“There are communities for everything and that includes f**king hating yourself”: Experts say TikTok communities can encourage poor mental health
- Grace Cameron
- Feb 27
- 11 min read
Updated: Mar 6
There is no doubt that TikTok has revolutionised modern society, but the domineering programme has revealed its toxic mechanisms by inciting users with poor mental health in the wrong direction. Grace Cameron investigates how TikTok can trap users amongst inescapable and harmful communities.
By: Grace Cameron
Reader discretion: mentions eating disorders, depression and anxiety
[This story was originally published June 2024]
It’s no argument the social media space has transformed drastically over the past 4 years. TikTok has overtaken the media space with one-billion active global users - drawing users in through an intricate and scarily accurate algorithm. This algorithm quickly facilitated a collection of unique subcultures with niche, like-minded groups of individuals flocking together within the app to share and exchange similar ideas.
But what happens when these groups are centred around unhealthy ideas? Say depression, anxiety or eating disorders? While yes, these groups can provide safe and judgment-free spaces, Brisbane experts are warning social media users against joining these communities.
The Problem
Associate social science professor at the University of Queensland, Dr Renee Zahnow, says these groups are only pulling people further into their mental illnesses, creating “echo chambers” obsessed with their own negative thoughts.
“What it does is it creates a sense of belonging around mental illness,” Dr Zahnow said.
“Their collective identity has become poor mental health, something that can bring people together and be celebrated.
“So, there's a concern that if the sense of belonging comes from poor mental health, then they're hindering themselves and others from recovery, because if they feel better then they lose that sense of belonging.”
Dr Zahnow says it’s also an issue due to these online spaces being wildly unregulated.
“When mentally ill people engage with each other in support groups, we ensure that there is someone moderating the conversations,” Dr Zahnow said.
“There is always a group counsellor or someone who is making sure the language and mood remains focused on recovery so everyone can sort of talk about their own experience, but also start strategising as a group how they might move out of that experience.
“What these online communities are doing is just celebrating trauma, they are just sinking into this shared sense of belonging.
“TikTok is not the place to get assistance, it is not the place where you can get help.”
The Effect
Apprentice chef and avid TikTok user, Reece Sutton, 22, is one of the many young adults who have found themselves sucked into the pipeline of depressing online communities.
Sutton has been diagnosed with depression and says he is constantly interacting with negative reminders of his mental illness that send him down rabbit holes and cause him to spiral.
“There are communities for everything and that includes fucking hating yourself, which is annoying because then you’re just getting comforted by that (negative ideas),” Sutton said.
Sutton says he has tried to remove himself from these communities, but constantly finds himself being sucked back into the algorithm.
“It is very hard to remove yourself from something that everyone's involved in because everyone's on TikTok, it’s that fear of missing out, it really is a legitimate addiction,” Sutton said.
Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds and author of TikTok: Creativity and Culture in Short Video, Dr Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, says the app’s addictiveness boils down to its renowned algorithm.
“One of the things that makes Tik Tok so unique as a social media platform is the fact that the parent company, ByteDance, began as an algorithmic recommender system,” Dr Kaye said.
“So, what they were trying to build was this really powerful, really accurate recommender system that could take all these different points of data, synthesize them together really quickly, and update recommendations that are fed to you in real time.
Dr Kaye says ByteDance found the system was highly popular and effective, so they launched it with TikTok internationally in 2017.
ByteDance was already using highly developed algorithmic technology at its release, which is what made user’s feed recommendations seem “scarily accurate”.
“Another thing is you're giving it permission to access various different things in your personal device and there are ways that you can, of course, limit those permissions,” Dr Kaye said.
“But I think when you're searching for things on Google, or if you're watching something on YouTube, there might be ways that that metadata is being exchanged with TikTok.”
According to a 2024 study from Boston University, 30% to 50% the first 1000 videos a TikTok user sees are based of their past interests, meaning TikTok instantly picks up on the kind of content users choose to interact with.
“Also, they're looking at not just your content but they're looking at people that you follow, what kinds of things they're watching the whole way through, they're looking at things that are popular in your area geographically and of course the impressions that you're leaving when you're browsing through TikTok," Dr Kaye said.
Dr Kaye says because of all these factors, it makes sense that if someone is googling mental health symptoms, is listening to sad music or has friends engaging with mentally unwell content, they are easily sucked into these communities.
Now, the toxicity of these communities doesn’t stop at depressing content but continues into the messages certain TikTok users communicate.
