Stop Making People In Psychosis Famous

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]We need to stop making people in psychosis famous. It seems like every other month someone in active psychosis blows up on TikTok for sharing their delusions with the world and the internet discourse machine makes them a celebrity. Remember the woman who was convinced her psychiatrist was in love with her? I certainly do. I made a video about her. What I didn't know at the time was that commentary channels like mine would set a precedent of talking about random people in the throws of psychosis at the lowest point of their lives. These individuals are not public figures and their psychotic episodes should not be treated as breaking news.

[00:00:37]In retrospect, most of the people who have gone viral for being psychotic got popular not because their actions are noteworthy, but because they became a spectacle to be exploited for entertainment. Beyond just talking about these individuals and psychosis, some particularly horrible people go them into acting inappropriately, creating more viral clips for the discourse mill.

[00:01:01]This allows those talking about the situation to act morally superior as they hold this problematic person accountable for their crimes. This form of internet justice is almost never appropriate in this kind of situation.

[00:01:15]And in hindsight, those who have gone viral for being in psychosis should have been ignored for the sake of their privacy. Last summer, a woman named Kendra went viral for sharing her wild tale on Tik Tok that her psychiatrist fell in love with her. It was clear that she was not in her right mind and that her perspective on the situation was likely some form of delusion. Rather than ignoring her and giving her space, viewers on social media found her psychotic break to be extremely entertaining. Thousands of viewers tuned into her live stream every night asking questions about her love affair with her psychiatrist. Fan accounts made slideshows of the celebrity cast for a potential Netflix series based on the saga and countless commentary YouTubers, including myself, made videos about the situation. Not only did Kendra become a freak show, but she also became a villain. People claimed she was a racist for becoming obsessed with her Asian psychiatrist, although deranged patients fall in love with their psychiatrist all the time, regardless of their race. and he was pretty good-looking. I'm not going to lie. Even though nobody believed her, people claimed her story would ruin this man's career and get his license revoked. At the peak of this frenzy of moral indignation, one commenter claimed she was the kind of white woman to accuse Emmett Till of whistling at her. In the blink of an eye, Kendra went from a nobody to a super villain, practically inciting a lynching, and everyone needed to talk about her. In August of last year, when the saga was unfolding, I knew I had to script up a YouTube video quickly before 50hour long deep dives on Kendra were uploaded by my peers. The algorithm rewards being the first person to speak on a subject. So, I was racing against the clock. At no point did I think, "Hey, maybe this isn't newsworthy. Maybe this isn't my business and I should just let the situation fizzle out." Instead, I uploaded the video and moved on with my life without giving it a second thought. I didn't revisit the subject until around New Year's when I saw someone reply to a YouTuber story post which mentioned the Kendra situation, asking their audience to rank the top drama events of 2025.

[00:03:33]The person replying to the post stated they didn't feel comfortable ranking that situation because they've been in psychosis and they were hesitant to speak about another person's episode so flippantly. That's when it hit me that I've been in psychosis before and I certainly wouldn't want my episode to be immortalized on the internet. There was no point in releasing that video other than hopping on a bandwagon and perhaps I shouldn't have made it. Unfortunately, there's not much point in unlisting it now as I don't believe it will salvage Kendra's digital footprint. Moreover, I don't think she cares as the saga last year gave her a small but devoted social media following and those live stream gifts are probably a decent supplemental income stream by now. Thankfully, nobody was harmed in last year's debacle, and Kendra outwardly appears happy and stable, albeit still a tad delusional.

[00:04:25]She thankfully had enough of her wits about her to avoid catastrophe, but that can't be said for the thousand Kendras that have cropped up to take her place.

[00:04:34]The lives of seriously unstable people who are potentially a danger to themselves or others have become Truman Show entertainment for the hordes of the internet's most depraved individuals.

