DID TikTok is uncomfortable to watch. I can't diagnose (or rather un-diagnose) specific individuals, as I am not a mental health professional, but it's impossible to ignore how transparent and...
Exemplary
DID TikTok is uncomfortable to watch. I can't diagnose (or rather un-diagnose) specific individuals, as I am not a mental health professional, but it's impossible to ignore how transparent and contrived many of these performances are. Many of the videos showing people "switching" from one alter to another is akin to watching a 5 year old child attempt to alarm you by pretending to faint or transform into a werewolf.
However, I don't think this means these individuals are bad people, "attention seekers," or that they deserve to be bullied online. There are many communities online that exist for that purpose, which is why I bring it up.
I usually feel the same way about DID claimers as I feel about people who suffer from factitious disorder (aka Munchausen's disorder.) That is to say, these people are clearly struggling with an illness of some kind, even if it doesn't turn out to be the illness they either genuinely think they have or knowingly pretend to have. If a person is saying they have 14 personalities ranging from a charming K-pop idol to an asexual flying spaghetti monster, they need psychological treatment regardless of the validity of the claims, and my business in the matter is just that I hope they get the help they need.
The "flying spaghetti monster" alter example I gave is more absurd than some (many of these people claim to have just a few personalities who are all human,) but it should be noted that my example is still less absurd than plenty of "systems" on TikTok.
In my opinion, some portion of this DID phenomenon on TikTok seems to be Gen Z's manifestation of what the MOGAI "movement" was for Millennial teenagers on tumblr. For the unfamiliar, MOGAI was the online culture/movement that resulted in people claiming pronouns like "slime/slimes/slimeself" and gender identities such as "amongusgender." (I am not choosing silly examples to make any kind of conservative or queer-phobic statement here. Trans/enby/etc. gender identities are valid in my book. I'm just illustrating the worst and best qualities of the MOGAI situation for context.)
Now, something to be said for MOGAI is that although it reached unprecedented levels of absurdity, some queer terms that do have value today were at least partially popularized by the MOGAI crowd, with non-binary, asexual, and aromantic being the most significant terms that come to mind. When I was in highschool, those terms simply did not exist outside of an academic context. In 2007-08 a girl at my large, fairly liberal highschool came out as bisexual, and she was seen as being edgy and brave. Seriously, that is bizarre to comprehend now, or even 10 years ago. And that's partially because MOGAI saw the term bisexual and said "hold my beer."
MOGAI and its concepts were harangued relentlessly by the internet and society at the time - unfortunately, the "attack helicopter" joke still rears its ugly, tired, transphobic head to this day. But ultimately, MOGAI was just some teenagers getting carried away with exploring their identities, trying desperately to find some kind of validation, definition, and belonging with each other in a world that made them feel unworthy of love and acceptance.
I'm not sure what there is to be learned from whatever is happening with this reported uptick in cases of DID, but as someone who was around on tumblr during the height of MOGAI, and now spends some time on TikTok, there are some extremely similar characteristics involved here. The difference is that if DID is legitimate, it's a serious disorder that requires treatment, not just a matter of teenagers figuring out their gender identity with a bit too much exhuberance.
My main concern is that there seems to be a growing number of licensed professionals willing to hand out these DID diagnoses pretty easily. If not, there are a lot of people lying about being diagnosed. I wonder if some providers are being especially charitable with their interpretation of the symptoms in order to encourage the patients to continue working with them. For example, I saw one DID tiktoker filming their therapist while he explained their diagnosis. When the therapist explained he believed their symptoms were likely a result of a disorder that was not DID, the tiktoker stormed out of the clinic and angrily declared they would find another provider who would diagnose them with DID.
I've read about Matthew Robinson's lectures on DID before. To me, he comes across as compassionate and genuinely concerned about what he's observing (similar to the tone of this article, as you mentioned, OP.)
In the end, McLean removed all videos of Robinson’s lecture from its owned channels, but the fallout has continued. Academics involved in the space are scared to speak further about the issue of imitative DID. “I would rather not give this more publicity,” said one off-record academic, who — like many other clinicians involved — ignored or declined The Verge’s requests for an interview. “I do not want to make any enemies.”
