Why we should pay attention to Gen Z's use of TikTok

Gen Z — those born after 1996 — have grown up under the constant threat of violence and tragedy. Of course, generations who lived through and fought in the wars of this past century have indeed suffered their fair share of trauma. But their trauma was generally the source of confined incidents, like battles. Gen Z, on the other hand, lives in fear of violence in their daily lives — in classrooms, local malls and movie theatres — and in the future thanks to the existential threat of an impending global warming-induced crisis. The influence of this phenomenon on Gen Z is primarily identifiable to other generations through their self-expression — specifically, their use of dark humor to broadcast their coping mechanisms on the relatively new social media app TikTok.

TikTok allows users to make short video vignettes which they can dub with popular songs and soundbites. TikTok users are increasingly making videos about the violence that surrounds them. If you search "#darkhumor" on TikTok, you'll find a stream of videos that have collectively amassed over 51 million views. Searching "#schoolshooting will yield a collection of content that has been viewed 1.7 million times.

This content may sound like it was made in poor taste, but it doesn't indicate Gen Z's lack of sensitivity or empathy so much as their self-awareness of how desensitized to violence they've become. For example, when three recent mass shootings occurred within the same week in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, teens responded on Tiktok. One post, in particular, garnered over 308,000 views. User @joshuamannila published a 15-second clip of himself dancing before flipping his camera to reveal his computer screen displaying search results for bulletproof vests and backpacks. The song playing during the video? Bulletproof by La Roux. One user, @aly<3 commented: "they're not that expensive might have to cop lmao!!" Which morbidly means that she'll need to buy one since they're still cheap. Twitter user @auntbeckyrose echoed that response with, "I mean I guess it's better than being swallowed by a nonstop sense of dread and impending doom when you're 14 years old." 

Gen Z makes light of things like hypothetical WWIII drafts, climate change, and the forthcoming political apocalypse because dark humor is their response to being born into a world seemingly already on fire is to laugh at the flames. Since 1999, there have been over 230 school shootings in the United States; That averages out to roughly twelve school shootings per year, and once per month. School has now become as synonymous with mass murder as it has with algebra. Walking into a building every day that they could never walk out of has to affect adolescents.

This omnipresent threat of violence is compounded by Gen Z's inability to escape a constant stream of news and information about how violent their splintering world is. Past generations were able to change a channel or put down a newspaper to remove themselves from bad news, but doing so is much harder in the digital age. Gen Z spends an estimated six to ten hours a day on their phones. Forty-five percent of teens admit to being online "almost constantly." In 2019 a Business Insider survey about Gen Z technology usage indicated "a third of respondents said technological addiction was "rampant" among their peers."

There haven't been any significant reports of videos that feature this kind of content flagged for or removed by TikTok. TikTok's community guidelines prohibit users from posting content that is harmful, dangerous, or that could lead to bullying. There have been instances of some creators bullying each other as well as problems with predatory behavior on the platform, but TikTok doesn't seem to deem taboo or otherwise controversial content as violating these guidelines. 

As Gen Z tries to navigate the crumbling world around them; therefore, declawing the chaos through humor seems to be their preferred way to do so. Older generations may be concerned about what they may see as flippant discussions of mental health and mass shootings on social media — of responses like "oof" or "yikes" to devastation. But transforming these concerns into easily digestible and shareable content may not be the worst remedy to Gen Z's attempts to find meaning amidst feelings of purposelessness. If this is how Gen Z chooses to make sense of the world, then so be it.