Holly Strang, a 20-year-old university student, has been diagnosed with anxiety and says the act of “trauma dumping” on TikTok has made her feel as if her own mental health is not valid or worthy of empathy.
The term “trauma dumping” emerged around 2021 and is defined by Talkspace as “unloading traumatic experiences on others without warning or invitation”. Thus, this term is used to define when TikTok users share trauma-filled stories online. However, as Strang expresses, these stories turn into a form of bragging as opposed to mental health awareness.
“I think there's a lot of negative energy spread on TikTok,” Strang said.
“Everyone's talking about bad things that are happening and no one's really spreading positivity.
“We're always made to feel like there's always something worse going on in someone else’s life and that we need to stop focusing on ourselves and focus on other people who are doing it tougher, which is right in some cases, but we still need to focus on us too.
“I think our society has become so obsessed with trying to beat each other at whose mental illnesses are worse that we've just stopped listening to other people and really appreciating each other's feelings.”
Where did it start?
Negative communities did not begin with TikTok, but have existed since the dawn of the internet, gradually growing in toxicity over time.
Dr Kaye says TikTok is just easier to access, and toxic communities existed long before short-form video content.
“When you think about people trying to find community on places like Tumblr, it was just another place where there happened to be a critical mass of young people who are sharing their stories and experiences,” Dr Kaye said.
The popularity of Tumblr saw the construction of the “pro-ana” community which promoted anorexia in young women, many sharing tips and recommendations on how to eat less and maintain a thinner physique.
Clara (an alias has been used at request), an 18-year-old student, says engaging with these communities caused her to develop an eating disorder.
“I think around year nine is when it all started for me,” Clara said.
“I think a lot of girls are looking for an identity around that time so a lot of them can cling to negative ideas.”
Clara says that while using Tumblr, she found various harmful trends that would encourage her to eat less.
“There was a trend called ‘meanspo’, which was basically girls calling eachother insults like ‘fat pigs’ so they wouldn’t eat that day,”Clara said.
Clara says she also recalls seeing “pro-ana buddies” where pro-ana Tumblr users would team up and encourage eachother to eat less over text messages.
Clara says she saw these trends continue onto TikTok, with trends like “body checking” and “#whatieatinaday” promoting a negative body image.
“I’m not as effected by pro-ana content today, but I can still notice it all over social media,” Clara said.
Operations manager, Jonty Harris, 27, says he also experienced disordered eating through TikTok communities, specifically due to “GymTok”.
GymTok is the TikTok community surrounding gym workouts, culture, tips and most notably, dieting.
“There’s a lot of negativity around stuff like dieting and macros,” Harris said.
“There will be people saying stuff like ‘oh, I haven’t eaten a donut in two years and that’s why I’m better than you.’
“I think this really planted the seed for me thinking I wasn’t good enough and that the tiniest amount of food could be detrimental to me.”
Harris says he was on GymTok for a about three years before he realised he had to make a change.
“I just had to change my algorithm. Whenever something gym related popped up, I said that wasn't interested," Harris said.
“Then I went through all the gym hashtags and banned them."
Senior anthropologist lecturer, Dr Mair Underwood, spent several years observing body-building culture in men and how social media affects them.
Dr Underwood says she found social media creates a risky environment for bodybuilder’s mental health, these spaces becoming echo chambers for harmful ideas like dieting and steroid use.
“Their suffering is almost worn like a badge of honour,” Dr Underwood said.
“I heard one bodybuilder say that bodybuilding in online communities and trying to avoid mental health issues is like living in a bar and trying not to be an alcoholic.
“You know, it's possible, but such a high-risk environment for mental health that he wouldn't recommend bodybuilding to most people.”
Dr Underwood says the state of the online bodybuilding community translates to the state of online communities as a whole.
“I think people in general can really identify with their trauma and their victimhood becomes a huge part of their identity,” Dr Underwood said.
While these problematic trends were popular throughout the 2010’s and all over the internet, their popularity rose during 2020. Dr Zahnow says it’s because of the pandemic and how it caused people to be stuck with their own thoughts and emotions.
“Before 2020 we were busy doing other things, right? We're out going to school, we're going to the shops, we’re playing sport, but when I'm sitting at home in my room, I am stuck in my head,” Dr Zahnow said.
