Why TikTok is freaking out over a Rapture
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Scroll through TikTok, and it might feel like the end of the world.
The big picture: Videos about an alleged Rapture have taken TikTok by storm, as end times discussion finds a new vehicle — algorithmic social media.
- Some Christians generally see the Rapture as an end times event when believers ascend to heaven during Jesus Christ's second coming.
- As you might imagine, there's plenty of skepticism and division over how the Rapture would play out.
Driving the news: Two weeks ago, a South African pastor claimed the Rapture would hit Tuesday — and it quickly became TikTok fodder.
- "The Rapture is upon us," Joshua Mhlakela said in the Sept. 9 episode of the CentTwinz TV podcast. "Whether you are ready, or you are not ready, the Rapture, in 14 days from now, is going to take place."
- Mhlakela said he was "a billion percent sure" about this, claiming Jesus told him about it in a dream.
- The video has more than 500,000 views on YouTube.
Since then, "RaptureTok" videos have racked up millions and millions of views. There are more than 300,000 posts under #Rapture on TikTok.
- Most videos are laden with satire and users mocking or rejecting the Rapture.
- One woman wrapped her own and her dog's head in tinfoil hats. Another said the Rapture is an opportunity to review her wardrobe.
Yes, but: Some TikToker users aren't scoffing at the Rapture potential. They lost their jobs or left notes for those staying behind. Others offered survival tips for the ascent into Heaven.
- "I know we're going home," one woman said in her video, which got 1.1 million views. She said she would make an apology video if "we don't get raptured."
Flashback: Past doomsday fears — like Y2K or 2012 — show how conspiracies can seep into mainstream culture.
- Nearly 40% of people said they believed we were living in the end times, per a 2022 Pew Research Center survey.
- "RaptureTok" specifically echoes fears of a Rapture in 2011, when people nationwide worried that doomsday was about to hit because of online chatter.
- That Rapture was predicted by American Christian radio host Harold Camping, who said in a 2005 book that the world would cease to exist on May 21, 2011.
Reality check: People's fascination with the end times today derives from concerns over AI, climate change and questions over democratic norms, said Avigail Lev, director of the Bay Area Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center.
- "People are lonely. People are isolated. People are scared," she said.
Society presents so many choices today, like what you're going to order on DoorDash or watch on Netflix, that our brains are seeking a simple and direct event — like a Rapture — to calm the noise, she said.
- "It gives us a false sense of knowing, certainty, predictability, and control, even though it's just our mind, fooling ourselves," she said.
Lev added that she wasn't surprised the Rapture talk coincided with questions about free speech and the suspension of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"
- "Metaphorically speaking, for everyone on TikTok, if we lose our freedom of speech, it is a big ending for them, right?"
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