TikTok Trends Are Destroying Your Mental Health

TikTok Trends Are Destroying Your Mental Health

[Music] This is not normal, right? This person probably has a lot of problems. And I can’t believe that people are making this a trend. A troubling trend on Tik Tok that could leave some teens believing they have a serious mental disorder. Just by looking at some of the recent Tik Tok trends, and you’ll see just how toxic this app can really be. Ah, yes, Tik Tok trends. Some can be pretty funny, others can be straight up dangerous. The worst ones are the trends that seem harmless but are quietly messing with your mental health. We’ll break down specific trends starting with strange ones and work our way to the ones doing the most damage. All right, guys. So, it is almost the end of the year. And my goal is still the same. Increase the number of videos we put out without sacrificing quality. And it would mean the world if you subscribe and I will do my very best to make this goal a reality for you guys. I’m Visual Venture and you are awesome. The homeless man photo. The AI homeless man prank went viral in mid 2025. I mean, when I saw this myself, I thought it was pretty funny, but we can’t ignore that it caused psychological damage for some. Here’s how it worked. Teenagers took photos of their bedrooms or living rooms. Then they used AI to edit the images, making it look like a stranger was inside their home, but not just any stranger, a homeless man. The results looked disturbingly real. Once the edits were ready, the prankster sent the images to their parents and then sending it to a family member, leading them to think someone broke into their home. What followed was panic. Parents thought the photo was real. Some were scared, others were mad, and a lot of them called 911. Here’s one Tik Tocker showing cops leave their house after pranking their mom, saying the homeless man was asking for money. That was the entire concept. Scare your parents with a fake AI intruder, filmed their reaction, and post it online. The joke is supposed to be the reaction people have to the pictures. Tik Tok loved it. Soon the hashtag homelessman prank reached 124 million views. Every new post tried to push the limits. They made the homeless intruder more threatening and more realistic. Soon it went beyond parents. Tik Tockers pranked their spouses or roommates. And as usual, they filmed the reactions. Why would you let somebody into the house? Even if somebody come to the house and say, “Oh, they are my friend or something.” You attend to them outside the house. Some even created elaborate backstories about why they let the homeless man in. They were just trying to get a more interesting reaction. Who is at the house? I felt really bad because this guy knocked on the door and he looked like he was in need of help. Really wanted water. So, I let him come in for a little bit. But as the video spread, experts began warning about an invisible danger. This trend didn’t just scare people for a few seconds. It obviously caused a serious mental distress. I mean, just imagine yourself in the situation. When someone believes an intruder has entered their home, they panic. Some people experienced full-blown panic attacks before realizing the image wasn’t real. But for the sake of YouTube, we can’t show those extreme reactions, but they are on TikTok. For older adults, like most parents in these videos, extreme stress can trigger heart problems. But the harshest warning came from law enforcement. Police called the prank stupid and potentially dangerous. Let’s just say you do respond and you have a weapon. uh somebody can get seriously your own personal family member can be seriously injured. Even with all the warnings, the trend didn’t stop. So, the police took action. In October 2025, Ohio police arrested two teenagers for faking home invasions with the AI homeless photo. In both cases, police were called to the home only to realize it was a joke. The sheriff’s office made it clear this behavior is not a prank. It’s a crime. And AI seems to be trying to stop this homeless man prank, too. When NBC reporters asked Chad GBT to generate an image of a homeless man in my home, it refused to. Chat GBT replied, “I can’t create or edit an image like that. It would involve depicting a real or implied person in a situation of homelessness. If AI tools keep blocking these kinds of requests, this trend might disappear soon, but the psychological harm it causes to homeowners won’t disappear so easily.” This next trend turned no sleeping into something people should aspire to do. The toxic productivity trend. Toxic productivity is the idea that you must be productive at all times. It’s about not letting a minute of your day be wasted. And Tik Tok is full of videos pushing that message. Okay, so let me be clear. I am all for productivity. I believe that in order to achieve something great, you got to work really hard and really smart. Being productive is a great thing, but toxic productivity is something else. People push themselves to unhealthy extremes in order to accomplish more, often at the expense of their health. and you do not want to sacrifice health. But Tik Tok’s algorithm kept feeding the productivity obsession. Soon people were being shown endless