[00:04:46]People experiencing psychosis have become fullon lol cows. Individuals who are targeted due to their vulnerable mental state and unusual behavior and are milked for lols. This horrid behavior used to be confined to the darkest corners of internet message boards but is now mainstream on platforms like Tik Tok. Tik Tok produces a lol cow every minute with the algorithm thrusting random psychotic people into the limelight for trolls to torment. There is no shortage of videos to choose from as people experiencing psychosis tend to post incessantly on social media. This could be because they think their thoughts are extremely profound or important or they feel the need to tell the world that they're being persecuted by the government or cyber criminals. Before I was hospitalized due to a manic episode in 2019, I believed I was a famous influencer when I had one follower on TikTok at the time and I was posting multiple times a day. That delusion is also extremely common. Thankfully, none of my manic videos went viral, and I was spared the LOL cow treatment, but the same cannot be said for the countless poor souls who come into the crosshairs of internet trolls. There are too many to name, and most are too obscure for me to feel comfortable talking about, lest I attract more attention to their delicate situations. Because of their deteriorating mental state and the behavior of the ruthless mob harassing them, clips from these individuals Tik Toks inevitably make it into YouTube commentary videos about psychosis. And I have done this before. I'm beginning to have some reservations about doing this though, as there's a big difference between showing a clip of a public figure having a mental breakdown and a random person on TikTok having a mental breakdown. While a celebrity like Kanye West can handle another headline about their psychotic episode, an ordinary person made famous for their psychotic episode does not have the PR team to handle a situation like that, nor the luxury of working in an industry where you don't have to worry about your digital footprint. If an ordinary person eventually gets treatment for their psychosis after going viral, it will be difficult to get a job when a potential employer Googles their name and sees a million videos about their mental breakdown. With little ability to control their actions, it's inevitable that someone in psychosis does something socially inappropriate, perhaps even violent or bigoted. Often these comments or actions are provoked by online trolls or even people who seek out these individuals in real life to harass them.

[00:07:22]When this happens, suddenly it's everyone's obligation to speak out against this horrible human being to inform anyone who will listen that this individual's mental illness is an explanation, not an excuse. I hate that phrase because in many cases, psychosis is a pretty good excuse for most of their actions. There's a difference between someone using their ADHD diagnosis to explain away their domestic violence conviction and someone who cannot understand right from wrong in their current mental state doing something wrong. Some of these individuals being held accountable for whatever transgression they were goated into by some troll probably couldn't even be held accountable for murder due to how deteriorated their mental state is. This is not to say that people who have a long history of ignoring their serious mental health issues and forgoing treatment despite having access to it shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. We absolutely should hold someone like Kanye West accountable for his anti-Semitic behavior during his manic episodes because he has had ample time to assess his situation yet refuses to take care of himself and take his medication. But if someone is experiencing an unavoidable psychotic episode and is causing harm, the correct course of action is medical intervention offline, not vigilante internet justice.

[00:08:43]Speaking of handling things privately, I wonder why none of these internet sleuths who allegedly want to be helpful are privately contacting family members of the people they're constantly talking about. What do their endless discourse videos accomplish other than making the situation worse? This is not a case where sunlight is the best disinfectant and publicity almost always exacerbates a situation where someone is publicly experiencing psychosis. This idea that everything must be taken to the internet has extended into public spaces where people in psychosis are filmed and posted to Tik Tok. I don't understand why these people who have their phones in their hand don't call 911 instead because dare I say many police officers treat the mentally ill with more kindness and compassion than half of all people on the internet. And that's not a compliment to our broken mental health system here in the US. Unlike random people on social media, emergency services may have the ability to provide someone in a crisis medical treatment.

[00:09:46]This is not saying calling 911 is always the best option or that having first responders there will not worsen the situation. Far too many people experiencing psychosis, especially those who aren't white, are taken to jail instead of the psych wart or are physically harmed or killed by police.

[00:10:04]In no situation though is it ever appropriate to post someone on the internet for them to get doxed. That never helps. As many as 340,000 people each year experience a firsttime psychotic episode in the US alone. And due to how chronically online everyone is these days, I imagine some of them are posting their delusions to Tik Tok as I speak. We cannot let Tik Tok be a vehicle that propels vulnerable people in a mental health crisis to internet infamy. Doing so allows low lives to provoke them, only worsening their precarious situations. As strangers who do not know their friends or family, there's little we can do to help them.

[00:10:45]Perhaps the best thing to do is scroll if you see a video of someone in psychosis. Block them or hit not interested to try and signal to the Tik Tok algorithm that the video shouldn't go viral. If you're a YouTube creator, be mindful of who you are talking about and whether or not they're truly a public figure and if people actually need to know intimate details about their life. If someone's behaving inappropriately, perhaps obscure their identity or at least wait until they're in a better state of mind if you want to have a discussion about it. The more we engage, the more we interfere with their lives and make whatever harm they're causing worse. Anyway, I'm Robert Toli, and if you enjoyed this video, don't forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe. And I hope you have a great week. Bye-bye.