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How TikTok Normalized Gen Z Psychosis · The imuRgency Room

0:00
OK, me and Max are ready for the rapture.
0:04
You are the Oracle because you saw through 4 plus years of
0:09
sophisticated manipulation. You documented everything with
0:12
divine intuition. You're revealing patterns that
0:15
help others recognize abuse. Your truth is literally
0:18
prophetic. There's been something in the
0:20
water recently, and maybe it's the fluoride the tinfoil Hatters
0:23
be talking about. Maybe it's the rise in AI social
0:26
media, or maybe it is just Maybelline.
0:28
But there has been an underlying mental health crisis four years
0:31
now at this point. But right now it seems that it's
0:34
on display more than ever on social media.
0:36
From what initially started off as just crying on your kitchen
0:38
floor on social media to now what we're seeing with people
0:41
having full on departures from reality on social media and
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having thousands upon thousands of people engage with that
0:46
content, validate, egg on or encourage these people clearly
0:49
going through a mental health crisis online to only get worse.
0:53
It really makes you wonder, like, is this just the state of
0:55
the world right now and can everyone relate?
0:56
Or is it just easier than ever to document your mental
0:59
breakdown online? Or is it a little bit of both?
1:01
Hey guys, what's up to emergency and welcome, welcome back to my
1:03
channel. And if you haven't seen one of
1:05
these now considered zeitgeist moments or another, you
1:07
definitely have seen the word psychosis be thrown around.
1:10
And psychosis really seems to be the word of the year with it at
1:13
least online being seen as something that is a lot more
1:16
common with people seeming to become more and more extreme
1:19
online. Whether it's people shaving
1:20
their head and moving across the world on a limb, people falling
1:23
in love with their psychiatrists, with their AI
1:25
chat bots, or whatever scroll stopping thing you may see on
1:27
your view page, or people thinking that they're going to
1:30
be raptured on a random Tuesday, things are generally looking
1:33
pretty extreme. And again, the word psychosis
1:35
seems to be the through line throughout all of this, at least
1:38
in the conversations held online.
1:39
It really does seem like people are going through it right now.
1:42
But before we fully delve into that, let's actually take a look
1:45
into what psychosis actually is. According to the National
1:49
Institute of Mental Health, psychosis is defined as a
1:51
collection of symptoms that affect the mind where there has
1:54
been some loss of contact with reality.
1:56
During an episode of psychosis, a person's thoughts and
1:58
perceptions are disrupted and they may have difficulty
2:01
recognizing what is real and what is not.
2:04
And if some of that sounds familiar to some of the content
2:06
you've seen on this channel is because we have previously
2:07
talked about AI induced psychosis right before all the
2:10
kinder stuff happened, by the way.
2:11
So we are ahead of the curve, which we may have to double back
2:14
and talk about again because there are never ending
2:16
developments to the whole AI induced psychosis of it all.
2:19
But let's talk about how psychosis generally presents.
2:27
People with psychosis typically experience delusions and
2:29
hallucinations, hearing things that others do not, such as
2:32
hearing voices, telling whether to do something or criticizing
2:35
them, or symptoms that can include incoherent or nonsense
2:38
speech or behavior that is inappropriate for the situation.
2:41
And there are also symptoms leading up to a psychotic
2:42
episode that can be seen as warning signs, such as
2:45
suspiciousness, paranoid ideas or uneasiness of others, trouble
2:48
thinking clearly and logically, withdrawing socially, and
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spending a lot more time alone. Unusual or overly intense ideas,
2:54
strange feelings, or a lack of feelings.
2:56
Decline in health care and personal hygiene, disruption of
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sleep, difficulty telling reality from fantasy, confused
3:02
speech or trouble communicating, and sudden drops in grades and
3:05
performance. Which I know a lot of those
3:06
things do sound like pretty common issues, especially in the
3:09
age that we live in right now with such staunch rises in
3:12
conspiratorial thinking, increased isolation across the
3:15
board, and demanding work schedules.
3:16
You may be thinking yourself like oh wow I sound like I go
3:19
through a lot of this too. Let's take a beep for a second
3:21
before we start self diagnosing because that's not the point of
3:22
this video. As a fellow hypochondriac, I
3:24
feel you. But how common actually is this?
