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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

The fact that WSJ fell for this is both amusing and depressing.

This has been going on for a long time now. Young people on TikTok pretend to have a wide variety of mental illness and neuro-atypicalities.

You can find kids pretending to have Aspergers. Pretending to have ADHD. It goes on. Tourette's is one in a long list.

Why? Because they think it's a quirk that makes them interesting and different. Very simply young people have massive egos and little awareness, which isn't anything new. This is a non story and giving it this attention only makes things worse.

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Further reading on this subject: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-crazy-like...

> In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters sounds the alarm about falling psychiatric biodiversity. Along with all the usual effects of globalization, everyone is starting to have the same mental illnesses, and to understand them in the same way.

I’m not sure your certainty on your explanation is justified, this is complex and there are multiple factors interacting. Maybe some kids are pretending, maybe some kids are not. Just because an uptick of specific conditions is occurring, it does not mean that the uptick is people pretending.

That's what I thought about too. Very interesting read, seems intuitive in a way, I'd like to see further research done on that subject.

That teenagers seek self-confirmation etc is not new.

What is new is unrestricted access to a world wide forum where they post videos and pictures of themselves without supervision (not just tiktok).

I think it's well worth the attention it is getting in the news and more importantly study of how it affects them.

I’m always skeptical of these types of explanations of human behavior. What is the thought process exactly? Do people think to themselves “Hmm, I need a quirk that makes me different”? I can’t imagine having such a thought. Why things appeal to people is probably much more complex.

It's probably subconcious. It's normal for people to pickup mannerisms of the people around them, so it doesn't seem far fetched for people to pick up fake tics and other behaviors if they spend all day watching videos of people that exhibit those behaviors.

It's not that they think that and then consciously act on the decision, just that it's the _reason_ they do it.

Much like how a certain type of person will very strongly defend their musical preferences with various technical reasons, while discounting that it just happens to be what was popular when they were a teenager.

With music, you can both verify that a person liked the music as a teenager, and present that person with other music sharing the same qualities to see if they like it enough. This provides empirical evidence regarding this theory on their musical preferences. Such evidence is missing when trying to understand why someone has a “fake tic”.

It sounds like they're developing real tics because of subconscious influences from the tic-tacs, real fake tics which are more or less the same as real real tics just brought on for different reasons.

And regarding the music analogy: it's not about the person liking just the music from their formative years, it's that the music they're exposed to during those years has an outsized effect on their preferences going forward. If they pass an intuition check they'll eventually realize the _reason_ why they care so much about the specific technical details they do isn't because that music is inherently and objectively better, and if not then they'll spend the rest of their life complaining about how they just don't make 'em like that anymore.

As a former teenager (but not girl) I think it's just an attention thing. Teens competing for attention from others isn't new, but now, thanks to the web and Social Media, the competition is world wide and measurable by counting your likes. Which means you need to do sillier and quirkier things to win. It's product differentiation but you are your own product. In the 90s I wore combat boots and a black trench coat. Today I guess it's pretending you have a disease. "LOL, kids" I guess.

It isn't that hard to imagine. First you do some strange movement on accident, someone says "do you have tics?" because they watched a video about tics, then you try to joke so you say "Yeah!" and do some exaggerated tics. They take you seriously and now think you have tics, and you can't admit it was all a joke so you continue. Then the lie just grows from there until your parents take you to a doctor and it got so big that now you think people would get mad to you if you said you made it all up, so just keep it up.

A lot of teenagers only care about being popular, and will stray from their true selves to achieve popularity. That's why parents always tell their kids "just be yourself," and why kids sometimes respond "it's not a phase, mom, this is who I am."

>it's not a phase, mom, this is who I am

Even as a kid I always found that a weird one.

Surely it doesn't take that long for people to notice that "who you are" changes with time?

Specially in modern times when you have contact with so many stories.

Mirror neurons.

They see everyone else who behaves acting like clown but they’re less socially aware of which clown like behavior they should broadcast.

They conflate acting and mockery.

