Psychopaths of TikTok

People seeking an identity...

Sorry about the late post today, guys. I have had a lot going on, and totally forgot that it was Wednesday.

Psychopathy is an identity that people really like to shroud themselves in. I suppose that doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. However, when the person doing so speaks about it publicly as a so-called “expert”, in it, then it does become a problem.

TikTok is not exactly a place that I would consider a beacon of truth, but it is popular, and that lays the groundwork for bad information. I am not on TikTok, so I don’t pay attention to the creators there. Elle, the magazine, however, did the groundwork for me. Now, I need to make the disclaimer that I have never watched any of these creators, so all of my conclusions will be based solely on the article that they were interviewed for.

The article that we will be discussing today, can be found here:

The Psychopaths of TikTok Content creators are turning to social media to destigmatize—and make money off of—their personality disorders.

All righty, let’s get started:

In Vic Path’s first TikTok, she speaks straight to camera, surrounded by the baby-pink walls of her childhood bedroom. Wearing an oversized T-shirt, a simple gold necklace, and her hair down, she ends the video with an invitation: “Follow along if you’re interested in hearing more about psychopaths.” Her video—which has accrued more than four million views since February—suggests five ways to tell if you’re friends with a psychopath. Is this person exceedingly charming? Do they always seem to get what they want? These could be signs, she says. After all, it’s a condition she knows intimately.

Do not listen to that advice. I know if you have been reading me for a while, you know that none of that is indicative of psychopathy. It’s indicative of someone that knows how to interact with people effectively. None of that has to do with psychopathy. Lack of empathy would be a far better thing to notice, and I can’t help but notice that doesn’t even come up. That tells me something, but we’ll get back to that.

Vic Path—a stage name the 23-year-old uses—says she’s always felt emotionally detached from people. As a child, she enjoyed bullying, manipulating, and bossing around others. When she got older and became tired of her stable home life, Path says she repeatedly purposefully put herself in dangerous situations, like traveling alone, staying with strangers she met on the street, abusing drugs, and sleeping in public restrooms. After risking her own life multiple times just to feel less bored, Path decided to try therapy.

She’s twenty-three, so she is not a psychopath. Likely there will be more things that stand out to me, but she isn’t old enough to even consider it, which means she shouldn’t be talking about it. Also… the name? Come on.

As for her “psychopathic habits”, such as traveling alone, and staying with strangers? None of that means anything. She claims that she enjoyed bullying. That makes you not psychopathic. That’s sadism, which requires emotional empathy. The fact that she can feel something that requires emotional empathy, and doesn’t list that as one of her primary experiences in the world, that makes her suspect. There is quite a bit there that disqualifies her a being psychopathic.

I know a ton of people that do things like that, and they are not psychopaths. Some literally do not understand those things are dangerous because they are a Pollyanna type, and some simply don’t care. A great deal of that mindset comes from having an underdeveloped brain. This is pretty standard. Not psychopathic.

At 19, she was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), which is characterized by a failure to conform to laws and social norms, repeated lying or conning of others, impulsivity, a lack of remorse, and basic disregard for or violation of others’ rights and safety, according to the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Otherwise known as the DSM-5-TR, the manual is the standard classification of mental disorders used by U.S. mental health professionals.

Once again with feeling people. ASPD is not psychopathy, and it is nothing like psychopathy. Also, based on what? Nothing in this article is remotely like ASPD.

Also, also, the DSM-5 is nothing more than an insurance repayment manual. Just a reminder.

Online, Path uses the term “psychopath.” While not identical to ASPD, psychopathy is also a mental disorder characterized by antisocial traits. It is not included in the DSM-5-TR, but some people with ASPD, like Path, use the term colloquially. “It’s much more recognizable,” Path says. “On social media, it hooks people.”

Not identical? Not related. Also, not a disorder. Also, also, it has nothing to do with ASPD. What a lovely paragraph of nonsense. Psychopathy being a hook for someone that doesn’t have it is fiction, not information.

ASPD was the easiest thing for me to market about myself, so that’s what I chose to center my social media presence around, and it’s working out beautifully.”

Grifter. Got it.

It certainly does. Path is just one of a handful of young creators who identify as psychopaths or sociopaths and have taken to TikTok to discuss their experiences. Path explains that one of her goals is to rebrand psychopathy and change public perception of those with ASPD; according to the Cleveland Clinic, ASPD affects up to an estimated four percent of adults in the U.S. “I get to help destigmatize a heavily misunderstood disorder,” Path says. “Every day, people leave ignorant and closed-minded comments on my videos, demonizing me for my disorder or trying to discredit me. But people also tell me I’ve changed their perspective, and those are the people I love to post for.”

