#i'm glad it meant smth to u if u spent ur money on that shit 4 times but...

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I agree that the writing is messy but there are parts of Evan that I related to (his introversion and loneliness mostly), so I was able to feel empathy for him and understand that things just spiraled out of control even if that’s not an excuse. Also Ben’s performance was phenomenal (I saw it live 4 times), which helped me connect to the character. But what really bothers me is Conner’s treatment throughout the show. 😢 He’s just used as a plot device and that never sat right with me at all.

the thing about dear evan hansen is... it feels like a show produced to be popular. shallow tropes and metaphors. cookie-cutter in a lot of it’s messaging about mental illness without ever actually getting to the heart of those illnesses... it’s nothing that revolutionary, but the hype it got...... lmao. you can slap suicide prevention on anything and make it seem “deep” “honest” “socially aware”, but what is dear evan hansen actually....... doing.......? not that much. it’s the equivalent of every cheesy anti-bullying and suicide prevention convocation in high school that doesn’t actually get to the base of any problem and leaves kids feeling even less inspired than before, showing that all the adults in the room THINK they understand but clearly don’t. but it’s thinly veiled by popular music and a star that ppl already liked. all they had to do was cast a talented and attractive kid as the main character and .. that felt like an instant success, lmao. hey, i’m a fan of pop music and the tunes in that are catchy, but.. they’re meant to be that way. i can jam all i want to that musically and still think it totally misses the mark and lacks the heart as a show, lmao.

honestly and don’t get me started on evan hansen as a character. if you’re operating in this world as someone dealing with mental illness than you’ve no doubt picked up on the general messaging in some media that mentally ill people are inherently selfish, that they’re manipulative and clingy and can’t take responsibility for their actions, and then. they go and give their title character and the one known mentally ill character left these traits of toxicity without any proper resolution to that at the end? he gets his forgiveness without the demonstration of growth???? he doesn’t even really have to take any sort of responsibility because in the end... what he actually did was cause a grieving family and community more harm and confusion than they needed. things might have spiraled but it takes away his agency to pretend that, as a person with anxiety, he couldn’t have stopped that at any point when it got out of hand. it might have been hard, but honestly... hard conversations are something dear evan hansen lacked. and also connor murphy deserved to be his own person on that stage. his death shouldn’t have been treated as some prop to move evan’s ‘arc’ forward. we only get to see him shallowly through the thoughts of others and projections of evan’s state of mind, but he’s the real tragedy in that story and no one can convince me otherwise. honestly... i’ve dealt with a metric ton of depression and social anxiety in my lifetime and after mulling over the contents of that show for a bit... i found it extremely overrated and semi-dangerous in the fact that it deems itself some socially conscious piece of work and it’s nothing more than like... the 13 reasons why of broadway, lmao. i’m sorry if evan hansen is the character you find yourself relating to most bc of his loneliness and introversion, but if you’d like a list of other introverted characters that feel extremely alone and are... frankly better than his ass, i will draw you up one!! jfklsdjfs that’s not sarcasm but a genuine offer because there’s better rep and more socially conscious content out there, lol.