coronavirus

The Teens Are Riding Out Coronavirus on TikTok

Rage. Despair. Hope. TikTok. Photo: fizkes/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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It’s a weird feeling, sitting around and waiting for disaster to peak. The bad news is accumulating all around us and yet we know coronavirus has so much more chaos to give: already, the rumblings of quarantine and hand sanitizer price gouging read as mere child’s play when you remember the mounting death toll and rumored lack of government preparedness. With so much uncertainty sitting alongside the all-but-unavoidable fact that this will get worse, you may be feeling a maelstrom of emotions right now, many of them mixed, many of them anxiety-based. What do you do with all that interior turbulence? Where do you put it?

If you are a teen, you put it on TikTok. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the social media platform into an overflowing repository of adolescent angst and memeable content. It’s a real rollercoaster of rage, sorrow, humor, and fear — all aboard.

Disgust.

Meet the teen who realized that the marked uptick in her school’s paper towel consumption maybe definitely means people were simply disgusting before the coronavirus outbreak reminded them of basic hygiene. Relatable, no?

Resignation.

Staring down the barrel of an indeterminate amount of time indoors, during which contact with other humans is strongly discouraged, perhaps you have begun to resign yourself to the possibility that you will never know love again. This teen gets it.

Frustration.

You had tickets to Coachella but now that’s been pushed, along with seemingly every other festival, concert, and thing you had to look forward to for the foreseeable. From a purely logistical standpoint, this is annoying in and of itself, but imagine how much more manageable this situation could’ve been if the CDC hadn’t (allegedly) royally screwed up national testing protocol. Gah!!!!

Despair.

Prom is canceled, and with it, joy.

Hope.

Maybe, nestled somewhere between the fear and the confusion, you are feeling a prickle of … excitement? hope? at the prospect of sealing yourself inside your home for an extended period of time. In so doing, you may help prevent the rampant spread of coronavirus, which is crucial given our government’s lackluster response to the crisis! And also, no school, hell yes!

The Teens Are Riding Out Coronavirus on TikTok