Again, ASPD is not psychopathy, and I have yet to hear one thing that remotely qualifies her as having even that label.

ASPD affects up to an estimated four percent of adults in the U.S.

Is that accurate? I don’t know, but that number has nothing to do with psychopathy. We are .75-1% of the population of the world. Not four percent of anything.

It doesn’t hurt that these creators are also gaining fame and fortune from their videos. “My sole motivator is money,” Path freely admits. After she graduated from college and struggled to find a job, TikTok seemed like a good way to fund her “expensive” lifestyle. “ASPD was the easiest thing for me to market about myself, so that’s what I chose to center my social media presence around, and it’s working out beautifully,” she says. Though Path declined to disclose a specific number, she confirmed she makes the equivalent of a full-time salary from TikTok: “It’s a very comfortable wage.”

Soo… she admits that she’s grifting, and we’re still giving her article space? That seems to speak to the author’s assumption about psychopathy. If the person is lying on the internet in order to get money, and claiming to be something that she is not, that must be indicative that she is what she claims. Circular reasoning, and incorrect.

Another creator who goes by Cherry, or @thatplasticbitch, earns approximately $2,000 a month on TikTok, where she talks about what it’s like to be a “sociopath.” Sociopathy is no longer a formal diagnosis, and it isn’t used clinically, but some people with ASPD still self-identify as sociopaths.

Cool for her on the money, but I wonder what sort of background she has to claim that label. Sociopathy is not an easy thing to claim, because it is not an easy thing to be. We’re talking heavy trauma, abuse, neglect, at a very early age. I know few people that what that to be their history, so we shall see what she says.

Cherry says she was diagnosed with conduct disorder (a comparable diagnosis to ASPD that’s included in the DSM-5-TR and given to minors) at age 14, after beating up a classmate with a computer. She wasn’t surprised; she says she never cared about others’ feelings and described herself as selfish. “I was always a good liar, good at manipulating people,” she adds. “I could cry on cue. I was a good actor.”

All right? What about what caused the sociopathy? There has to be something there, right? I mean, other than just being a rather toxic brat as a teenager. Conduct disorder is not longer part of the diagnosis of ASPD. They removed it in the newest iteration. You can find the criteria comparison here:

DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria for the Personality Disorders

As she’s gotten older and worked with more therapists, Cherry has learned to manage her symptoms. “I used to start chaos around me just to feel something,” she says. “Now, I’ve learned coping skills and things I can do when I need entertainment. I still don’t care for others’ feelings, but [now] I can see their side of things. It’s in my nature to be selfish, but I can work towards becoming a better person.”

This paragraph is simply personal experience. Whether she’s a sociopath or not, this is similar to what I have heard from other people who have ASPD. The question I have is her age. It seriously plays into this as being diagnostic of anything, versus simply being a selfish person that grew up mostly online, so lacking in people skills. It’s hard to say.

This brings to bear another question. Will ASPD be a result of perpetually being online. A person that is disconnected from the world around them, being continually fed a stream of fictional worlds, and filling their heads with a pretend social ballet, leaving them totally unprepared for the real thing. It wouldn’t be too surprising to see that self-focus, coupled with a total lack of reality, creating a specific form of antisocial personality disorder. At the very least, it is farming a form of narcissism that I think requires study.

“Had I had someone like that in my life when I was younger to help me understand my diagnosis and seek therapy, it would have been a complete game-changer for me.”

Sociopath or ASPD, this is likely true for most. It wouldn’t be true for a psychopath, and that is because a psychopath cannot be counseled out of psychopathy. It would require a very progressive psychologist who was committed to teaching cognitive empathy, instead of trying to change a hardwired course of action.

Cherry also uses a stage name in an effort to keep from being doxxed or found by future employers, who she worries might use her diagnosis against her.

*Head on desk*

You are on camera. Camera. They can see you. This is not a good method for not being doxxed. Have you not seen POL on 4Chan? They can find you from a freaking shadow. If security is your concern, and trust me, it should be, you should not be on camera. Ever.

Although she sees the risk in posting, she’s motivated by her mission. “I want people to understand what a sociopath actually is, because when they see us in books and movies, we appear crazy,” she says. “People think we go on killing sprees, or they think of Ted Bundy. I want to show them we can be good people.”

Fair.

Patric Gagne has a similar aim. Diagnosed with sociopathic personality disorder in her 20s, Gagne wrote a bestselling memoir about growing up as a sociopath. “I think it’s amazing these young women are spreading the word,” Gagne says. “The younger you are, the more receptive you are to treatment for these disorders. Had I had someone like that in my life when I was younger to help me understand my diagnosis and seek therapy, it would have been a complete game-changer for me.”