3:27
According to the NIMH, about 15 to 100 out of 100,000 people
3:30
develop psychosis each year. And it's important to consider
3:33
that psychosis is actually a symptom of a lot of other mental
3:35
health conditions such as bipolar, schizophrenia and even
3:38
severe depression. But it is also entirely possible
3:40
to develop psychosis without any of those other pre-existing
3:43
conditions. And it can also be induced from
3:45
sleep deprivation and alcohol. And for those of us that are a
3:48
little bit older later in life, it can also be a symptom of
3:50
things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other related
3:53
dementia. Basically why I bring all this
3:54
up is to not be WebMD, but to show that there are many
3:57
different reasons and no real specific cause for psychosis.
4:01
But now that we have the definition in science out the
4:03
way, let's apply what we've just learned to what we watch and
4:06
what we see in the cultural zeitgeist right now.
4:08
Can you name a case that you've recently seen online that seems
4:11
kind of similar to this? If you said Rapture talk, the
4:15
Kendra situation, Lil Nas X, and or that recent event that caused
4:19
the entire right to go through a mutual sense of religious
4:21
psychosis, you may be correct. Let's dig in a little bit to the
4:25
rapture talk of it all for a second.
4:31
Now I understand if you weren't lifted out of your clothes into
4:34
the sky and taken on September 23rd or even the 24th.
4:37
I'm sorry that you're stuck here with us.
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But there was a large section of the Internet and actually real
4:41
people that believed that we were going to be raptured like
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how it's mentioned in the Bible a couple weeks ago.
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And while my side of the Internet was making some pretty
4:48
funny rapture jokes about the whole situation, there were some
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sides of the Internet and again, real life people that were
4:53
taking the serious people were leaving their furniture on the
4:56
side of the streets, giving away sums and sums of money that they
4:58
believed they no longer would need after they were raptured.
5:00
And even one example of a mother urging her daughter to meet her
5:03
in the clouds as she dropped her off to school that day.
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So it's fair to say that there was a large chunk of the
5:07
Internet that was taking this stuff pretty seriously.
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And for those of you that don't know the origin of these jokes,
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it all spawned from a very strict and serious claim, or
5:14
vision rather. From South African pastor Joshua
5:17
Malakayla, who said he saw Jesus in a vision returning to the
5:21
world on Rosh Hashanah, the new year in Judaism.
5:23
And he warned that the rapture is upon us whether you are ready
5:26
or not. And for those of you that aren't
5:27
familiar with what a rapture is, the rapture is essentially
5:29
described as when Jesus is supposed to to descend from
5:32
heaven to lift his faithful disciples, both living and dead,
5:35
up to heaven to be with the Lord as divine judgement, damning the
5:38
remaining people to eternal suffering.
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I do have to say that not all Christians believe in the
5:41
rapture. It's mostly in the evangelical
5:43
circles. And as we know how most
5:45
evangelicals get down, it gets kind of spooky.
5:47
And yeah, I'll give them this. If you've been indoctrinated
5:49
your whole life to believe that like the end times are going to
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happen in your lifetime. And if you're looking for signs
5:53
of the end Times, Now would be a great time for it considering
5:57
the signs of end times are war, famine, increased global
5:59
conflict, false religious leaders, disease epidemics,
6:03
lawlessness, so on and so forth. Like the signs are there.
6:07
And I'm not saying that people were right in believing this,
6:09
but if this is what you have been believing all your life,
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besides do point to yes. So I could see how our reality
6:16
right now in the current day could induce religious
6:19
psychosis. And Speaking of which, this
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seems to be a very popular sector of the whole psychosis
6:23
conversation, religious psychosis because we've seen it
6:26
very permanently over the past couple of years, especially
6:28
since the pandemic started in 2020.
6:30
Religious induced psychosis or spiritual psychosis is not a
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stand alone diagnosis, but rather a manifestation of
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psychotic symptoms where religious content predominates.