videos with extreme productivity hacks. Tik Tockers giving productivity advice probably mean well. The problem starts when viewers take those routines and push them too far. The perfect example is the sleep is for the week mindset. These videos show people staying up all night to work, bragging about not needing rest. Losing sleep becomes a badge of honor. And it gets worse. There’s a trend called 5 to 9 before your 9 to5. You’ll see people trying to finish a full list of tasks before at 9:00 a.m. By the time their actual job begins at 9:00, they’re already exhausted. Last but not least, the that girl trend. The hashtag amassed over 1.6 billion views. The trend encouraged women to become hyperproductive girl bosses. I mean, it sounds respectable, but there is one major problem. Most people can’t sustain that kind of schedule without burning out. Eventually, creators started speaking out. They made videos and blogs rejecting toxic productivity. One writer put it this way. When you push yourself too hard for too long, it’s easy to start measuring your self-worth by how much you can get done. You start to feel guilty for wasting time on activities you used to enjoy. And I’m guilty of this, too. Spending time with friends feels like falling behind. Even sleeping starts to feel like a waste of time. And the result, burnout. Burnout isn’t just feeling tired. It’s a complete physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. Many who tried the that girl lifestyle reported feeling exhausted, unhappy, and overwhelmed with guilt. More creators join the conversation calling for change. Issue is more around this kind of societal acceptance we’ve have of prioritizing productivity, prioritizing self-care in a way that’s actually kind of destructive. To make things worse, many of these perfect productivity videos aren’t even real. They’re staged to look impressive. people who post these very aspirational versions of themselves online and then expect us to believe that that’s who they are. Again, I believe that hard and smart work is the key to success. But real productivity requires balance. You work hard, then you rest. You give your best, then you recover. And fun fact, the best ideas come when you’re not working. This next trend made exploding with anger look normal. Crashing out. For a long time, crash out meant going to sleep very quickly because you were exhausted. But in early 2024, Tik Tok gave it an entirely different meaning. Rashing out is when you lose all self-control with no care in the world about any of the consequences to follow. For those of you who don’t know, simply put, it means becoming suddenly uncontrollably angry or distressed. On Tik Tok, this wasn’t just slang. It was a trend that made young people think violent outbursts were okay. In 2024, videos with the hashtag crashing out spread across Tik Tok. They encouraged reckless behavior. The message was simple. Stop holding it together. Lose control. This trend took off. Soon Tik Tok was filled with videos of people screaming, having emotional outbursts or acting erratic. People recorded themselves breaking down over work, school, or relationships. They were crashing out for views. Within months, the hashtag crossed 1 billion views. This trend was horrible for mental health, teaching people that it’s okay to act like this. Therapists said the trend made people absorb the idea that emotional crashing is a valid coping strategy. In other words, it rewired how people handled stress. Instead of learning self-control, people were performing their meltdowns for an audience. Despite the warnings, the trend only got more popular. The more dramatic the meltdown, the more engagement it got. The crashing out trend even had its own anthem. It was a viral sound called Let It Burn. The lyrics told listeners to burn it all to the ground, and that’s exactly what many did. Crashing out video showed people making impulsive and destructive decisions. They quit their jobs without notice, ended friendships, and lashed out at family. Each crash out brought only a temporary wave of relief, attention, and validation. But it also left behind real consequences, broken relationships, lost opportunities, and lasting regret. It’s normal to feel frustrated, but crashing out is not the solution. When you’re faced with a problem, use your brain, not your heart. Up next is a trend that left thousands of people living in constant fear. The Kia challenge. The Kia challenge started with a video of someone breaking the law. On July 2022, a Tik Tocker filmed themselves hotwiring a car. The trick only worked for Kia and Hyundai models, but it was shockingly simple. Filming a crime was reckless enough, but what came next was far worse. People were inspired to do the same. A group of young boys saw the clip and decided to try it. They filmed themselves hotwiring cars and driving off. They even gave themselves a nickname. They’re called the Tik Tok Kia Boys. Teens like these four stealing cars and using them to commit violent crimes. Soon, other young people joined in. Tik Tok was flooded with stolen car videos. They’re saying it is called the Kia Challenge. Uh it’s targeting cars leading to more thefts. The hashtag got millions of views. The damage wasn’t just the stolen cars, it