice suggests that she’s considering harming herself. Hazel senses the precarity and sends Truly a flurry of texts. One text reads, “For now PLEASE ANSWER” (368). The all-capitals reinforce the danger and Hazel’s sense of urgency. Though there’s no explicit mention of self-harm or death by suicide, the pond’s history connects it to physical peril.

What pushes Truly to the pond is Natasha telling her, “If a person realizes he or she has been a betraying, lying, conniving douche […] it would be better for that person to just go ahead and die” (361). The “person” is Truly, and Natasha is coaxing Truly to die by suicide. Truly goes to the pond and writes, “Standing by the side of Big Pond. Never been this close to it before” (370-71). The implication is that Truly might jump in it.