I am very concerned to learn here that Harvard took down Robinson's lecture after experiencing the wrath of a TikTok community scorned, and that at least one academic reported "not wanting to make enemies." This whole topic of DID is controversial and sticky, but I think we can all agree that the validity of educational content and research should not be determined by TikTok brigades. I have nothing against the culture of TikTok in general and I use it sometimes, but that thought is terrifying. Online armies of queer/female teenagers are genuinely a force to be reckoned with.
I think this a is a really comprehensive article that explores this phenomenon from multiple angles, and is generally very levelheaded. Give it a read, let me know what you think. The only...
I think this a is a really comprehensive article that explores this phenomenon from multiple angles, and is generally very levelheaded. Give it a read, let me know what you think.
The only relevant expertise I have here is a media studies degree, so I'll offer this quote from Marshall McLuhan: "The medium is the message." My argument here is that the mechanics and dynamics of TikTok necessarily shape how the online DID community/phenomenon forms and proliferates. Furthermore, it is necessarily a representation of DID and not DID itself. This is important to recognize, because whether a given representation is true to a loved experience of DID or not, the social dynamics of representing that experience carry a lot of weight.
“When we use things like cat ears, it’s because we’re talking to an audience online, and it’s easier to explain what’s going on in our head. We don’t do that in our day-to-day lives,” says Asher, who creates and posts most of his system’s social media content.
There was also the "edutainment" bit, and the clarification by one creator that some videos are filmed over weeks before being condensed down to a minute or so. These things aren't always obvious, nor are they necessarily implicit, especially when all we can agree on is that the general public has a poor understanding of what DID is or how it presents. Regardless of whether they're understood how they're meant to be, these elements become part of the lexicon of representing DID on TikTok.
There are also subtler dynamics at play as well, that the article doesn't touch on (TBF, it's long enough already), but things like wealth determine who has the resources to make videos in the first place, and a number of other obvious factors intersect with wealth alone. I'm not making a specific point here about any of these factors, but I think it's important to be aware of how they might affect what we see represented.
I do want to mention, there are some very obvious benefits to TikTok as a medium. The elephant in the room is obviously the interconnectivity and visibility provided by the internet. TikTok has made it very easy to discover these representations of DID, and for a number of people quoted in the article, that visibility provided solidarity and camaraderie. I think that's honestly great, and does a lot of heavy lifting as far as overcoming stigmas.
Again, either way, good or bad, whether it's a person faithfully representing their experience or someone coming out to say they misunderstood (or lied), the material conditions and social dynamics of TikTok as a platform fundamentally shape how DID is represented on the platform.
DID TikTok is uncomfortable to watch. I can't diagnose (or rather un-diagnose) specific individuals, as I am not a mental health professional, but it's impossible to ignore how transparent and contrived many of these performances are. Many of the videos showing people "switching" from one alter to another is akin to watching a 5 year old child attempt to alarm you by pretending to faint or transform into a werewolf.
However, I don't think this means these individuals are bad people, "attention seekers," or that they deserve to be bullied online. There are many communities online that exist for that purpose, which is why I bring it up.
I usually feel the same way about DID claimers as I feel about people who suffer from factitious disorder (aka Munchausen's disorder.) That is to say, these people are clearly struggling with an illness of some kind, even if it doesn't turn out to be the illness they either genuinely think they have or knowingly pretend to have. If a person is saying they have 14 personalities ranging from a charming K-pop idol to an asexual flying spaghetti monster, they need psychological treatment regardless of the validity of the claims, and my business in the matter is just that I hope they get the help they need.
The "flying spaghetti monster" alter example I gave is more absurd than some (many of these people claim to have just a few personalities who are all human,) but it should be noted that my example is still less absurd than plenty of "systems" on TikTok.
In my opinion, some portion of this DID phenomenon on TikTok seems to be Gen Z's manifestation of what the MOGAI "movement" was for Millennial teenagers on tumblr. For the unfamiliar, MOGAI was the online culture/movement that resulted in people claiming pronouns like "slime/slimes/slimeself" and gender identities such as "amongusgender." (I am not choosing silly examples to make any kind of conservative or queer-phobic statement here. Trans/enby/etc. gender identities are valid in my book. I'm just illustrating the worst and best qualities of the MOGAI situation for context.)
