Etsy has been flooded with hats and candles asking the query: “Has Anybody Seen My Lorazepam?” Social media is rife with movies of individuals enunciating “lorazepam” in a fake Southern drawl. Lorazepam even made a cameo on a current episode of “Saturday Evening Stay,” when the actress Chloe Fineman raucously shouted the phrase throughout a sketch.
As anybody even loosely accustomed to Season 3 of “The White Lotus” could know, this sudden tsunami of references to a prescription treatment used to deal with nervousness just isn’t an indication of mass desperation. Quite, it’s a manifestation of an unceasing fan obsession with Victoria Ratliff, a personality on the HBO TV present, the present season of which ends on Sunday.
Performed by Parker Posey, Victoria is a rich North Carolina lady on trip at a wellness resort in Thailand, who, regardless of the idyllic setting, repeatedly expresses a necessity for her lorazepam, a drug identified for being tough to quit.
A therapeutic massage? It may make her “very wired” and “claustrophobic,” Victoria says. The lorazepam helps her “to actually calm down,” she tells a masseuse.
A celebration on a yacht? “Sure social conditions make me anxious,” Victoria drawls at her eldest son, Saxon.
Her daughter Piper’s choice to make a serious life change? “I don’t even have my lorazepam,” a distraught Victoria declares after her bottle goes lacking. “I’m going to should drink myself to sleep.”
The treatment’s title is uttered as incessantly as any character’s, making it appear to be a part of the forged. However the best way it has permeated standard tradition has every thing to do with Ms. Posey, whose portrayal of Victoria entails a Southern accent that has supplied a grasp class within the artwork of gleefully unfurling the syllables packed right into a phrase.
“The best way she says lorazepam has made it a catchphrase,” stated Jason Sturgill, 49, an illustrator, artwork director and “White Lotus” fan, who lives in Portland, Ore. “It’s enjoying such a vital half.”
Lorazepam is a generic drug produced by totally different corporations and is usually referred to by its model title, Ativan. It’s a part of a category of benzodiazepines that features diazepam (Valium), clonazepam (Klonopin) and alprazolam (Xanax).
Practically 20 p.c of people that take benzodiazepines misuse them, based on a 2019 study. Publications like The New York Times, Cosmopolitan and CNN have rolled out articles warning about lorazepam’s potential for habit and the dangers of taking it with alcohol.
Daniel Marakhovsky, 31, a pharmacist in Brooklyn, stated that Ms. Posey’s portrayal of Victoria actually captures the mannerisms of somebody taking the drug.
“The best way I see it on the present, that is what I see from my sufferers,” Mr. Marakhovsky stated. “The foremost uncomfortable side effects are all drowsiness and dizziness and confusion.”
On-line, Victoria has been anointed with nicknames like “Our Queen of Lorazepam” or “Our Leading Lady of Lorazepam.” The “White Lotus” TikTok account has additionally leaned in, calling her “the benzo queen.” Merchandise made to seize the treatment’s breakout second has included a “White Lotus” themed bracelet with a lorazepam appeal, a mug with Victoria in rose-colored glasses and a “Stay Snigger Lorazepam” cross-stitch pattern.
The sample’s vendor, Julie Jackson, stated none of her Instagram posts have acquired as a lot consideration because the one she not too long ago shared in regards to the lorazepam design, which has acquired greater than 60,000 likes. “I’ve by no means had something go that loopy,” stated Ms. Jackson, 60, the proprietor of Subversive Cross Stitch, who lives in Dallas.
Google searches for “lorazepam” had their biggest spike on record on March 10, the day after the present “White Lotus” season’s fourth episode aired. In it, Victoria’s husband, who’s coping with knowledgeable disaster, covertly nabs her capsule bottle. After he steals her lorazepam, she stops taking it whereas he takes increasingly more.
“They’re utilizing lorazepam as a strategy to foil the husband and spouse in opposition to one another,” stated Sabrina Palacios, 32, who lives in Somerville, N.J. and posts movies about “The White Lotus” on TikTok. At the beginning of the present, she added, Victoria’s husband, Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs), “is the one making selections, the communicator, the chief, and now she’s extra the chief and popping out and he’s taking a again seat.”
One unanswered query is why the writers of “The White Lotus” selected lorazepam as an alternative of another benzodiazepine. A consultant for HBO declined to remark.
Fortesa Latifi, 31, a journalist in Los Angeles who watches the present, wrote on Threads that “there are two forms of individuals on this planet: individuals who needed to google ‘lorazepam’ whereas watching white lotus and individuals who didn’t.”
Ms. Latifi, who has written about persistent sickness for publications together with the Instances, stated in a name that she has taken drugs much like lorazepam for nervousness. “Lorazepam in my era is form of a personality onto its personal,” she stated. “Individuals realize it; they know this class of medication.”
She added that Xanax has a really explicit fame. “You consider faculty children,” she stated. “A wealthy older woman wouldn’t take Xanax. It needs to be one thing fancier.”