was what it did to people’s minds. Kia and Hyundai owners were living with constant anxiety. Every morning began with the same question. and will my car be next? People check their driveways multiple times a day. Some had trouble sleeping at night. Others said they couldn’t focus at work because they kept thinking about their car. Psychologists have a name for this, hypervigilance. It’s when the brain stays on high alert, scanning for danger that might not even exist. And it’s mentally draining. That kind of fear changes people. They change the routines, avoid certain places, they stop feeling safe even at home. But the mental stress was worse for those whose cars were actually stolen. Researchers studied the psychological impact of car theft. One woman whose car was stolen said, “I have PTSD now. I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes crying with nervousness.” The news coverage made things worse. Tens of thousands of Kia and Hyundai were stolen. Some had their cars stolen twice in one day. A woman in Highland Park found out the hard way recently. Just a few days ago, in broad daylight, her 2017 Hyundai was stolen where it was parked outside her second job. Each new story reminded people that they could be next. It’s super frustrating. It sounds like now I have to be careful where I park and pay attention and it’s going to change where we’ll probably take my wife’s car. Some considered even selling their cars because of the constant paranoia. The police began cracking down on the crimes. Locally, Arlington police say they’ve made several arrests and stress auto theft in Texas is a felony, which many young people might not realize. Under heavy pressure, Tik Tok finally interveneed. They took down the videos showing how to hotwire cars. And most importantly, Tik Tok banned the Kia challenge. Slowly, the trend died out. And for the first time in months, car owners could finally relax again. This trend didn’t just steal cars. It stole peace of mind. It turned something as ordinary as owning a car into a source of anxiety. This next trend turned something completely natural into something terrifying. The aged filter. For the sake of your mental health, don’t waste your time using the Tik Tok aged filter. This headline warned people to stay away from a viral Tik Tok filter, and they had a good reason. The filter was called Aged, was released in 2023. The aged filter used AI to predict how users would look when they were old. It showed faces covered with wrinkles and saggy skin. At first, only a few users tried it. Then, celebrities joined in and it got really popular. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. Soon, everyone wanted to see their future face. The hashtag aged filter crossed 1.2 2 billion views. People laughed at the results. Some resembled their parents or grandparents. It was all fun until the tone shifted. The trend surprisingly made young people terrified of aging. Tik Tockers began panicking after using the age filter. One woman stared at her aged face in disbelief. Really, this is how I’m going to look like. The reaction wasn’t unusual. It was becoming the norm. One viral clip showed a 14-year-old kid explaining what they are doing to stay looking young. Another wrote, “I’m 18, but I feel like I’m past my prime. I only have so many years left before I start decaying and become ugly and sad.” Tik Tockers started making plans to stop themselves from looking old. Posts appeared everywhere. Getting Botox on Tuesday for the first time, bought $200 worth of skincare products after. Doctors warned people not to take the filter too seriously. Just seeing the filter alone should be an immediate button for you to then call your local provider and just immediately go and get Botox. But their warnings couldn’t slow the panic. Millions already believed that aging was something to prevent, not accept. Even worse, that fear spread to children. Kids who hadn’t finished growing up were now terrified of growing old. This next trend made people comfortable living in filth. Bedrotting. The bedrotting trend started in 2023. It was a simple concept. It meant spending much or even all of your day in bed by choice. People could scroll on their phones, listen to music, and eat junk food. The goal was to relax completely. No plans, no pressure, no productivity. I could rock in bed all day. Like there is nothing that is going to get me out of bed. For those who were stressed out, bedrotting seemed like the perfect escape. Videos showed cozy bedrooms, soft blankets, and snacks within reach. The hashtag bedrotting racked up an insane 900 million views. It looked harmless, even comforting. But the longer it went on, the darker it got. People weren’t just resting for a day or two. They were shutting down for weeks at a time. Bedrotting slowly turned into extreme laziness. It became an excuse to stay in bed for unreasonably long periods of time. The first sign of trouble was the filth. This is not normal, right? This person probably has a lot of problems. And I can’t believe that people are making this a trend. People were living in rooms that were flooded with trash. Photos showed rotting food, dirty clothes, and moldy dishes. They have cups laying around their room just filled with mold because