For the longest time I’ve found it difficult to talk about this without crying, but my therapist recommended I talk about it, even if it’s with random people from here.
My wife passed away a few months ago because of Tik Tok.
We were reluctant to download the app for the longest time. Usually we were pretty busy running our business, but when we heard from our friends about the app and how “”personalised”” the algorithm is… well we were intrigued and downloaded it during a slow season at work.
What’s the worst that could happen, right? Sadly I now understand when people reply to that statement with “famous last words.”
For the first 2 days the content was a little random but then it got oddly specific to our interests. Whatever, it got me hooked with Star Wars and whiskeys. My wife loved baking, Tik Tok dances and some K-pop content which goes beyond me, especially after everything.
That’s what got her trapped.
We would watch some together at night but after the third or fourth day I was tired. Admittedly I had never spent so much time on my phone anyway and was getting restless, so I went to find other things to do with my free time besides work.
But my wife on the other hand… She didn’t slow down, she just kept watching, no cooking, not helping in the house, nothing, just fucking god-dammed cursed Tik Tok.
Each day she got worse, watching on the bathroom, while eating -if she ate at all- hardly sleeping, just on that fucking phone. I would ask her to stop, but she kept replying with a miserable “uh huh” and kept scrolling, asking for “5 more minutes”.
I didn’t even see her charge the fucking phone. I thought if I left her alone, she would stop, but nothing. Barely functioning as a human being without drinking or eating anything more than a cup of water and a chocolate a day.
She stopped responding to everyone, her mother, her sister, everyone. I tried everything to avoid losing it but she drove me insane. Probably something I will regret forever, even if my therapist says it’s not my fault.
The day I finally screamed at her asking her to stop, telling her she was sick, scaring me, that I loved her, that if she loved me, she would stop but she kept giving me her back ignoring anything I did or said, so I saw red, I ripped the phone from her hand but she…
She just kept fucking scrolling. Her hand raised in the air as if she still had the phone. When I looked at the phone, the app kept scrolling in sync with her finger. I threw the fucking phone away and turned her to face me, the worst moment of my life, I just jumped and screamed my lungs out.
Anytime I close my eyes I still see her… eyes red, crying blood, with dry crusts around them. Then a sound came out of the phone while her mouth moved. It was the fucking Tik Tok text reader voice saying:
“5… more… minutes…”
I started crying and ran away from that place to my parent’s house. Called an ambulance on the way, explaining that my wife trying to explain everything without sounding insane.
I can’t remember much about what happened right after that, or rather, don’t want to. The next thing I knew, she was dead from blood-loss from her eyes and mouth. After a few weeks of interviews with the police, they let me out, giving me her now broken phone.
Somehow it was still on, I tried taking a picture with it or turning it off, but nothing. It was stuck on Tik Tok. I put it away in an old cabinet to get over this for a while…
Last month it came back, everything did when I thought I was doing better.
I heard it from my cabinet, I heard her voice. It was distorted with the Tik Tok text reader voice, but it was her. When I looked at the broken phone, her face was plastered on the screen, apparently from a random Tik Tok user. It was her bloody face, no eyes just blood where they’re supposed to be. Her mouth opened, just a hole with bloody maggots for teeth.
“5. More. minutes. Why didn’t you give me 5 MORE MINUTES!”
I fucking threw it away. Threw the phone out and left to my parents house again. I can’t take it, I don’t even have a smartphone any more, my therapist doesn’t believe much of it, saying it was trauma, but I know I’m not insane, and I hope you’ll be careful.
Don’t fall for the trap, stop scrolling on your phone.