I looked this woman up:

Patric Gagne is a writer, former therapist, and advocate for people suffering from sociopathic, psychopathic, and anti-social personality disorders. She earned a PhD in clinical psychology with a dissertation that examined the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety. This research became the groundwork for her continued studies on sociopathic disorder, as well as the foundation for her memoir. She did her undergraduate work at UCLA and earned her masters and doctorate at the California Graduate Institute of The Chicago School.

All right, cool. I hope that sociopathy gets studied more. It’s necessary. I have no comments on her idea of sociopathy and it having a tie to anxiety, because I haven’t read it, I am not a sociopath, and I don’t comment on things that I do not know anything about. Interesting, and if it’s available to read, I would be curious to do so. I will have to look into it.

Even so, some professionals are concerned social media will lead to people self-diagnosing personality disorders. “This happened originally with ADHD,” says Dr. Paul Losoff, a clinical psychologist who’s worked with ADHD patients for over 15 years. “As the trend [of sharing ADHD diagnoses on TikTok] grew and more information got out there, more people were falsely self-diagnosing. You can’t just fill out a bunch of questions and discover that you’re a psychopath or sociopath. A licensed professional needs to spend hours getting to know you.”

Perfectly true. I mean, the first person in the article is a perfect example of that. She decided she was a psychopath… without anything indicating that would be the case and being too young to even consider it.

It can also be confusing for the average viewer to accept a creator’s purported mission to destigmatize a disorder, while watching them describe extreme antisocial tendencies. On the first page of Gagne’s memoir, she writes: “I’m a liar. I’m a thief. I’m emotionally shallow. I’m mostly immune to remorse and guilt. I’m highly manipulative.”

Sounds like a sociopath to me.

According to Dr. Abigail Marsh, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown University and a leading researcher in psychopathy, there’s a fine line between stigmatizing a mental health disorder and punishing bad behavior. “If you persistently engage in behaviors that exploit or harm others or violate their rights, that should be stigmatized,” Marsh explains.

Absolutely true. Just because someone is a sociopath, or a psychopath, or has ASPD, their actions are still under their control. Nothing about any of these things makes understanding social norms, laws, or expectations to be outside of our reach. It might be harder to learn, but actions are still a choice. I think that is important to rest on that notion heavily. It can be easy to dismiss, and it shouldn’t be.

But, like these creators emphasize, Marsh also notes that many people have developed strategies to manage said behaviors; Gagne explains that she now knows how to redirect her destructive impulses. People with ASPD might sit next to you at work, come to your family dinners, or pop up on your For You Page. “It’s not the traits themselves that are the problem for any disorder,” Marsh says. “It’s how the traits manifest behaviorally and how well the person has learned to manage them.”

In other words, how you choose to behave defines everything. Yup.

The challenge is that it can be difficult for people with ASPD, because there is little research about treating these disorders, Marsh says. In fact, she notes, clinical psychology PhD programs in the U.S. are heavily biased in favor of treating depression and anxiety, with no requirement that candidates train to treat people with ASPD. Marsh’s nonprofit, Society for the Prevention of Disorders of Aggression, aims to bridge this gap by helping those affected by psychopathy understand their disorder and treatment options, including psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy.

I looked at the nonprofit, and there will be an article about that one. Let’s just say, she categorizes psychopathy as an aggression disorder. I am curious as to how she defines “aggression”. That should be interesting.

Cherry says she’s discovered a robust community of other creators with personality disorders, whom she now calls her closest friends. “I like these people, because they don’t have a moral compass,” Cherry explains. “My best friends are a sociopath and a narcissist. They don’t judge me.”

Not much to say here. It makes sense that they would talk. I speak to others that are psychopathic or sociopathic because of my writing, so that makes sense to me.

Having lived with the knowledge she’s different most of her life, Cherry is proud of her online presence. “People comment tons of positive things, saying I’ve helped them understand their sociopathic family members or that they now feel more empathy for sociopaths,” she says.

I get comments like this too, so it’s good this is happening in many spheres of influence.

Still, observing creators like Path and Cherry can feel conflicting; it’s easy to walk away from one of their videos, or interviews, and not know what to think—about them or their intentions. But while viewers work out what shade of gray to paint them in, they’ll keep posting. And almost certainly, we’ll keep watching.

That’s fair. People should question. That’s the point. I don’t write to insist people share my worldview. I write to put information out there that causes people to take a moment and consider what they think they know.

Having content out there that inspires people to think is a good thing.

Having content out there that gives them the wrong information for people to think about? Not so much.