Social media trends often take on a life of their own, and issues arise when millions of people are exposed to traumatic events without notice. Platforms have enabled people to find popularity, monetary compensation and sympathy through trends. A problem arises when those trends take a dark turn and become unethical to share to a mass audience. These trends quickly become lessons as to why social media users should be cautious about what they post on social media, not only for their own sake but for the potential viewers of their content.
Recently a TikTok trend known as the “candy salad” has become popular among users. It features users, usually a group of people introducing themselves, dumping candy into a bowl to create a candy salad. This trend has taken a dark turn with people adding their life traumas into the videos discussing sensitive topics such as murder, suicide and rape in an a flippant manner.
It can be powerful to joke about traumatic events, but, more times than not, it is covering up some unaddressed problems Psychologist Nelisha Wickremasinghe said in an interview with the Daily Mail. She said trauma dumping can suggest a person is struggling with borderline personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. That statement is a little extreme, but there is a possibility some users participating in the trend have some unaddressed trauma related to the event. Although Wickremasinghe does not believe trauma dumping is a good idea, that has not stopped the trend from garnering over 70.2 million views according to the interview.
According to “Analysis of Psychological Impact of TikTok on Contemporary Teenagers,” a research article by Zheng Lin of Ningbo Yinzhou High School in Ningbo, China, there are over 1.5 billion TikTok users worldwide as of 2022. According to the article, 62% of TikTok users in the United States are between the ages of 10 and 29, and 60% of users surveyed said they spent more than 30 minutes on TikTok everyday. The primary feature of TikTok is the “For You Page” or the “For You Feed” as TikTok refers to it. The issue with the design of the feature is users cannot browse content before they view it. That leaves plenty of young people exposed to harmful content unintentionally.
It is widely accepted that adolescent years are typically the most formative years of someone’s life — being a teenager is about exploration and most are active on social media. The influence of social media is affecting people’s character for better or for worse.
One potential way to solve the problem is trigger warnings, a short descriptor of any sensitive content to follow. However, according to a meta-analysis by researchers at Flinders University and Harvard University published in a journal, Clinical Psychological Science, they can often induce anxiety and curiosity. Trigger warnings actually promote engagement according to the study.
The bottom line is users are responsible for the content they post on social media. It would be wise from a privacy standpoint to avoid addressing sensitive topics in a public forum. There are plenty of other ways to find one’s 15 seconds of fame more ethically. The person stumbling upon that video probably didn’t want to see it and it’s not the platform’s responsibility to babysit what someone posts — successfully moderating a platform with 1.5 billion users is a larger task than putting someone on the moon.
