What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Changing Reality on TikTok
Social network TikTok’s misinformation policies are pretty robust, at least on paper . It specifically bans content containing “medical misinformation about vaccines or abortion” and “misinformation about voting,” as well as a general ban on content that “undermines public trust.” (You’ll have to go to Twitter/X for that kind of thing.) But TikTok’s community guidelines don’t prohibit more esoteric nonsense about “reality shifting,” “manifestation,” and a host of other esoteric beliefs. As a result, these original ideas are finding a new audience among the predominantly young people who use TikTok. And TikTok doesn’t do anything about it. And this is good.
What changes reality?
Simply put, reality bending is the belief that we can transfer our consciousness to alternate realities. It is (in very general terms) based on the “many-worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics, which states that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are realized in some universe, and thus there are an infinite number of realities – like in that movie Everything Everywhere Everything . one day . The leap that TikTok reality transformers are making is that they think there is a way to visit these alternate realities, either physically or just mentally. As far as anyone can prove, no, but if you want to try, you can watch this video for instructions or watch each video by hashtag in some alternate dimension where you have the whole day.
What is manifested?
Reality shifting has the appearance of being new, but it’s actually a close cousin of the old idea of ”manifesting,” another belief with a strong fan base on TikTok . While this is often accompanied by calls for meditation or visualization, at the most basic level it involves the belief that you can have anything you want if you believe you can have it. It’s a wish, with extra steps.
Where does all this come from?
It seems like every new generation finds a way to talk about manifestation, reality altering, and other fringe spiritual beliefs. Since its publication in 2006 , The Secret has sold over 35 million copies. (Spoiler alert: the secret of the title is that “if you want something bad enough, you will get it.”) “The Secret ” was a modernization of the New Age beliefs popular in the 1990s, based on the “human movement.” potential” of the 1970s, based on the esotericism of the hippie generation of the 1960s. If you keep going back in time (literally, if you want to change reality), you will reach the “second great awakening” of the early late 1800s to early 1900s, when Spiritualism, Freemasonry, and Transcendentalism were all the rage.
What’s the harm in wanting?
While it seems pretty obvious that people can’t have everything they want just because they want it – just look at everything – but is that a bad thing? Yes and no.
On the harmful side of the column: Believing that the universe will deliver whatever you command only really works if you have privilege. It’s much easier to think, “I have all this money because I really wanted it!” when you already have all this money, then it’s worth asking: “Where is that car that I ordered?”
It’s also a pretty soulless belief system. Manifesters like to portray themselves as compassionate people, but belief in a generous universe or the gift-giving God of the Prosperity Gospel movement (less popular on TikTok, more popular on Facebook) means that anyone in an unfortunate situation should want to be in it. this… that child with cancer must have wanted to get cancer, or he didn’t pray hard enough.
Also on the negative side of the book: gurus, preachers and politicians preying on the gullible. And when believers try to create laws based on their beliefs. And UFO cults with suicide pacts. So there is a lot of negativity.
Why we shouldn’t do anything about it (other than feel complacent)
But on the other hand, there has always been a countercurrent of occultism shaping American beliefs. You can see this in the long-standing popularity of astrology ( another TikTok favorite ), the availability of Ouija boards in toy stores, and the existence of a local palmist. People get some basic needs met, whether through horoscopes and vision boards or Sunday morning church services. Personally, I don’t understand it, but as Sinatra said, “I’m all for whatever gets you through the night.”
In the past, attempts have been made to curb new religious movements, but they usually end in disaster. For example, after the Jonestown mass suicide, anti-cult sentiment was so strong that a cottage industry of “deprogrammers” arose, and there were actual court cases in which serious people argued that it was legal to kidnap your relatives unless you actually did it. I didn’t like what they believed in, and I really didn’t like who they hung out with.
Hand-wringing over people who believe weird things on TikTok and the scammers and scammers who get rich off them is not the answer. First of all, it’s boring, just like the confrontational atheism that was popular on the Internet a decade ago. But more importantly, Western culture, if it works properly, is built on the idea that people should be able to believe and say whatever they want. even if it’s stupid – freedom and all that crap.