> Do people think to themselves “Hmm, I need a quirk that makes me different”?

It's somewhat subconscious. You see someone do something that grabs your attention. You see this person getting attention as a positive.You want the same attention, so you mimic the traits that attract it. And the more people that do it, the more it grows an ingroup that you can feel safe belonging to. And actually these quirks aren't making them different, they're making them the same as other people who use the same quirks. Anyone who has ever seen a goth person and soon after began dressing goth themselves is doing the same thing.

> And actually these quirks aren't making them different, they're making them the same as other people who use the same quirks.

That's called fashion.

A lot of the people doing this treat it as fashion, and what they claim keeps changing from week to week.

It's really frustrating as it makes it that much harder for the people with the actual conditions or disorders, who already often have to face pervasive stigma and difficulty.

Doesnt their behavior actually lower the stigma? Now it’s more acceptable than ever before to be open about your conditions and disorders

Look up oxytocin, tend and befriend, social status/signalling theory...for just a small dose of what the endocrine system does and why it evolved.

We have always played around with and manipulated these pathways in very casual ignorant ways to get whatever our 6 inch chimp brain needs.

But the difference today is the speed, scale and complete cluelessness with which the manipulation is happening.

It's called Munchausens syndrome. Just found an article by the UK NHS but it's just wanting pity or comfort. It's just a mental disorder, but I'm sure during adolescence, you could almost argue that it's a temporal mental disorder that dissipates as you age. It's very similar to latching on to an identity to make yourself special.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/munchausens-synd....

Münchhausen's by Internet specifically

Have you never known someone who came back from a brief trip with a fake 'accent'? (Or even without the trip)

I can't imagine being so disconnected from how humans work as to not understand what's up here.

People enjoy the attention of other people- it's part of the drive to gain social position. Sometimes they develop pathological behaviour related to this drive. Particularly when self-awareness is low like in most teenagers and some non-neurotypical people.

No. That's exactly how teenagers think. Except the quirk has to be a protected target, i.e. disability.

Would rising incidents of transgender identification be of the same cause? And that is also primarily among young girls. Why do we not see a similar affect of social contagion among young boys, or do we?

I could see maybe non-binary being something like this...I'm not too familiar w/ transgender issues but supportive, but binary seems to be sort of what used to maybe be a 'tom girl', though I'm probably way off on that...

But true trans-f trans-m truly are or feel they were born the total opposite gender, some may even have been born w/ hermaphrodite expression possibly, where they had some of the opposite parts which could cause hormones of that kind...

Regardless, it's not a mental health issue imho, for some it may be a decision for the non-binary types..that one confuses me some, and I'm ASD spectrum so blunt, so I hope I don't offend anyone, just trying to use reasoning to understand/talk it through...

My cousin who's like 20 years younger than me is transitioning to male via hormones, etc. It seemed odd to me, but she didn't have a very happy upbringing either, raised by grandparents and her mom/dad I think not really wanting a kid (or treating her like she was their 'child'. She was dating a girl in H.S. then a boy, who she's still with even through becoming trans, I really haven't seen her in years though, just from facebook, etc.

Honestly, I admire people who find out who they are and go for it. I'm 42, and still floundering trying to find my purpose in life, or who I am. I'm a dad, and a programmer, and a husband... but what else? I feel incomplete often myself, but that's partly trying to learn to deal w/ ASD/ADHD which I only found out I had 3 years ago, and is part to blame for my obesity, depression, anxiety, and bouts of complete lack of motivation or severe procrastination.

tldr: I highly doubt gender-id is related to tik-tok or 'contagious', except maybe non-binary only because that's a little fluid, and just logically in my head it's non-committal one way or the other, though that's probably just my lack of understanding what it really means to be non-binary... Personally, I can't fathom waking up and being like: Ooh all these men want to be girls, that sounds like fun, I should too... it just doesn't sound like something that'd be prone to peer pressure. It's definitely a very personal choice, and has reasons behind it.