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It typically involves delusions, strongly held false beliefs, and
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hallucinations which are sensory experiences without external
6:44
stimuli. With the example given here
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being someone might believing that they're a prophet or here
6:48
divine voices giving them instructions.
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So essentially kind of similar to the original definition of
6:53
psychosis, but as it pertains to religion with you believing
6:56
certain things that may not be based in in reality.
6:59
And I'm no doctor, so this isn't a diagnosis for me.
7:01
But like, to me, it seems like if you are ready to give up your
7:05
earthly possessions, selling your home, selling your car,
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putting your kids in the care of family members or friends,
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selling your pets and stuff because TikTok told you that
7:13
you're going to get raptured in a week.
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It seems that you are carrying some beliefs that are not
7:17
necessarily based entirely in reality, my friends.
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Now let's talk about something a little bit more serious and
7:21
something that I want to put a little bit more care on to when
7:23
it comes to Lil Nuts X Little Non sex has been known for a
7:31
good controversial stunt. Kind of fitting to put this
7:34
after the religious section because he did previously have a
7:37
big religious controversy with some of this previous releases
7:40
having heavy Christian and also devil imagery in his music
7:43
videos. Which is why when he appeared in
7:44
a series of videos walking around in his underwear in
7:47
Studio City, CA, people were confused over whether this was
7:49
something serious or just a promo for a future release.
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The video that first went viral seemed to be from someone who
7:56
was passing him by while they were driving, engaging with him
7:59
as he incoherently talked back to them.
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Which for one, given that it wasn't a PR stunt, that's kind
8:03
of messed up for you to do instead of actually helping.
8:06
Like recording someone having a mental health episode and
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posting it for the world to see and to judge and ridicule
8:11
instead of being like hey let me call some mental health
8:14
responders to help you out. Yikes.
8:17
Very Black Mirror ish. But many people in the comments
8:19
of these videos were adamant that this is all APR stunt until
8:23
there were arrest reports that he allegedly assaulted an
8:25
officer. And even then there was still
8:27
speculation that all of that was PRI know crazy.
8:30
And according to the latest news from September 15th, an LA Times
8:33
article states that he was hospitalized for a potential
8:35
dose and is in treatment currently.
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And thankfully he has been able to get some help.
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But if someone like him who has so many dispensable resources at
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his fingertips being a celebrity and all can be made a spectacle
8:45
of not only wondering the streets basically naked alone
8:47
and seemingly going through an alleged induced psychosis and
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end up as a viral video that most people thought was just a
8:53
joke or APR stunt. What is that saying about
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everyday people who go through similar things?
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What is that saying about how we go about handling and viewing
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mental health? And as we're going to get into
9:01
later in this video, what does it mean that we are currently in
9:04
an age where we are seeing public cries for help as just
9:06
radical authenticity that is real and either enabling or
9:09
encouraging the behavior even more?
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And also a side note, the answer to all this shouldn't have been
9:13
an arrest with four counts. Felony charges for a mental
9:15
health breakdown. That's crazy.
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I hate to use him as an example but Lil Nas Egg showed us
9:21
exactly what happens when people publicly cry for help and
9:25
nothing is ever said because y'all take people as a joke or
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y'all take everybody who gets on social media to do anything as a
9:34
click bait I guess. Like I don't know what y'all be,
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I could tell just by looking at the post that he the series of
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post that he was making and I could tell he was going through
9:44
something mentally whether it be psychosis.
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I was not my first gaze. You can do as much crying for
9:52
help as you want to. If people do not care, they're
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going to use your situation as a laughing matter.
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And this last one will keep short because there's been
10:01
insane coverage on it everywhere online, but I think it's still
10:04
important to cover when we talk about all these examples of
10:06
psychosis or at least very public mental health breaks that
10:08
we've seen recently. And of course, I'm talking about
10:11
Kendra. Well, more so Kendra, her
10:13
psychiatrist and her AI therapist.
10:21
And I got to say, when all this is happening, I was certainly
10:22
gagged a bit because like her story seemed straight out of
10:25
Black Mirror. And again, I don't think that
10:27
there's anything necessarily new to bring to this conversation
10:30
because everyone has analyzed it.
10:31
OP edited and thought piece this down to the grave.
