5 ms·

It's a bit of a catch 22. On a surface level one might say that they are faking having Tourette's, and that they are completely healthy. But look a bit deeper a

It's a bit of a catch 22. On a surface level one might say that they are faking having Tourette's, and that they are completely healthy. But look a bit deeper and you realize that a mentally sane person would not copy the tics from a YouTube personality and keep the schtick up all the way to the doctors. So no, it's not Tourette's but yes, these people need help.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
geerlingguy 5y ago
The article mentions one danger of potential misdiagnosis: the medications for treatment of Tourette's, if applied incorrectly, have sometimes severe side effects. But one other danger from this phenomenon is the overuse of already-stretched-thin counselors and therapists. If you've tried to acquire any mental health services over the past year... every counselor and organization seems severely overloaded and under-staffed.
totetsu 5y ago
To some degrees sanity is defined by alignment with surrounding norms. If your peers Norms are going to extremes to do things for the lols, you might end up at the doctor's.
ptoo 5y ago
I don't think mimicking someone's Tourette's, which is what these children are doing, makes them mentally unwell. It's very possible that they are simply attention-seeking or enjoy the idea of being special. It reminds me of the relatively new phenomenon of a community on YouTube where kids faking multiple personality disorder upload videos displaying their "systems", and each persona in the system has some time on the camera before being taken over by other competing personae. Most people are in agreement that these kids are faking it, and it doesn't necessarily follow that they shouldn't be deemed "sane". It's more likely that they don't value the time of medical doctors and are willing to mimic a YouTube celebrity's tics for self-serving reasons, even if it is wasting their parents' money and the time of others.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  This has also become a debate/problem in some segments of the aspergers/autism community where you have kids on TikTok pretending to be autistic. Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference.
  - Morizero 5y ago
    > Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference. What a weird way to try to tie this to modern politics. You do realize that the movie "Sybil" had a similar effect (people copying a mental condition) in 1976, predating any kind of acceptance movement?
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I was worried that comment might be read this way, and of course copycat syndrome is something that has been with us for a long time. To be clear, this is an extremely small cost to pay for difference to be broadly accepted.
  - OneEyedRobot 5y ago
    >Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference. Oooh, I think I'm going to steal that. To be fair, maybe it's just another mechanism for culture transfer. Hours per day on a phone filled with highly evolved addiction algorithms are proving their value, God knows what the future will bring. If kids never absorbed silly things, we'd never have had bellbottoms.
    - fortran77 5y ago
      > we'd never have had bellbottoms. Those were appropriated from the Navy. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms
  - faeriechangling 5y ago
    This is a direct consequence of society giving aid to autistic people while reducing stigma, it is practically obvious that more people are going to consequently try and fit that label. What we see is this phenomena where autistic people today have less actual impairments, who might even take offense to the idea that they are impaired, but with more tiktok videos of "stimming" and flapping their hands on YouTube. An emphasis on the preformative over the substantive. There has even been a counter-backlash in this community that too much funding is going towards people with few impairments, and too little funding is going for people so disabled they're completely unable to be independent.
stinos 5y ago
you realize that a mentally sane person would not copy the tics from a YouTube personality Food for thought. Is there really such a thing as a mentally sane person? Anyway the first thing which came to my mind when I read this was not 'mentally insane' but 'oh, puberty'. I'm not claiming all of this is completely normal, or all of these are pre-adult (heck even adults are still known to copy other's behavior) but I'm also quite careful of leaning towards the claim that all these people need help.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  > Is there really such a thing as a mentally sane person? Yes.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Everyone I know can receive a series of true facts and come out of that believing something false!
IshKebab 5y ago
> and keep the schtick up all the way to the doctors It's perfectly normal to keep up a lie alive to an extreme degree just to avoid having to awkwardly admit you were lying. Think about the rape accusers who take it all the way to court before eventually admitting they made it up, or all of the married people who keep up the pretence of religion to avoid awkwardness with their actually-religious partners. On a more innocuous level, every one has bullshitted to avoid revealing that they don't know someone's name because it has got to the point that saying "sorry I don't know your name" would be too embarrassing.
slightwinder 5y ago
> a mentally sane person would not copy the tics from a YouTube personality A sane adult, sure. Kids? Hell no. Doing stupid things is a basic right of childhood. Kids always need help from adults in general, but I would not read to much in this single case. Overall from the kids perspective this seems rather harmless as nobody was harmed.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

geerlingguy 5y ago

The article mentions one danger of potential misdiagnosis: the medications for treatment of Tourette's, if applied incorrectly, have sometimes severe side effects. But one other danger from this phenomenon is the overuse of already-stretched-thin counselors and therapists. If you've tried to acquire any mental health services over the past year... every counselor and organization seems severely overloaded and under-staffed.