“So, I have all these thoughts about myself and then I'm like, oh, my life isn't that great, is it? I'm just sitting at home in mum and dad's house, that sort of sucks, and then what am I going to do with those thoughts? I'm going to type them online.
“So, what we need to do now is drop the screens and start socializing again outside, we need to move away from our heads and get back into the social events we used to love."
The Solution
So how do those stuck in these communities pull themselves out of these online holes? Dr Zahnow says it’s about expanding your identity and centring your personality around healthier communities.
“We have to think about people’s identities like they’re a pizza,” Dr Zahnow said.
Dr Zahnow says that currently, so many people’s identities or “pizzas” are their mental unwellness. She says that rather than taking that pizza away, it's about adding in other pieces and that people need to start thinking about what else might interest them so they can join other TikTok groups.
“Because dropping something means you've got no identity and that's a really scary, awful place to be, so rather than dropping something, we think about adding, we add new pieces, and by adding new pieces, we eventually find something that is better to be our primary kind of identity other than illness," Dr Zahnow said.
“Maybe they like animals, so, they could join a group that's about dogs. Maybe they like books, they could join a group that's about that. Maybe they like a particular type of music. They can add a piece that's about that. So, it's about adding other pieces that eventually will just take over that slice.
“People just need to unshackle themselves from that collective identity and find something else to enjoy.”
Some TikTok communities have already attempted this crossover to more light-hearted media consumption. Around March of 2023, a new trend emerged called “Hopecore”.
Hopecore intended to motivate people out of their depressed internet holes and push them toward a more optimistic mindset. However, for many users, the interest in Hopecore fizzled out and they soon returned to their regular negative media consumption.
Sutton says that he finds negative content more engaging and struggles to find entertainment in positivity.
“I was on hope-core for a bit, but I just find sad stuff more relatable, so I’m drawn to it more I guess," Sutton said.
“I do like the pizza analogy though, it’s like I’ve just got to change the toppings, because at the moment the toppings are all negative stuff.”
Strang also agreed that the pizza analogy would be an effective way to handle toxic online communities. Strang says she has done this before and saw a positive result when expanding her identity outside of her anxiety.
“I decided to get more involved in work and I decided to put more hours into uni and it's paid off,” Strang said.
“I'm feeling a lot better, like definitely a lot more stable than I was when I was just on TikTok all day.
“I think it's just using more of my time to do things that I enjoy and taking away the constant negative media that's always shoved in your face whenever you're on social media.”
Despite these issues however, some experts say these communities provide a supportive environment for those struggling with their mental health.
Dr Underwood says mentally unwell people are often socially isolated, so the internet provides a safe and accessible place that reduces harm.
“We need to look at both sides of the impact of social media on mental health,” Dr Underwood said.
“Yes, they can be real risk environments, but often those very same environments also can be reducing harm.
“The best thing we as a society can do is to try and shift the balance so that they are reducing harm more than they're causing harm because there's no way we're ever going to get rid of these sorts of communities.
“My argument in my research is that we need to engage with these communities and pool resources, combine our knowledge, the professional knowledge and the insider knowledge of the community members to come up with harm reduction strategies that make sense to people in the community.”
To Summarise
So, what is the right approach to mental health on TikTok? Are the communities surrounding mental health as emotionally deadly as they seem? With experts torn on the effect of these online communities, users are left wondering if their TikTok is to blame for their increasingly poor mental health.
The minimum age for using social media in Australia is 13, but many are campaigning for tougher age restriction. Last month, Prime Minister Anothony Albanese addressed the eSafety Commissioner’s calls for further limitations on children’s access to social media.
These limitations included budgeting for a trial on age verification that would ensure children are not using social media. This is all due to the increasingly high rates of mental health issues, with many turning to blame apps like TikTok for the steep increase.
Mental health disorders amongst young people have increased by 50% in the last 15 years, with 40% of 16 to 24-year-olds experiencing a mental health disorder between 2020 and 2022. With these numbers, it is no wonder experts are looking to uncover the root of these rising statistics and stop them at the source. In the meantime, it is up to the users themselves to take responsibility and perhaps look into reshaping their online identities.
As an editor at Queensland Lens, Grace Cameron is fiercely dedicated to independent and local news. Grace is a recent QUT journalism graduate, former copywriter and radio journalist whose interests include the live music scene, taboo subjects and investigative reporting. Grace is ecstatic to be working alongside a group of dedicated journalists who are similarly passionate about not only local news but giving aspiring journalists a voice and opportunity to share their work.
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