When Trauma Became Trendy
At this point, we’ve all seen some TikTok where a person tells a multi-part story about an awful occurence from their past. A compulsively lying husband, an absentee baby daddy, an exploitative mother. They’re gripping, they’re engaging, and in a world that is filled with so much fake where even reality TV isn’t real, they suck us in as something unfabricated; just a person doing makeup and telling us stories of weddings gone awry or family issue fodder. So when did we feel this need to fill the void within ourselves to be able to comment, “well at least my life isn’t THAT crazy” or “based”. These stories feel true. And to some extent, they are. They’re true to the viewer because we’re soaking them in and they’re true to the teller. The problem lies between truth and reality. Remember the dress that people either saw as gold and white or blue and black?
Well that’s what I mean. What you see is true to you but it doesn’t make it true for everyone involved, and that’s the reality of it. But what about when it comes to narrative? Often times people will say, “why would someone lie about that?” Well…because people lie. It’s not uncommon for people to lie to themselves, to friends, or family, so why wouldn’t they lie to strangers online? Beyond lying, we sometimes tell half-truths or tell what we remember to be real. More often than not, we say what we feel and not what really happened. “She ordered white wine but I preferred red.” Okay? Did you communicate that in the moment or are you setting up the story for your victimization in being afraid of confrontation in the moment? We’re hyperbolic when it comes to getting what we want. Attention is a form of social currency, especially if it’s at the expense of someone we feel has wronged us. It feels even more justifiable when others agree with our sentiment. “Wow, your dad is a real piece of shit.” Is he? Or did he have a shitty moment? “They sound like a narcissist.” 1 in every 200 people has narcissism so maybe, but they could also just have had a selfish moment. Our quest at othering ourselves has led us down a collective path of self-diagnosing and not using rational thought when breaking down the reality of a situation. Not everyone hates you. Not everyone likes you. You’re not perfect. No one you know is perfect. No one you idolize is or ever will be perfect. Sometimes we don’t know things. And that’s all okay! Online, we pit ourselves as reluctant heroes navigating the villainry of everyday society. Then when it comes to actual conversations and one-on-one interactions with those we feel wronged us, we’re quick to give an “everything’s fine.” Social media has become a comfort blanket for the timid to become fearless and then they’re locked in a back-and-forth with truth. “I’m putting this thread on mute.” COMMENTS TURNED OFF. That’s not how the real world works even if we’re chronically online. We only read the headlines and let ourselves be triggered by the audacity of what we choose to soak in. Then truth has to chase the lie, hoping for some middle ground of believability before any inkling of the story fizzles out into a “remember when…” or one of those weird Twitter (I’m not calling it X) accounts that posts years old videos to farm engagement. The moment those endorphins hit, we can’t stop chasing the high. Those likes, comments, followers, reactions, and justifications makes us feel right in being wronged. Something that a healing conversation or therapy session can’t touch is the feeling of clout. Perhaps one of the first widely remembered parts of this is the now infamous Zola story, which was made into a movie.
For those who have lapsed out and replaced this memory with a random man from Atlanta or a breakdancing dad, Zola was a Twitter thread where a sometimes stripper met a woman in a Hooters and they went on a wild road trip to Tampa wherein pimps and guns are wildly displayed. The story was so bananas, it made it to Rolling Stone and eventually a movie. As crazy as the story was, it seemingly made unwitting celebrities who then had to tell their side of the story. But by that point, it didn’t matter. I mean, none of it really mattered but when you’re told the internet is forever or the threats and doxxing come into play, that’s when it begins to matter.
So we have to stop and ask ourselves…is it worth it? The trauma porn we envelop on a consistent basis where we look out for the middle ground of an anxious person on the spectrum to evil person embroidered into the stitches of our lives. We don’t want you to actually FIND them because then the online story becomes real life consequence, but we do want to tell the world how that person we don’t want them to see made us feel. It’s a slippery slope. One minute you’re in a private Facebook group asking if anyone is dating the same person as you and if they’re a psycho, the next you’re in a courtroom being sued because you used their full name and photo. Our rights to safety and our rights to privacy have been somewhat lost along the way to our rights to a good ass story. And it’s possible that in the balance of truth and reality, we are all right and wrong. Our desires to be heard might entangle with someone else’s desire to be felt. We don’t have that conversation and it builds our mistrust and resentment when they might not know or care. We create strangers by appealing to strangers and don’t give anyone a voice of neutralization because the trauma in our minds has already cauterized them as only being vile, even when in their minds, they’re the victims creating this endless cycle of millions of viewers watching us hate people we’ve been in contact with one-sided context. It sparks for somebody who may be in a similar situation and who might actually need the answers that we are bullshitting our way through because we don’t actually know. Nobody ever really knows. That’s why we’re here.
So maybe our trauma does help someone. I’m just as guilty as a stand-up comedian who frequently laments about my deceased dad’s drug habits or my wealthy ex’s propensity to becoming a helpless white lady, harkening tropes and comparisons to Emmett Till. We’re all chasing something. Even in writing this, there has to be some hope of achievement.
And we’ve seen what happens when we don’t get that high from putting all of our sadness, our ills, our perceived enemies, our miscommunications reworked as malignments, our traumas on display. Nothing.
TLDR; we should all go back to dancing.