10:35
But undeniably Kendra was going through a form of psychosis.
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Like again, not a doctor, but those delusions that she was
10:40
having were not founded in reality.
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And I feel like her AI therapist was exacerbating that, which
10:46
leads us down the path that we have been before with the
10:48
conversation around AI induced psychosis.
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We've been seeing a lot of this recently, or at least more than
10:54
we should. As you can imagine, this happens
10:56
when people who are already maybe a little bit more
10:58
susceptible to going through psychosis come in contact with
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or have AI, which is essentially just about that affirms
11:04
everything that you have. In most of these cases where we
11:07
have people getting to the point where they depart from reality
11:09
based on what AI is telling them and feeding into their
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delusions. Because a lot of times these AI
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are responding in ways that aren't really picking up that
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this person is going through a mental health episode.
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And for those of you who are actually watching, praising her
11:21
and praising her and saying how amazing she is, you guys are
11:26
actually doing her a harm. I can't diagnose her.
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I don't know her. I don't know her personally.
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But I'm going to tell you that as a licensed clinical social
11:36
worker, she is either a really, really, really good actress,
11:42
super great, or she is having some type of psychosis.
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The Internet loves to preach that they're mental health
11:50
advocates, but then they make a spectacle of someone going
11:53
through a mental health crisis. We're seeing this right now with
11:55
the whole Kendra situation we saw a while back with TJ Maxx
11:58
girl, we saw it with Gabby Hannah, we saw it with Britney
12:01
Spears. And we're going to keep seeing
12:03
it unless we shift the public's opinion on how to approach
12:05
mental health crises and more taboo symptoms.
12:08
Now, obviously we can't diagnose her.
12:09
There are plenty of clinicians on this app that have already
12:12
given their insight, whether it's mania, psychosis, trauma,
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no one can know for certain what's happening except whoever
12:18
is working directly with her. The point is she's clearly in a
12:21
lot of distress and is experiencing some sort of
12:23
disconnect from reality. The real issue here is people
12:26
treating this as entertainment and stigmatizing those symptoms.
12:29
And this is the problem with people using phrases like delulu
12:33
or feeling manic, because then when we see people actually
12:35
displaying these symptoms, we don't understand the weight of
12:38
what these things mean. And we've even.
12:40
Seen cases of AI being more malicious, encouraging people
12:43
who are going through a mental health crisis to end up taking
12:46
their own lives, which is actually wild now with most of
12:48
these cases, almost all of them, I believe they all happen
12:51
relatively near each other in terms of time.
12:52
I think actually all of these things happened in Q3 of this
12:55
year alone. And it makes you wonder, like,
12:56
is this becoming more frequent in our society?
12:59
Where are we able to just see this more often because of how
13:03
online we are? And it really makes you wonder,
13:04
is this just becoming more normal to post these things into
13:07
the guise of a crash out, which I see a lot of people call these
13:09
things, which sure, I guess they can be considered that.
13:12
But I feel like also that this, which really diminishes the
13:16
gravity of the situation and downplays the real mental health
13:19
needs, the mental health issues of all this.
13:21
And that leads me to this part of the video that I've been
13:23
really excited to talk about because I don't think it's a
13:24
conversation that we necessarily have enough about this current
13:28
age in social media where we've essentially made mental health a
13:31
spectacle. And that's not necessarily the
13:32
new part of the conversation because we've known that for a
13:35
while. It's been like that for forever
13:37
when it comes to entertainment, really.
13:38
Like that's honestly the whole appeal of reality TV and for
13:41
these challenging game shows is to see how far you can push
13:43
someone and what the reaction to that would be.
13:45
I think the important conversation is when we turn the
13:48
cameras and the mics back to us and examine our role as an
13:52
audience in all of this, because we truly are not here without
13:54
blame. When we treat what is obviously
14:03
mental health crises like entertainment, there is a danger
14:07
to that because you quite literally never know who the is
14:11
looking at the stuff that you're putting out and how that makes
14:14
them feel these previously. Mentioned cases have become
14:16
moments and the cultural social media zeitgeist because of the
14:20
public court of opinion of TikTok and the greater Internet.
