By Fadhil Ahmad Fauzan
As I was doing my frequent routine watching YouTube right on my phone screen, I found this suggestion in my home page about people commenting on a recent trend on TikTok – people faking disorders.
I cannot believe what I have seen with my own eyes on comments that were related to those TikTok shots. To be frank, I must say, how dare, and how vile these people are in exposing themselves, trying to tell others they are the ones with special needs, when they are absolutely not.
These content creators on TikTok pretend to have multiple personalities, Tourette or Autism syndrome, only to make clout or to seek attention of others. The most common nowadays is Dis-associative Identity Disorder (DID) as mentioned in Evie magazine in their site in September last year.
Moreover, the way they act in the videos are often exaggerating where people can see that they are faking it.
As someone who is personally diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), I have seen one of the content creators acting like they have ADHD.
In this one video, the person was setting up his phone for his shoot. There was a text on the side of the screen describing this person is going to shoot for his regular TikTok shots and magically forgot about what he was doing. The person started dancing and then looking away, left the camera, seemingly that a person with ADHD getting easily distracted with something else.
Yes, an ADHD person has a lack of attention or focus. However, it happens when the person is doing something that he or she is not interested in it. If I were the content creator who admits to have ADHD, I would not have moved from that shot because I am doing what I like and I will keep dancing.Â
Did he even know the impact that would resonate towards the public, especially the ones that are genuinely diagnosed with a particular disorder? By creating this type of content, people would stereotype the person with true disorders as a make-belief, and then people would jeopardise the person’s identity with bullying.
Ben Shapiro, a Jewish-American politician, described this phenomenon in a video in his YouTube channel called œBen Shapiro REACTS to Insane Woke TikToks | Volume 6.
He brought an analogy of the 19th century ˜circus freaks’ where certain groups of people who were different from everybody else were put into a circus and people were paying just to see them.
We later learned that it is a bad thing to do because these are the particular people who are suffering with certain conditions, and it is not appropriate to treat them as a laughing stock just because of a situation they are faced with which is beyond their control.
œAnd now it seems like we are directly back to the circus because people are posting their own stuff on TikTok for the LOLs, and the clicks, and the attention. We have gone downhill in the society over the course in the last 20 years in the name of diversity, tolerance, and acceptance. Shapiro noted in his video.
What a good analogy and comparison presented by Shapiro. How people are not seeing the consequences of their actions of making this type of content.
We need to make an awareness for the public, especially to these content creators, as what they are doing may harm the lives of people with genuine disorders. The number of bullying will rise among this community. They will have more anxiety, and too much anxiety can lead to suicide.
Having disorder is not a joke, not a game. They cannot do anything much about it. It is something they have to bear with it and undertake. People need to understand the burden that they are carrying with their lives. ***
(This article is written as part of individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)