About

Turn It Off TikTok Challenge, or the Fake Crying Challenge, refers to a participatory acting challenge and series of POV videos on TikTok in which the TikToker films themselves fake crying as authentically as possible, then suddenly turning the crying off and switching to a more neutral face as the words "turn it off" are spoken in the audio. The challenge was criticized by members of the Black community in late June for being racist as they began noticing how many white women were performing it, seeing it as a show of how easily they can switch their emotions, a tactic that some connected with white people lying to get Black people arrested under false pretenses.

Origin

On May 28th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @barbalas9296 posted a video compiling a scene from the TV show The Vampire Diaries in which the character Klaus tells Stefan to "turn it off," referring to his humanity. After Klaus says "turn it off," the music stops for a few beats then picks up as Stefan looks up, his humanity off (shown below). The video gained over 3 million views in just under a month.

On May 29th, TikToker^[2] @saracarstens posted a POV video captioned, "#POV I turn off my humanity switch," in which she is filmed crying, then wipes away a tear and switches to a more neutral emotional state after being told to "turn it off." The video gained over 4.4 million views in under a month (shown below). This is the earliest known video fake crying over the sound.

Spread

Over the course of June, TikTokers^[4][5] continued the trend of crying then suddenly "turning it off" under the sound, resulting in a number of viral videos (popular examples shown below).

Some TikTokers also used the sound to act out similar skits showing situations where you might have to turn off your emotions. For example, on June 6th, TikToker^[6] @_zuleyka._, an ultrasound tech, posted a skit acting out a situation where she is performing an ultrasound but can't find a heartbeat anywhere, having to keep calm, garnering over 19 million views in two weeks (shown below).

On June 17th, StayHipp^[3] published an entry on the trend. By June 23rd, the original sound associated with the trend was used in over 75,000 videos, while the hashtag "#turnitoff" gained over 63 million views in the same span of time.

Criticism

On June 15th, TikToker^[7] @notwildlin, a Black man, Stitched a now-deleted video following the trend by TikToker Hannah Stocking. In the Stitch, he criticizes the trend as racist in a roundabout way as to avoid getting his video removed, saying the original sound is full of videos of white women crying then stopping when the beat drops to prove how convincing they are at the performance, implying this is a tactic that's been used by white people to successfully accuse Black people of crimes. The video gained over 1.9 million views in a week. It was shared by Twitter^[8] user @guinep_paltrow on that day, garnering over 116,000 likes and 29,000 retweets in the same span of time (shown below).

The most important tik tok you’ll see this week: pic.twitter.com/2wsaikUZDk

— Cooch Hall (@guinep_paltrow) June 16, 2021

A number of Twitter users commented on the post with further videos criticizing the trend, as well as highlighting why it's so troubling themselves. On June 16th, for example, Twitter^[10] user @GallahWarrior posted, "It’s a fucking joke/trend that’s could get one of us killed…that’s on Emmett Till!," referencing the 1955 death of Black man Emmett Till, who was lynched after being accused of offending a white woman in the grocery store run by her family.^[11]

It’s a fucking joke/trend that’s could get one of us killed…that’s on Emmett Till! pic.twitter.com/r5hlwzr5FN

— Says the Man who died 5x (@GallahWarrior) June 17, 2021

On June 21st, Twitter^[9] user @chimenesuleyman posted a compilation of videos following the trend from TikTok, captioned, "Oh. A whole TikTok trend where… white women… show us how good they are at performatively crying on cue…," garnering over 6,600 likes and 3,000 quote tweets in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References