“What My Mexican Family Hears When I Tell Them I Have Seen a Therapist”: Latinx Mental Health Content Creators as Intercultural Super Peers

Abstract

This study explores how Latinx content creators harness social media to challenge established mental health narratives in postcolonial family systems. Using Social Media Grounded Theory, we coded 69 Instagram and TikTok posts about mental health from 23 social media accounts, including Latinx influencers, advocacy organizations, therapists, and artists/musicians. Our findings demonstrate that Latinx mental health content creators act as intercultural super peers—thought leaders who create online counterspaces that destigmatize conversations about mental health. They help young Hispanic Americans resist colonial logics by transforming discourse about familismo, generational trauma, and machismo. As intercultural super peers, content creators also help audiences navigate nepantla, a Nahuatl word used by Gloria Anzaldúa to describe the state of cultural in-betweenness. Together, Latinx content creators and their audiences interrogate cultural expectations that suffering is an anticipated part of existence.