Beautiful suffering? An analysis on young people’s narratives of their experiences with mental illness on TikTok

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate how youth depict their personal experiences with mental illness on TikTok. For this purpose, the following research question is posed: How do TikTok users depict their personal experiences with mental illness? To answer the research question, a qualitative content analysis of TikTok videos was conducted. The qualitative content analysis revealed that youth depict their experiences with mental illness on TikTok by incorporating and connecting elements of pop culture to their own narratives and make use of several aestheticization techniques to convey their narratives. It is shown that both the appropriation of pop culture elements and narrative styles and the structure of the TikTok App contribute significantly to the aestheticization of youths' personal narratives about their experiences with mental illness. Based on this, further research is recommended to explore what impact these narratives may have on other adolescent users.