they’re just bed rotting. Some slept on mattresses covered in junk. This trend convinced people that neglecting themselves was somehow healing. But the clutter and dirt weren’t the only dangers. The real harm came from the physical and mental damage caused by lying in bed for days. Bedrodders developed medical conditions usually seen in the elderly or bedridden. One Tik Tocker shared her story. So, I think I’m bedrotting a little too hard. I think I got bed sores on my hips. Bed sores form when pressure cuts off blood flow to the skin. They’re common in people who can’t move or turn themselves, not in healthy young adults. And that was only the physical side. The emotional effects were worse. People believed that bed rotting was supposed to relieve stress and improve mental health. But the opposite happened. Sleep doctors warned that bed rotting disrupted normal sleep cycles and that led to chronic fatigue and insomnia. And I don’t think it takes a doctor to know that laying in bed all day makes you feel terrible. Companies even began sponsoring bedrotting content. They turned it into a competition. Now, I am privileged to be the host of the second bed rot challenge by Cozy Earth. That company offered $25,000 to whoever could stay in bed the longest. By 2024, researchers discovered that nearly a quarter of Gen Z admitted to practicing bedrotting. Sadly, the trend is still active today. Everyone needs rest, but bed rotting isn’t recovery. It’s ruining your mental health. This next trend was supposed to heal people, but it broke them instead. I grieve different. In 2024, Tik Tok turned trauma into entertainment. It was part of a trend called I grieve different. Here’s how it worked. Users would start their videos by saying something positive about their lives. Then, when the music switched, they would reveal something tragic or disturbing. For instance, a girl said she met someone she was really interested in. That was the good news. Then the music switched and she listed all her mental issues that could ruin the relationship. The trend took off. Soon, Tik Tockers were confessing family secrets. Others shared deeply personal stories about illness and loss. Clip after clip followed the same formula. Good news first, horrible news second. It was a pain for views system. The more tragic the confession, the more engagement it got. The I agree different hashtag reached 130 million views. Soon psychologists saw the trend and they were horrified. The biggest reason was that people were monetizing the dark parts of their private lives. Tik Tockers were using this trend to humble brag about tragedy and they were getting paid for it. By July 2025, the media was sounding the alarm. They urged parents to stop their kids from joining the trend. This was not a healthy way to get through grief. The I grieve different trend taught people that they can get views for talking about personal issues. That’s not just inappropriate, it’s dark. Almost everyone heard about this next trend when it appeared, but they didn’t realize how dangerous it was. The bold glamour trend. In 2023, Tik Tok released a filter that made a lot of people really stress. It was called the bold glamour filter. The filter used AI to completely remold your face so that you can look like you’ve gotten a cosmetic makeover and plastic surgery. I want to see what the bold glamour filter looks like on me. A little nervous. Okay. Honestly, with one tap, users could have thinner noses, stronger jaw lines, and flawless skin. But that beauty came at a cost. When people turned the filter off, their real faces looked wrong to them. When they looked at a mirror, they only saw flaws. Thanks to Tik Tok, millions began hating their own faces. The filter went viral fast. It was used about 400 million times within months. At first, Tik Tockers tried it out for fun. This filter is actually insane. I mean, how do they do this? But after seeing their bold, glamour face, many wanted to look that way for real. Some tried to recreate the look using heavy makeup. I just did my makeup to try and match that crazy filter. This is literally the best I’ve ever done my makeup. But even the best makeup was no match. Let’s just see what it looks like when I put the filter back on. Yeah. No way. The Bold Glamour filter set an impossible standard. It reprogrammed people’s minds, making normal faces feel inadequate to the point that they considered an extreme solution. Plastic surgery. Tik Tockers filmed themselves considering plastic surgery. I’m normally against filters, but I’m showing this to a surgeon. Others mapped out full cosmetic procedures. How much filler would I need to look like the bold glamour filter? Soon, plastic surgeons noticed a disturbing pattern. Instead of patients bringing in photos of celebrities or models, they’re bringing in photos of themselves filtered. According to the study, nearly 60% of people considering cosmetic surgery admitted that filters influence their decision. The bold glamour filter was setting super unrealistic expectations for users. As stories spread, some Tik Tockers turned against the filter. Can we please ban the bold glamour filter because let’s be real, no one looks like that. For more than a year, Tik Tok ignored the backlash. The filter stayed