"She's a disease. I regret my role in spreading it...you will, too"

I read a tweet a couple months ago where someone was saying that they felt like they looked uglier than usual lately, and someone responded saying, “don’t worry, it’s just January.”

There is a certain kind of doom and gloom that comes over people in the winter months. Also winter + pandemic + looming threat of war + whatever the fuck else is going on (has it felt to anyone else like the last two years there is perpetually something going on?) and it just makes for not-the-best-of-times.

I have not been okay lately, but a lot of that (maybe even 100%) is due to social media.

Mental health is weird. I find myself wishing that mental health had physical symptoms - and often it does, I’m reminded of this every time I get violent diarrhea after experiencing anxiety - but just because it would make it so much easier. If I had an open wound in my stomach I would address it right away. If blood was leaking out of me, I would see a doctor. But instead I went to bed last night at 8pm, slept 11 hours, pattered around my apartment today, took a nap in the afternoon, and then stared at my curtains until the sun went down and just…did nothing.

That’s when you know it’s bad, when you do nothing. I didn’t want to play a computer game, or read a book. I didn’t even want to go on social media (I truly think I’m developing a PTSD like relationship with social media) so I just stared at my curtains for 30 minutes and did nothing. (Other than, of course, hating and internally berating myself for doing nothing).

Over the past year or so I’ve gained +300k followers on TikTok and while parts of it have been…oh, fuck this. Fuck this.

I’m sad, okay? I’m fucking sad. I cried all day today and I had a wart removed from my eye yesterday that I thought was a skin tag, so I had to cry with my head tilted like I was trying to get water out of my ear, so my salty tears wouldn’t fall into my wart wound and today just sucked. I hate social media right now. I hate how it’s changing me and I hate how it’s self-censoring me and I hate how I can’t even write a sentence like “I am sad because of social media” right now without background voices in my head going but say something nice because of all the people who support you and make sure that you don’t seem like you aren’t receptive to feedback because the internet is allowed to critique you and all of this other bullshit online toxic commentary shit that I’ve seen over the last year.

Online bullying is still around, and on TikTok it shows itself through a barrage of comments that all focus on morality and make you, truly, feel like shit. Like, take two naps during the day and cry outside of your wart wound shit.

The goal of asinine TikTok comments (and once again my background voices are going not all of them! some of them are lovely! and they are but I just need to get this rant out) anyway, the point of asinine TikTok comments are to make people feel like they are bad.

For my videos, it’s easy. I’m a bad person because I engage in celebrity gossip. And you like it! Until I say something about a celebrity you adore and then suddenly what I’m doing is dangerous and celebrities are people too! And now I’m harmful and have no empathy for celebrities and I should be ashamed of what I’m doing.

Emily Mariko was just a girl making salmon with rice on the internet. Until she blew up, and then suddenly she was problematic because her apartment is nice and her life “looks like it’s easy” and it turned into this entire discussion on privilege. Don’t you see, Emily? You thought you were cooking salmon, but actually what you were doing instead was actively making people feel bad! You’re horrible!

Addison Rae was just a girl dancing on TikTok. Until she blew up, and suddenly it’s horrible of her to not be using her platform for a greater good and speaking out on every single issue that matters to Timothy938 and MittenLover03. Don’t you see, Addison? You thought you were dancing on TikTok, but actually what you were doing instead was actively ignoring suffering and hurting people! You’re horrible!

A girl shows her nice apartment, she’s tone-deaf for flaunting privilege. Someone does a funny walk down the street, they’re being ableist. Someone says they don’t like Anderson Cooper and they’re homophobic, if you don’t like Olivia Rodrigo you’re misogynistic, if you don’t like Olivia Rodrigo and you’re a woman - no problem, you’re now “reeking of internal misogyny.”

I miss the days of someone just simply saying I was ugly. Or that they didn’t like my video.

Instead, people watch anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes of a video, and deem others with a verdict: good, or evil.

And it’s this tantalizing fucking trap because I’ve fallen into it myself! I recently removed a video I made about Axel Webber because I looked at it with new eyes and I was like “Jesus Christ, I’m trying to make a case for Axel Webber being harmful when he’s really just a kid cutting a sweet potato with a plastic knife.”

The chronically-online-TikTok-lingo disease got to me! And Axel, I’m sorry and I hope that you feel free to so much as eat a sweet potato with your bare fucking teeth if you want to!

God, it’s a drug, isn’t it? And I’m not talking about TikTok. I’m talking about feeling high and mighty. Feeling real fucking good about yourself. Feeling like a good person. It’s addictive. It’s a stroke to the ego at the stroke of a keyboard and even though they’re just words online, they do make you feel good. You feel good liking a comment that other people have liked before you. It’s just a bunch of stupid code coming out of a blue-light device, but it makes you feel good.