I’ve experienced people borrowing behavioral tics and tendencies from each other. I personally think there’s something about tics that’s easily transmissible. It’s almost like people are overly compelled to repeat/assimilate those behaviors. The science on it is thin afaik.

No, this absolutely does need attention. Probably not yours, but that's fine.

https://old.reddit.com/r/fakedisordercringe/comments/lz83c2/...

> young people have massive egos and little awareness, which isn't anything new

There is a new element tho, and that's adults being the middleman and exploiters and shapers of said needs via electronic means at mass scale, who exploit and capitalize on the weaknesses of young and old alike, and don't give the slightest fuck about they harm.

The problem is these types of things, where you say "This is a non story and giving it this attention only makes things worse", can end up having a real, negative impact on society regardless.

Take a look at QAnon. I remember when I first heard about that thinking "Heh, those 4chan trolls are at it again". I got slowly more horrified as wider and wider swaths of people, including people in positions of government power, started believing this completely absurd nonsense.

More on topic for the article, as a gay person, I think it's great that young people today can explore their sexuality in a way that isn't terrifying if you land on something other than "straight". That said, I admit I do feel a bit of resentment when some younger people today want to change their sexuality on a monthly basis, or express outrage when you don't call them by new pronouns that they made up (not talking about he/she/they, I'm talking about stuff like 'xe'). It just feels like blatant attention seeking that cheapens the struggles of people who are actually not straight.

Just because something is not entirely new doesn't mean it hasn't changed. Many things existed before the internet, but have been changed by the internet in quality or quantity. It makes sense to track how these changes manifest as we travel deeper into a world shaped by networked communication and its knock-on effects.

Imho - this is why identity politics of the left mixed with capitalism dividing us all into demos for ads/marketing is dangerous. I'd also add right wing reactionary bull to the left wing variety of this as well.

Who you are becomes infinitely more interesting than the quality of your character or your actions.

Pretending to be disabled or atypical neurological is one. Explosions, as high as 1500% increase in Sweden, of Tran identity is another. I'd argue building tribes of reactionaries trying to out-victim everyone else, like incels, are also a part of this. You see dominant religious groups take pages out of minority playbooks and do it back, faking injury like a pro soccer player.

This swj/capitalist duality we have is utterly toxic.the reaction to it is toxic too.

We are not our race, gender, who we sleep with or our diagnosis. And I say that as someone with multiple autoimmune and psych disorders. It's not cool. It doesn't make me unique or cool or funny or more valid. I felt more valid when I didn't have these things I try not to look at as labels of "am" and more of "experiencing". I don't like to admit it. I don't even let my employers know even though it'd afford me greater flexibility and leeway.

You're gonna see an increase of trans-racial, self-hating majorities, reactionary majorities, minorities who add to the already more difficult life-mod they're handed with self-defeatist b.s.

And it's all bc we be been hammered to think identities make us more equal than others and gives us power over others. That it makes us special. Unique.

Were all finding power in victimhood now. Even conservatives

But sometimes the minorities are right. Just look at the discrimination against asians by elite schools for example. It's partly happening because Asians don't stand up for ourselves. Even those of us who do not want to define ourselves by our race, gender etc. now have to fight back against discrimination by the people who do, so we have no choice but to start playing the game.

Regarding "incels", they are mostly correct as far as I can tell, and seem to be some of the only people who have genuine empathy for Asians. I often see vile stuff written about Asian and Indian men online, especially by horrible white women who are a "protected group" that cannot be criticized. How do we fight against this stuff that so-called progressives perpetuate without having to identify with our groups?

Feel free to post any actual, peer-reviewed research that supports this claim of yours.

Because I do not believe it for a single second. This s 4chan/Kiwifarms style harassment rationalisation, not something that is actually happening.

You have completely and comprehensively missed the point. These girls aren't trying to be interesting (or at least, not all of them). They are developing a real sympathetic response to the videos they are watching. Their symptoms may be (or, certainly are) entirely psychological but that doesn't make them not real.

Your dismissal had the opposite effect on me. I will, only because of your discouragement, read and share this widely.

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