About

The Children of the Waning Star refers to a TikTok cult started by TikToker user Gigi Jarvis (@notgigijarvis) in July 2025. She said that she created it because it would be "silly." It was later named the Children of the Waning Star, inspired by a TikTok comment she received. Jarvis gained a large following from posting about her cult, leading to memes and a growing fandom on the app. The Children of the Waning Star also amassed controversy and backlash from internet users who thought that the romanticization of cults was problematic. Others claimed that some of Jarvis' followers were commenting about blood-letting, which led to pushback.

Origin

On July 11th, 2025, TikToker^[1] Gigi Jarvis (@notgigijarvis) posted a video with text reading, "Starting a cult day 1," in which she said, "I'm starting a cult and want you all to be a part of it." She then said she wanted to do something called "victim of the week." She explained, "Whoever drops the funniest photo in my comment section, I'm going to steal your profile picture and become you for a whole week." Over five days, her video gained over 260,400 likes (shown below).

In the following days, Jarvis shared multiple videos, elaborating on her imagined cult.

On July 13th, she posted a TikTok^[2] that responded to a comment, reading, "Children of the Waning Star," which she chose as the official name of her cult. Over three days, the video gained over 111,500 likes (shown below).

Spread

Gigi Jarvis' videos about the Children of the Waning Star continued to gain viral engagement in July 2025.

For instance, on July 14th, she posted a TikTok^[3] in which she said that the Children of the Waning Star were not going to be called a cult anymore because "no one is actually doing rituals or sacrificing." Over two days, the video gained over 75,600 likes (shown below).

Others started to post videos about Gigi Jarvis' Children of the Waning Star, like TikToker^[4] @char.char_slide on July 14th, 2025, who wrote in her caption that she was "unfortunately gullible enough to join a cult," receiving over 158,800 likes in two days (shown below).

Controversy

On July 14th, 2025, TikToker^[5] @therealliberty_belle posted a video about the Children of the Waning Star cult, stating that she thought the trend was becoming "serious" and that it needed to stop. She claimed that TikTokers in Gigi Jarvis' comment sections were alleging that they were blood-letting for the cult. @therealliberty_belle's video on the topic received over 30,600 likes in two days (shown below).

On July 14th, Redditor Designer_Location936 shared a post to the /r/cults^[7] subreddit about the Children of the Waning Star. They wrote in their post, "I honestly don’t think this can lead to anything positive and the romanization of cults is not okay." Over two days, the post gained over 110 upvotes and 150 comments.

On July 15th, 2025, TikToker^[6] @whimsicalmelody posted a video, compiling clips of Gigi Jarvis' videos and combining them with Scientology clips. The video's description read, "Not my usual content but felt like I had to spread some awareness ❤️‍🩹." It's unclear if the post is satirical or not. In one day, the video received over 192,200 likes (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References