Now, something to be said for MOGAI is that although it reached unprecedented levels of absurdity, some queer terms that do have value today were at least partially popularized by the MOGAI crowd, with non-binary, asexual, and aromantic being the most significant terms that come to mind. When I was in highschool, those terms simply did not exist outside of an academic context. In 2007-08 a girl at my large, fairly liberal highschool came out as bisexual, and she was seen as being edgy and brave. Seriously, that is bizarre to comprehend now, or even 10 years ago. And that's partially because MOGAI saw the term bisexual and said "hold my beer."
MOGAI and its concepts were harangued relentlessly by the internet and society at the time - unfortunately, the "attack helicopter" joke still rears its ugly, tired, transphobic head to this day. But ultimately, MOGAI was just some teenagers getting carried away with exploring their identities, trying desperately to find some kind of validation, definition, and belonging with each other in a world that made them feel unworthy of love and acceptance.
I'm not sure what there is to be learned from whatever is happening with this reported uptick in cases of DID, but as someone who was around on tumblr during the height of MOGAI, and now spends some time on TikTok, there are some extremely similar characteristics involved here. The difference is that if DID is legitimate, it's a serious disorder that requires treatment, not just a matter of teenagers figuring out their gender identity with a bit too much exhuberance.
My main concern is that there seems to be a growing number of licensed professionals willing to hand out these DID diagnoses pretty easily. If not, there are a lot of people lying about being diagnosed. I wonder if some providers are being especially charitable with their interpretation of the symptoms in order to encourage the patients to continue working with them. For example, I saw one DID tiktoker filming their therapist while he explained their diagnosis. When the therapist explained he believed their symptoms were likely a result of a disorder that was not DID, the tiktoker stormed out of the clinic and angrily declared they would find another provider who would diagnose them with DID.
I've read about Matthew Robinson's lectures on DID before. To me, he comes across as compassionate and genuinely concerned about what he's observing (similar to the tone of this article, as you mentioned, OP.)
I am very concerned to learn here that Harvard took down Robinson's lecture after experiencing the wrath of a TikTok community scorned, and that at least one academic reported "not wanting to make enemies." This whole topic of DID is controversial and sticky, but I think we can all agree that the validity of educational content and research should not be determined by TikTok brigades. I have nothing against the culture of TikTok in general and I use it sometimes, but that thought is terrifying. Online armies of queer/female teenagers are genuinely a force to be reckoned with.
I think this a is a really comprehensive article that explores this phenomenon from multiple angles, and is generally very levelheaded. Give it a read, let me know what you think.
The only relevant expertise I have here is a media studies degree, so I'll offer this quote from Marshall McLuhan: "The medium is the message." My argument here is that the mechanics and dynamics of TikTok necessarily shape how the online DID community/phenomenon forms and proliferates. Furthermore, it is necessarily a representation of DID and not DID itself. This is important to recognize, because whether a given representation is true to a loved experience of DID or not, the social dynamics of representing that experience carry a lot of weight.
There was also the "edutainment" bit, and the clarification by one creator that some videos are filmed over weeks before being condensed down to a minute or so. These things aren't always obvious, nor are they necessarily implicit, especially when all we can agree on is that the general public has a poor understanding of what DID is or how it presents. Regardless of whether they're understood how they're meant to be, these elements become part of the lexicon of representing DID on TikTok.
There are also subtler dynamics at play as well, that the article doesn't touch on (TBF, it's long enough already), but things like wealth determine who has the resources to make videos in the first place, and a number of other obvious factors intersect with wealth alone. I'm not making a specific point here about any of these factors, but I think it's important to be aware of how they might affect what we see represented.
I do want to mention, there are some very obvious benefits to TikTok as a medium. The elephant in the room is obviously the interconnectivity and visibility provided by the internet. TikTok has made it very easy to discover these representations of DID, and for a number of people quoted in the article, that visibility provided solidarity and camaraderie. I think that's honestly great, and does a lot of heavy lifting as far as overcoming stigmas.
Again, either way, good or bad, whether it's a person faithfully representing their experience or someone coming out to say they misunderstood (or lied), the material conditions and social dynamics of TikTok as a platform fundamentally shape how DID is represented on the platform.