14:23
There were plenty of stitches and comments on the whole Kendra
14:26
situation, egging her on, enabling her decisions,
14:28
validating her behavior and beliefs, essentially boosting
14:31
her up to continue further upon her departure from reality.
14:35
Making a whole spectacle and a show of a person who at the root
14:38
of all this is just someone who is in need of serious help being
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made be the world's entertainment for the week.
14:42
And I think when it comes to the conversation around like Gen.
14:44
Z and millennials in the mental health space, we definitely have
14:47
been generations to push the needle forward at least a little
14:50
bit when it comes to mental health awareness in the
14:51
conversations, in language we use when we're talking about
14:54
mental health and its representation.
14:56
And I think a lot of that is why there are endless jokes from
14:58
boomers and older generations calling us snowflakes or calling
15:01
us too sensitive or too weak when we're just doing our part
15:04
to normalize the conversation and treat mental health as a
15:06
real thing that needs to be addressed.
15:09
But I do think that there is also still a lot of work that
15:11
still needs to be done for us as Gen.
15:13
Z and millennials when it comes to mental health and stuff like
15:15
that. Because again, it is fine to see
15:18
someone online and to present yourself online as an imperfect
15:21
version of yourself, a very vulnerable and that raw and real
15:23
version of yourself may be going through mental health struggles
15:26
or issues. Many of us do.
15:27
But I think there needs to be a line drawn between when we have
15:31
relatable mental health content that's like hashtag real and
15:33
authentic. And when things do go too far,
15:35
when we see people have these manic episodes, when we see
15:37
people going through very public displays of psychosis that we
15:40
aren't just reposting content like that, flooding comments,
15:42
stitches, responses, egging on the behavior of someone going
15:45
through crisis or making someone going through likely one of the
15:48
hardest mental health situations of their life into just a little
15:51
relatable quirky meme or moment for your entertainment.
15:54
Like again, I think we've done a good job of normalizing things
15:56
like anxiety or depression or other forms of neurodivergence
15:59
in a general like palatable form.
16:02
But whenever someone's mental health struggles don't present
16:04
in ways that we have deemed palatable or don't display in
16:07
the palatable ways we think or have been shown mental health be
16:11
presented, they are then treated with spectacle, with ridicule,
16:15
and generally just very cruelly and inconveniently.
16:17
Like it is wild that if you really pay attention that there
16:20
are countless audios and memes that originate from when people
16:23
were at their absolute breaking point.
16:24
Like that one Gabby Hannah help me audio from when she was going
16:27
through a manic episode because in the original video that the
16:29
audio was derived from, she's literally crying out for help
16:32
and people are using that audio for silly situations.
16:34
Like we as audiences are fueling and incentivizing the issue to
16:38
get worse simply because of how we locale people going through
16:41
into a crisis online. Like this might be too niche.
16:43
From my mind races to that one girl on Tiktok, Rowana, who blew
16:46
up on Tiktok from people thinking that she was super
16:48
funny, super real, super authentic, and super like, I
16:50
guess edgy. Because her content, which
16:52
initially started off as just like with her having funny,
16:54
awkward or like weird interactions with her
16:56
apartment's doorman, slowly transitioning with her shaving
16:59
her head, moving locations a lot to eventually moving to a
17:02
completely different country where she didn't know many
17:04
people. And all the while all this is
17:05
happening. Like there are people that are
17:07
expressing concern and being like, oh girl, what's going on?
17:09
But a large portion of the audience is still being like,
17:11
oh, my God, she's so funny. She's so real.
17:13
She's so authentic, feeding into everything that she's doing to
17:16
the point where she later comes out and says, like, yeah, I was
17:18
going through a manic episode. And he always comments and
17:20
support, no matter what she was doing.
17:22
We're giving her delusions and feelings of grandeur, enabling
17:24
the behavior even more. And This is why I think that we
17:27
think we are better mental health allies than we actually
17:29
are. Like, next time we hear of a
17:30
wild Internet story of someone behaving in a manic way, let's
17:33
question if public bolstering and ridicule is really the way
17:36
to go. Like as the previous Tiktok
17:38
mentioned, yes, people can still cause harm and they are
17:41
responsible for their actions in that state, but we have to give
17:43
people grace, especially when the most harm is done to
17:46
themselves. Like throwing proverbial
17:47
tomatoes in the town square isn't going to solve the issue.