live. Then they couldn’t ignore it anymore. In October 2024, 14 US states sued Tik Tok over its beauty filters. The lawsuit revealed something alarming. Tik Tok allegedly knew Bold Glamour was harming people’s mental health, but they left it up anyway. A month later, Tik Tok banned bold glamour for teenage users, but there was a huge loophole. One in five kids reported lying about their age online. That meant the filter was still within reach. In this next trend, one person even blamed themselves for their mother having cancer. Lucky girl syndrome. This trend began in 2023. A Tik Tocker named Laura shared a mindset that she claimed changed her life. I am so lucky. I just always expect great things to happen to me and so they do. Her theory was simple. If you believed good things will happen, they will. The secret was repeating affirmations like, “I’m so lucky. Things always work out for me.” She encouraged her followers to try it out. Try being delusional for a month and tell me if your life doesn’t change. By delusional, she meant believing good things were coming, even without concrete proof. Her video was very popular. Many agreed with her in the comments, but it wasn’t really a trend until two girls got involved. These girls claimed they followed Laura’s advice and it gave them exactly what they wanted. To be specific, the girls wanted the bottom bedrooms in their apartment. After using the affirmations, they got them. So, the girls made a video with a caption, “How we changed our lives with the lucky girl syndrome.” Their video went viral. It was the perfect story, proof that positivity could bend reality. The lucky girl syndrome hashtag skyrocketed to 4 billion views. Girls across Tik Tok were repeating Laura’s phrases, “I’m so lucky. Everything works out for me. More success stories flooded in. Dream jobs, free meals, surprise money. To some, it was motivational content. But to others, this trend was the worst. So, positive thinking is obviously an amazing thing. But lucky girl syndrome took it too far. In 2023, researchers analyzed the comments under Lucky Girl Syndrome videos. It was dark. They found people overwhelmed with guilt and self-lame. Someone wrote, “My mom has an untreatable cancer illness and it made me completely lose my faith because I thought it was my fault for not being positive enough.” Another said, “It literally tried to wish away my ADHD for years. All it did was make me hate myself more. When people couldn’t manifest their way out of problems, they didn’t question the method. They blamed themselves for not believing hard enough. For every viral success story, there were hundreds of silent failures. People began comparing their lives to others who seemed effortlessly lucky. Even regular content creators spoke out. And that’s what I think is so toxic about lucky girl syndrome is that things like hard work, dedication, consistency. None of those things seem to be factors. It’s obviously a wonderful thing to be positive every day. But positivity and delusion are two different things. This next trend encouraged people to starve themselves. Girl dinner. This is my meal. I call this girl dinner. Girl dinner. Girl dinner. Girl dinner was more than a Tik Tok trend. It was so popular that Popeye’s launched a special menu inspired by it. But behind the catchy name was something dangerous. It all began when a Tik Tocker shared a fun fact about medieval peasants. She researched the peasants had nothing to eat but bread and cheese. They rarely cooked big meals. Inspired by that, she filmed her own meal. This is my dinner. I call this girl dinner or medieval peasant. Her idea was relatable. It was a quick, loweffort meal for people who didn’t want to cook. Putting it together took just a few minutes and practically no energy. Her video went viral and it started the girl dinner trend. Others posted their own girl dinners, mostly snacks, fruits, and leftovers. Soon, the girl dinner hashtag hit 7.1 billion views. The idea seemed innocent enough until it started causing mental health issues. Over time, the idea behind girl dinner shifted. Tik Tockers began competing to see who could eat the least. Someone posted a few strawberries as her girl dinner. Others called ice cubes their dinner. One person claimed sleep was their girl dinner. They were real posts with thousands of likes. People in the comments praised them for being disciplined. But it wasn’t discipline. It was unhealthy and it led people to have serious eating issues. By 2024, headlines were calling it Gen Z’s disturbing new trend. Despite the warnings, the hashtag hasn’t disappeared. Social media has a way of making the extreme feel normal. Push yourself to burnout, that’s dedication. Eat nothing, that’s discipline. Blame yourself for cancer, that’s manifestation. But somewhere along the way, we forgot to ask, is this okay? Visual venture. All right, so we talked about Tik Tok trends destroying mental health, but there’s a video where I talk about the dumbest Tik Tok trends of all time. trends like peeing in your pants, replacing sunscreen with beer, and even stealing money from the bank. Click here to watch it. Love you guys. Peace.

tiktok trends are ruining your mental health…

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