totetsu 5y ago

To some degrees sanity is defined by alignment with surrounding norms. If your peers Norms are going to extremes to do things for the lols, you might end up at the doctor's.

ptoo 5y ago

I don't think mimicking someone's Tourette's, which is what these children are doing, makes them mentally unwell. It's very possible that they are simply attention-seeking or enjoy the idea of being special. It reminds me of the relatively new phenomenon of a community on YouTube where kids faking multiple personality disorder upload videos displaying their "systems", and each persona in the system has some time on the camera before being taken over by other competing personae. Most people are in agreement that these kids are faking it, and it doesn't necessarily follow that they shouldn't be deemed "sane". It's more likely that they don't value the time of medical doctors and are willing to mimic a YouTube celebrity's tics for self-serving reasons, even if it is wasting their parents' money and the time of others.

whimsicalism 5y ago
This has also become a debate/problem in some segments of the aspergers/autism community where you have kids on TikTok pretending to be autistic. Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference.
- Morizero 5y ago
  > Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference. What a weird way to try to tie this to modern politics. You do realize that the movie "Sybil" had a similar effect (people copying a mental condition) in 1976, predating any kind of acceptance movement?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I was worried that comment might be read this way, and of course copycat syndrome is something that has been with us for a long time. To be clear, this is an extremely small cost to pay for difference to be broadly accepted.
- OneEyedRobot 5y ago
  >Perhaps this is the end result of valorizing difference. Oooh, I think I'm going to steal that. To be fair, maybe it's just another mechanism for culture transfer. Hours per day on a phone filled with highly evolved addiction algorithms are proving their value, God knows what the future will bring. If kids never absorbed silly things, we'd never have had bellbottoms.
  - fortran77 5y ago
    > we'd never have had bellbottoms. Those were appropriated from the Navy. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  This is a direct consequence of society giving aid to autistic people while reducing stigma, it is practically obvious that more people are going to consequently try and fit that label. What we see is this phenomena where autistic people today have less actual impairments, who might even take offense to the idea that they are impaired, but with more tiktok videos of "stimming" and flapping their hands on YouTube. An emphasis on the preformative over the substantive. There has even been a counter-backlash in this community that too much funding is going towards people with few impairments, and too little funding is going for people so disabled they're completely unable to be independent.

stinos 5y ago

you realize that a mentally sane person would not copy the tics from a YouTube personality Food for thought. Is there really such a thing as a mentally sane person? Anyway the first thing which came to my mind when I read this was not 'mentally insane' but 'oh, puberty'. I'm not claiming all of this is completely normal, or all of these are pre-adult (heck even adults are still known to copy other's behavior) but I'm also quite careful of leaning towards the claim that all these people need help.

imwillofficial 5y ago
> Is there really such a thing as a mentally sane person? Yes.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Everyone I know can receive a series of true facts and come out of that believing something false!

IshKebab 5y ago

> and keep the schtick up all the way to the doctors It's perfectly normal to keep up a lie alive to an extreme degree just to avoid having to awkwardly admit you were lying. Think about the rape accusers who take it all the way to court before eventually admitting they made it up, or all of the married people who keep up the pretence of religion to avoid awkwardness with their actually-religious partners. On a more innocuous level, every one has bullshitted to avoid revealing that they don't know someone's name because it has got to the point that saying "sorry I don't know your name" would be too embarrassing.

slightwinder 5y ago

> a mentally sane person would not copy the tics from a YouTube personality A sane adult, sure. Kids? Hell no. Doing stupid things is a basic right of childhood. Kids always need help from adults in general, but I would not read to much in this single case. Overall from the kids perspective this seems rather harmless as nobody was harmed.