Episode 74: The DID Influencers Of TikTok And The Decline Of Formerly-Science-Based Medicine (early access, ad-free)

I used to know a white woman who claimed to have a black woman alter. Her alter fit neatly into the "angry black woman" stereotype and said alter was named after a piece of furniture. It was...uncomfortable.

You'd think so, but I doubt anyone in that community wod say so because it would imply that maybe some people's alters are *gasp* not real

if a white person has a black or poc alternate personality, is that racist appropriation?

I think the claim is that they’re using a ‘singular they’, which is genderless but not plural, so I would guess not. (English already has a singular ‘they’, namely ‘it’, but for some reason that hasn’t caught on.)

Susannah

Was that the one where they get trapped in a motel?

Anyone remember the movie Identity? That was a good one!

Yeah, that kind of thing would make me feel a little scared, but I really want to get men to not do creepy/scary stuff, so I try to explain that it's not okay to do stuff like that in ways that men are likely to listen to because that makes it more likely that they'll stop.

I agree. In fact, it can be a huge advantage.

I'm surprised that Jesse considers it "absolutely true" that 90%-male spaces are inherently hostile to women. The potential for hostility is probably higher, but as a woman who's often the only woman in the room, I have never found such environments hostile or even unpleasant.

Thats ridiculous, don't get the cops involved. If your girlfriend has assets you blackmail her, if she doesn't you destroy her future via social media. This is the way of things now.

I'm not even sure how this supposed to work. How can your brain store and separate the memory of different personalities.

vorbei

So listening to the DID person refer to himself as "we" made me wonder - do trans persons who use "they/them" pronouns also use the first personal plural "we" when referring to themselves? If not, shouldn't they?

Jo Lynn

It was from a simpler time when Uri Geller seemed like an important thing to talk about. Did you ever see the James Randi doc about his relationship with his Latin, uh "boy toy" is probably inappropriate, say, much younger lover? (FWIW it seems like they had a mutually loving relationship.)

That's a terrible idea. Just don't make your illness an identity...

Delighted to see Jesse Singal being quoted a couple of times in Jonathan Rauch’s Constitution of Knowledge.

I had some interest in the sceptic movement for a brief time, but long enough to attend the James Randi roadshow (or whatever it was called) when it popped up in London, at which point, I kind of cooled on it a bit when it was just a bunch of people clapping themselves on the back because they proved homeopathy was nonsense. Missed all the '-gates' but am not at all surprised that they'd go the way described in this podcast. Essentially, it picks a the very low hanging fruit where you're in no danger of annoying any friends. And, as with SBM, the issue is that they shirk away from any topics that might make things uncomfortable for friends or colleagues. As mentioned in the podcast, this kind of stuff should be right up their street - *IF* they were actually serious about it. But they're not.

Duncanm

Men who lie about being women lie to support their lies. Shocked face.

I really enjoyed this episode; it seems to me the DID Influencers of TikTok are kind of the apotheosis of the victimhood for clout culture of social media. It's of course not surprising, but it really makes me despair: it seems very clearly that the algorithmic structure of the modern internet incentivizes being crazier and crazier and there's no way off this train. It used to be we had clickbait headlines; now people are creating clickbait personas online.

Michael

Kinda seemed like jesse might have obliquely referenced the scene when Flip McVicker speculated perhaps HE was Princess Carolyn the whole time. "Oh fish!!!!"

Jordan Bickett

This finally explains the crazy Starbucks orders. They see just adding every DID personality’s order one after the other

It’s crazy how much crazy shit I read on early 2010s Tumblr has now hit the mainstream. That’s where I first read about multiple systems, and demisexuals and I NEVER would have imagined I would see this shit in the mainstream. I can’t believe anyone is taking this multiple personality shit seriously. People on Tumblr would act like these “systems” were genuinely, legitimately multiple distinct people. When the media starts telling me I need to believe this I’ll know we’ve gone too far off the deep end to ever return.

If I remember correctly, the Elevator-gate incident was actually a lot worse in that the guy deliberately followed her into the elevator in order to proposition her. However, Watson's response seemed to demonise all men. And particularly socially awkward men, by accusing them of misogyny, and equating awkward approaches with sex crimes. Obviously she was justifiably scared. But I can't help wondering how it could have played out differently if her response was more constructive. Rather than simply condemning men, teaching them about how they may be inadvertently intimidating women.

