if you don't like this post you will have a horrible day: superstitions on TikTok

Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Always throw spilled salt over your shoulder. Never cross paths with a black cat. 

Superstitions, a form of "magical" thinking, have existed for centuries, most probably passed down through word of mouth. Their popularity can be attributed to humans' ability to create patterns, or believe in connections between two or more seemingly unrelated occurrences. For example, there is no concrete proof that stepping in front of a black cat will cause whatever forces up there to wreak havoc, but that does not stop many from avoiding them. The root of these superstitions seems to be mainly fear, but also hope. Breaking a mirror, for one, is considered incredibly bad luck—the reasons for treating mirrors gingerly, then, would grow from fear of the bad luck that is to come. However, finding a penny and picking it up is supposed to give you good luck. Seeing and storing a lone penny would then be a product of hope. 

With the growth of technology and related advancements, many practices were adapted to have an online form. Sharing physical photos turned into posting them for the world to see; face-to-face job interviews or searches found an alternate place on platforms like Linkedin or Indeed. A transfer I thought was unexpected however, was the adaptation of superstitions. Not that the classic superstitions don't matter now—I still see children hop over sidewalk cracks—but new ones have a particularly unique face. 

Let's consider TikTok, for example. The social media platform has exploded in popularity over the last couple of years. Viral trends from TikTok will leak into everyday life, so even those who don't have a TikTok will see remnants of its impact. 

Recently, superstitions have taken TikTok by storm. A classic example tiktok will have some random video in the background—anything from a person to picturesque nature, primarily green forests and bright blue oceans [bonus points if it's during sunrise or sunset]. The account name will either be a completely indistinguishable series of numbers, letters, and symbols, or some play on words of "manifestation," "spirituality," etc. The audio in the background can either be calming, meditative, spiritual music or the latest trending snippet from the current pop song of the week. The text will establish a cause and effect relationship. The effect will either be positive or negative, but the outcome will hinge on the poor TikTok scroller's interaction with the video. This interaction can be liking the video [pressing the heart-shaped button], liking a comment, commenting on the video, putting the video in your favorites folder, sharing the video, following the account, and the list goes on.

A popular such interaction, which videos will often call out specifically for the user to accomplish, will be "using the sound." This just means creating your own video with the sound and either posting it or saving it to your drafts. According to the creator of the video, and the hundreds of thousands of users who buy into this conditional, interacting with some part of the video will either bring you something good or relieve you of a previously predestined, negative occurrence.

Tomorrow you will feel a pain in your body, but when you look in the mirror you will have the waist you want, the face you dream of, and clear skin. Interact 2x to claim and use this sound (it can be private)

pov: you skipped so now you will have the worst day on Thursday and he will hurt you, use this sound to unclaim

your mum will have the most amazing news told to her tomorrow all you have to do is use this sound 4x notifications to claim

These videos feature messages similar to the phrases in italics above [yes, these are from real videos; no, I am not giving the account name because my perspective on this is wholeheartedly negative]. I am not joking when I say that I cannot escape these videos, no matter how much I press the "Not Interested" button. Believe me, I have tried. 

Personally, I don't believe in any of these videos. I don't care whether someone says they promote manifestation or spirituality. You cannot possibly tell me and expect me to believe that by liking or commenting on one of the millions of TikTok videos made a day, my life will change.

Regardless, this opinion isn't about whether I think these videos mean anything or not. I am skeptical of the purpose of those who make these videos, and the benefits they receive. The curious thing is that the video creators themselves will tell the users to interact with their videos, and as is the case with every social media platform ever and their algorithm, increased user interactions increases the video's engagement. And the higher the video's engagement, the more the platform's algorithm spreads it to newer and newer users, expanding the base of people the video and account are shown to [and scaring more people with the weirdly ominous predictions, but more on that later]. The creators of the video see no benefit from your apparently newfound prospect of happiness or lack of unhappiness, but they do see benefit from you interacting with their video. This all leads me to think of how exploitative these videos are, especially because increased engagement increases followers, and can bring real money as a part of TikTok's creator fund. These videos just prey on people's fear and hope in order to bring in loads of likes or a couple cents [the creator fund pays close to literally nothing, but my point still stands because it's money nonetheless]. It's an endless cycle, because the people that see the video interact with it, and then more people see it who interact with it, and then more people, and then more people.

And we're not done—there's one more horrible level to this entire mess, and it involves the users who buy into the superstitions. Some of these people will engage with the tiktok through using the sound themselves, but they will post it for everyone to see. These people will either spread their success stories [oh my god I used this sound and I got a million dollars!] or regrets [skipped the claim and broke my ankle]. Some of these videos will even include a list of everything on the line regarding this sound—according to the original videos.

Parents dying, hair falling out, acne, bfs leaving, not skipping!!

Don't skip this sound Just got in the biggest argument with my dad, I'm grounded for 2 months, my phone is taken away, I can't play spring basketball and he wants to send me back to Ontario

I used this sound two days ago and today at school I found my phone that I lost a month ago in THE SNOW AND ITS CHARGING!!! Use this sound.

This brings me to my final worry about this whole situation. When I first saw these videos, I used to "claim" some of the good fortune every once in a while, even used a sound once or twice. It wasn't because I necessarily believed in anything that happened—in fact, whenever there was a video specifically marketing good things to come, or hope, I never engaged with it. However, sometimes when there were videos that predicted pain or misfortune I would interact with it because I feared that I, or someone close to me would suffer. I believe that these videos prey on everyone but specifically those with anxiety; the fact that the creators of those videos benefit from whatever engagement they receive leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially because some of the misfortune they market is truly horrible. Parents dying? Something that incites that kind of fear, especially in a mostly irrational way—let's admit it—is an awful thing to spread. And I'll be one to say that I've had horrible weeks when I would claim videos promising benefit, and have had good weeks when I would not use the sound for videos warning about the opposite. So, again, I don't believe in it. 

Superstitions in extremity can have real consequences on mental health. Professionals draw correlations to severe anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). If you see enough of these videos and use enough of these sounds, enough time will pass that something good is bound to happen to you. It's easy and human nature to draw these patterns [where they might not exist] and repeat the "lucky" motions over and over again. It's confirmation bias in action. Considering the fact that the more one engages with a tiktok video more videos of that type appear to them, imagine how many videos someone particularly superstitious might have with the same theme. Especially because these videos are on a platform geared towards the younger generations, at a period of time where it may feel like one doesn't have much control in their own lives, they may be more susceptible to engaging with these videos to feel some semblance of control [though the reality is the exact opposite]. 

This is not a critique of those who use these videos and truly believe they work for them. If that is how they find hope and they are interacting with superstitions in a healthy way, I have no right to intrude on that. It's simply interesting to me how the transfer of superstitions to social media platforms, like the featured TikTok, brings so many more layers to the classic equation of fear and hope. Also, I really want to talk to someone who makes these tiktoks. How do they know what consequence or what good is going to come out of a sound? How do they decide to what extent the user has to engage with the video/sound? Maybe if I get answers to these questions I'll become a believer [probably not].