Welcome to your tape Annandale. The new Netflix original series ‘13 Reasons Why’ has skyrocketed with popularity over the last month and has become a trending topic on Twitter, helping to make it Netflix’s most popular show ever.

The series, which is based on a New York Times Selling book, follows Hannah Baker a smart, funny, attractive and unfortunately taken advantage of, teenager. The show is unique in the way that Hannah isn’t really in it, viewers will only see her in flashbacks because the whole plot is centered around her suicide and what led to it.

The main character of the show is Clay Jensen, a socially awkward high school junior, who worked with Hannah at the local movie theater and developed feelings for her that he could never relay. In the beginning of the show Clay gets a package with 13 tapes, which is soon realizes are from Hannah. The tapes are Hannah’s form of a suicide note and each tape is designated to a specific person and how their actions impacted her decision to take her life. Hannah’s instructions in the box with the tapes was to listen to all of them and then to pass the tapes on to the next person. Clay’s tape is tape 11, and thus he is one of the last people to get the infamous tapes.

Clay, being the inquisitive and awkward teen that he is doesn’t understand why he is on the tapes and takes the longest to get through them. The series shadows Clay as he becomes a detective and tries to figure out what happened to his high school crush. He is on a mission to avenge a girl he fell in love with by confronting the other students and adults that were mentioned in the tapes before him. Jensen is trying to investigate the truth behind the audio tapes and try to repair the reputation of his love Hannah Baker. Throughout the show it depicts the life of high school student Clay Jensen. The show also makes more room for adults by having the drama of Hannah Baker’s parents filing a lawsuit on the school for bullying and not doing anything about it. Instead of Clay Jensen listening to all the tapes at once, he listens to them one by one and confronts each individual on the tape in order to find the truth behind why Hannah committed suicide. The only problem is that Clay Jensen confronts everyone one at a time without fully listening to all the tapes which impacts his ability to make judgement calls.  

The show tackles the tough topics of rape, mental health, bullying and the inevitable teenage need for social acceptance all which Hannah Baker is directly experiencing.  

Certain scenes in the show are uncomfortable to watch, especially the suicide scene. But the show was designed that way. They are uncomfortable topics that should be uncomfortable for audiences to watch unfold, especially to a girl so young. Jensen is trying to investigate the truth behind the audio tapes and try to repair the reputation of his love Hannah Baker. Produced by Selena Gomez, a celebrity who has struggled with self image, the show aims to display the power of the little things and how it is impossible to know what someone is going through so even the smallest actions matter.