TikTok on racism goes viral

After a TikTok stitch I made was shared by @sicksadke on Twitter, it went viral, garnering millions of views and thousands of comments. The story was picked up by online news sources reporting on the massive response on Twitter and thousands of people sharing relateable experiences.

The TikTok briefly covered the issue of South Asian comedians promoting stereotypes in a way that was harmful to me and others growing up. While it was a passionate video, talking about my own adverse childhood experiences, I never expected it to go beyond my (at the time) small TikTok bubble. Unfortunately, the video was shared on Twitter and people there shared their own experiences of being made fun of using different racial stereotypes.

Although the viral tweet didn’t link directly to my video, many people found my username on the video and went to my TikTok account to reshare and comment, causing the video to go viral on TikTok after it had its moment on Twitter. Unfortunately, like any other media that calls out systemic racism, it garnered a lot of negative feedback directed at myself and at Jasmine, who I had stitched in the video.

The result of the backlash was so great, especially concerning Jasmine’s safety that I eventually made the video private. Jasmine made her account private afterwards. And @sicksadke, who had shared the video originally on Twitter has also since made their account private.