The only reason I post about celebrities is because I know they’re never going to see my videos. The order of ranking goes like this:

  1. Traditional media

  2. Other celebrities

  3. Critics for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, etc.

  4. Media we consume (remember when Taylor Swift was upset by the Ginny and Georgia episode?)

  5. TMZ

  6. People magazine

  7. Page Six

  8. US Weekly, Star Magazine and others

  9. Perez Hilton

  10. Those YouTube channels that cover pop culture like they’re a news channel

  11. People directly tweeting at those celebrities and sending things to them

  12. HelloTefi

  13. Literally any other pop culture TikTok with more than +320k followers (there’s a lot of them)

  14. Blind item websites

  15. Me

So when people comment on my video “celebrities are people too! do not say anything bad about them!” I just think to myself…sure, I could stop making content. But good god, my impact in this game is so small.

And when people comment “you stupid thin-lipped bitch, your videos are so harmful you are literally hurting these peoples lives they are people too!” I think to myself…my videos aren’t hurting celebrities because they aren’t seeing them, but this comment…I did see…and you did send it directly to me…and you’re right, it did hurt.

Honestly, I’m just not cut out for being a ‘known person online.’ I have this horrible triad of:

  1. Being deeply sensitive

  2. Wanting to please and be liked by everyone

  3. Being very opinionated and not being able to shut the fuck up about it

And #3 gets me massively in trouble because we’re all opinionated but I am also #1 and #2 so I can’t handle people in my inbox telling me - quite literally - to “go kill your self.”

And look, it would be one thing to be like, “oh wah, I can’t take the hate online, mean comments are making me stop! I’m not strong enough for them!” but the thing that’s troubling me the most is the Axel Webber of it all. The more I’m around this mindset, the more it leeches into me.

Let me be raw with you. (Although I started the post with a mention of violent diarrhea so I think rawness has been throughout.) If I see a TikTok of a girl being really cute online, I do get envious. And when I open up the comment section, I sometimes get a bit satisfied seeing comments of “you think you’re so hot, huh?”

Of course I would never write that shit. I’m not that unwell. But I can feel this rot inside of me by just participating in being online.

Victoria Paris is a girl who has done nothing wrong at all but I find myself kind of bothered by her TikToks. I have no fucking clue why. There are people bothered by mine, it’s human, sometimes we are just bitchy and petty and don’t like people for no reason.

I would never write a mean comment on Victoria’s page. But I have searched up mean comments about her on Reddit. I have read discourse online where people make these monumental stretches about why she’s a bad person and found myself going, however small, “oh damn! okay, good! now I have a reason to not like her!”

What in the fuck is wrong with me! Also if instead of staying online and going from TikTok to Reddit to find that thread…if instead I maybe put the fucking phone down I could have been introspective and been like, hmm, maybe I don’t like Victoria just because she’s a little loud and I feel like she’s shouting at me, but I will say I love how bold and unique she is and her body is absolutely insane it’s perfect and then I could have moved on with my day like a normal person.

And maybe I’m alone in this thinking and I just bared my ugly soul for the world to see but I truly think we are all suffering from this and good god we need to save ourselves before there’s nothing left of our brains. I know I sound dramatic, but whatever. I have no brain cells left after crying away from my wart wound all day today.

Being online (especially on fucking TikTok) gets its claws into you. It rots your brain.

Oh, and if you’re like well Shannon you just use TikTok too much that’s why you’re saying this, just use TikTok in moderation like I do and you’ll be fine if you’re saying that honestly go fuck yourself you’re lying! No one has a casual relationship with TikTok. It’s one of the most addictive apps out there and as I type this right now there are multiple email threads going around at TikTok HQ where UX designers are working on how to get you to stay on there for even longer. If you have TikTok, you most likely also have a bad relationship with TikTok.

And if you’re like damn girl just quit TikTok in silence you don’t need to make a blog post about it then go fuck yourself as well! This is what being a creator has done to me, I can’t even think or type a sentence about my thoughts or feelings without hearing the background echo of what a nasty online commenter would say in response.

So clearly I’m doing worse than you - whoever is reading this, if you even made it this far - hahaha. I’m sure most people are like me before I blew up on the app: you know you use TikTok too much, but it’s fun and you don’t want to stop. I think people who create on the app have a very different experience.

But whatever, this is enough online bitching for one day - or maybe even a week. I do feel better writing this. I’m going to give up TikTok for some time, and there’s a very small chance that I will make 1 video a week promoting the podcast, and exit out of the app until the next week, but who knows…

All I know is that I spent the day pattering and napping and staring at my curtains for hours and crying while avoiding my wart wound and nothing is worth that.

And if you’re on TikTok, I hope you get what you want out of it. I got a big following (and a podcast, and connection with some of the most incredible people I’ve met and a community that I hope to god I can stay connected with on Instagram or here or anywhere else) but out of TikTok I also got high anxiety, depression, self-censoring of my own thoughts and feelings, death threats, a ruined attention span, and I guess someone somewhere also has a treasure trove of data I signed away, too.

Well, whatever. At the very least, I have very nice curtains. I hope I never have to stare at them again.