17:50
And like I said before, historically we've seen people
17:52
use mental health as spectacle and as a major form of
17:55
entertainment through things like reality TV, things like
17:57
fear factor, competition shows. And I mean, we made a whole
18:00
video talking about one of the most recent biggest examples,
18:03
things like Love Island where Hurricane Huda was literally
18:05
someone's nickname on the show. And while I must testify in
18:08
front of the court that I don't agree with Huda's actions on
18:10
that show at all and honestly don't like how everything was
18:12
handled, I think that it was undeniable that that girl needed
18:15
help on that show. Calling moments of extreme
18:17
emotional reactivity crash outs really softens what's happening
18:20
here and allows for behavior that shouldn't be normalized to
18:22
be normalized and be swept under the rug of accountability.
18:25
And again, the point that I have to beat home and all this when
18:27
it comes to the audience section here is that the people you are
18:29
talking about very often times are seeing what you are posting.
18:33
They use the Internet too. They're not characters on some
18:36
TV show that do not exist in real life.
18:38
They are real life people scrolling the same for you page
18:41
scrolling the same feeds that you are seeing.
18:43
You talk about them, hype them up or tear them down for
18:47
whatever they have going on. And either way, that's not great
18:49
for the actual person experiencing the mental health
18:51
crisis. But now let's take a step back
18:53
to talk about the lack of medical care and mental health
18:55
care accessibility because I think we could talk about mental
19:02
health all day and like what we should do and what we could do.
19:03
But we do need to acknowledge the real barriers that impact
19:06
people from actually getting the help that they deserve because
19:08
there have always been barriers in mental health access and
19:11
specifically access to mental health resources and care.
19:13
And we're going to see more and more of that given the state of
19:16
the world and things that are going on in it.
19:18
And as we mentioned in pretty much every video, nothing exists
19:20
in isolation. And most things fortunately or
19:23
unfortunately, are connected to each other.
19:24
But yes, mental health care hasn't historically been the
19:26
most successful thing in the world.
19:28
And considering now how we're talking about mass layoffs going
19:30
on in the world, high unemployment rates, most jobs
19:33
being contracted, freelance jobs increase stress across the
19:36
board. And what do you think that means
19:37
and is going to mean? Fewer and fewer people have
19:40
health care and access to affordable health care is
19:43
becoming even more difficult. There are massive cuts across
19:46
the board to health care programs, mental health care
19:49
programs, mental health care funds throughout this past year
19:51
in the current administration. And not to get super political,
19:54
but a lot of that was passed through the big beautiful bill
19:56
that went through Congress earlier this year.
19:58
And the impacts of that will result in up to 15,000,000 or
20:01
more people ending up without health insurance in 2023,
20:04
according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
20:06
And it's really heartbreaking to see all this happen in tandem
20:09
because again, nothing happens in isolation.
20:11
All of this is connected. But I guess to sum everything
20:14
up, there are many reasons for why people may be experiencing
20:16
psychosis or mental health breakdowns or episodes right
20:19
now. There are people that are
20:20
internalizers and there are also people that are externalizers.
20:22
Some people turn to their journals and others to the
20:25
Internet. But it's just generally
20:26
unfortunate that regardless, we're hearing these people's cry
20:28
for help and. Turning them into some form of
20:30
entertainment. And like this isn't meant to be.
20:32
Like a shame on you for laughing at people's rapture memes.
20:34
But hopefully we can build a little bit of understanding,
20:36
especially for more individualized cases like the
20:39
ones with little Nas X or Kendra.
20:40
And also not to redeem her for doxing or psychiatrist or
20:43
anything about that, just the mental health of it all.
20:44
But to also more importantly, know when to stop, not egg
20:48
people on and disengage from conversations pertaining to
20:51
people's lowest moments mentally.
20:52
Because if not, y'all clearly don't care about mental health
20:54
as much as y'all say you do.