The Rise of Spiritual Content on TikTok

In this week's episode, I explore the spiritual-adjacent corners of TikTok like manifestation-tok, tarot-tok, psychic-tok, and astrology-tok, and how this content can lead users down a harmful pipeline. I look at how young people, Gen Z in particular, are turning to new-age spirituality to make sense of the world and how the TikTok algorithm contributes to increasingly extreme beliefs in this area. I also share case studies of users who have devolved into "spiritual psychosis" (an unofficial term) after becoming obsessed with this side of TikTok. 

Timestamps:

4:05 Why I wanted to talk about this topic

5:13 Overview of the spiritual side of TikTok

10:30 Explaining “spiritual psychosis”

13:36 Creator case studies

17:44 The role of TikTok’s algorithm

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Sources:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/astrology-is-at-the-center-of-danielle-johnson-murder-case-but-any-spiritual-practice-can-incite-violence

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-19/what-struggles-led-danielle-johnson-to-kill-family

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/woman-who-threw-her-daughters-onto-405-traffic-claimed-to-be-astrologer-i-team-confirms/3384844/?ref=popsugar.com&=___psv__p_49354925__t_w_ 

https://www.popsugar.com/astrology/spiritual-psychosis-signs-49354925

https://screenshot-media.com/gen-z-news/tiktok-spiritual-psychosis/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jgJZGJWwjQ

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/30/tiktok-mental-health-social-media

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/tics-and-tiktok-can-social-media-trigger-illness-202201182670

https://sxustudentmedia.com/new-age-spirituality-and-spiritual-psychosis/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic

https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/schizophrenia-schizophrenic-tiktok-hashtag-ban

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22832827/manifesting-tiktok-astroworld-conspiracy-qanon-religion

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/fringe-left-alt-right-share-beliefs-white-power-movement/672454/

https://time.com/6083293/astrology-apps-personalized/ 

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/01/14/measuring-religion-in-pew-research-centers-american-trends-panel/ 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbn43/manifesting-is-gen-zs-answer-to-new-age-spirituality 

https://theconversation.com/lucky-girl-syndrome-the-potential-dark-side-of-tiktoks-extreme-positive-thinking-trend-198439 

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22832827/manifesting-tiktok-astroworld-conspiracy-qanon-religion 

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23580200/lucky-girl-syndrome-tiktok-manifesting 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8462234/ 

https://www.tiktok.com/@alliepbackupaccount/video/7357763096598826282?_r=1&_t=8lZJiR5s80o

https://www.tiktok.com/@neomudang/video/7147845030022057262?_r=1&_t=8lkuc1M7w6i  

https://www.tiktok.com/@jasminesgarden23/video/7148037000959085870?_r=1&_t=8lkuep9Adpx 

https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-infant-freeway-homicide-investigation-eclipse-681f9434051fd80187677b2f67787b3a