Here's what I don't get about "multiple personalities"… If you were leading a double life, say on some days you were living as a graphic designer with a wife and children. And on other days you were living as a hard-drinking musician who lives in a van. Perhaps you could legitimately claim to have multiple personalities inhabiting the same mind. But if you're like "One of my personalities is a 10-year-old Mexican girl." Well, no it isn't. That's not a personality that you're living. That's just a fictional character that you've imagined.

Wow DID is such a versatile identity, I can see why it would be popular. It's like a superpower that lets you become any marginalized identity you want for maximum benefits instead of having to pick just one or two. You can also do this without having to fully commit, like being trans without having to transition. I guess it was inevitable this innovation would come around to solve the problem of too many desirable identities. Even if you wanted to believe DID is real like the therapist above describes, when you start talking about alters with different ages or races, clearly it's bs unless you believe in a supernatural explanation. What it does tell me is that those people probably have a real talent for creating characters, and should become fiction writers. They're creating characters around different thoughts or feelings in their head. And it seems like that's one benefit of DID, it allows people to hold contradictory beliefs in their head without having to reconcile them, so they can remain pure in each one. I can see why that would be more popular in the present day. There's so many questions though - what happens if one alter starts having feelings for a younger alter, how do the power dynamics work? Does one of the other alters get them cancelled? What if one alter is trans and the other is a terf? Questions are endless.

Very well written, and I think it helps everyone who reads it. I also don't think any of what you wrote runs counter to what was said on the pod.

As a culture we've gone from stigmatizing mental illness to celebrating it. Maybe we need to start stigmatizing it again?

Yes, some of the key influencers in Atheism+ were "convention party girl" types. It's not that there's anything wrong with that, it's that it's a context in which everyone understands you're openly being sexy around men. It's common in fandom conventions, especially anime, tabletop roleplaying ("hot elves" at a Dungeons & Dragons convention, etc.), and video games. Their tactics in 2012-ish were basically to use their convention roles to build connections and use those connections to spread their messaging. I'm pretty sure nobody was doing anything analogous to having sex with video game journalists to get positive reviews for video games. They were genuinely harassed by people connected to the more conservative/centrist/libertarian wing of the skeptic/atheism movement. But some of the harassment was probably random misogynists online.

I'm a therapist working with a client diagnosed with DID. They were diagnosed by a former clinician and appear to fit the criteria in the DSM-V. Severe childhood trauma has led to a fractured sense of identity and various alters who "front" at different times, often to help the person handle stressful moments. In the same way that a therapist could use the power of suggestion to create a "recovered memory" of abuse, a therapist could use the power of suggestion to push someone to believe they have DID. However, that doesn't mean abuse is not a real thing, and it doesn't mean DID isn't a real thing. My sense as a newer therapist, still with a lot to learn about this, is that DID is real, and it is also extremely rare. I look at DID from the perspective of a therapy approach called "family systems theory". This approach uses the idea that we all contain a range of personalities that come to the fore as needed (even for those of us who have one, well-integrated personality). You can look at people at being on a spectrum from having those various aspects of ourselves highly integrated and functional, to having lots of conflicts between those aspects of ourselves. So I see DID as being the far end of that spectrum. The TikTok variety of DID where alters converse with each other bears no relationship to what DID actually looks like in clinical practice.

Wow. I was part of the skeptic/atheist wave 10+ years ago when Skepchick was founded and McCreight (who was then Jen) started writing, and it was fun for a bit. I was more of a content consumer, but I did once go so far as to attend a smaller midwestern conference. I lost interest after a while when I felt the "battle" (I guess for a better perception of atheism/skepticism and for ensuring that the govt upheld separation of church and state) had been won enough that the topics all the blogs kept writing about were getting stale. I also grew up a bit and realized that a lot of smart people I knew were religious and weren't trying to convert me or make me feel bad. Atheism just became a small fact about me. I had no idea about a lot of these developments ... there goes my afternoon.

💕yup

Rebecca Watson started as a skeptic convention party girl. She and her friends would go to conventions and throw parties with themes like Wild West Bordello. She made a lot of connections this way. Later she founded a skeptics website called Skepchick. Gorski has been ingratiating himself to women at Skepchick ever since. To be clear, I'm not accusing him of creeping on the women, but I wouldn't be shocked if accusations came to light.

A tangent on the Atheism Plus crowd: the initiator of the term in 2012 was a certain J McCreight, blogger of Boobquake and BlagHag fame. McCreight, who came out as non-binary this year, started T, and now goes by “Jey”, is now the Science Communications Senior Manager at 23&Me (warning: company employee profile still violently uses old name and pronouns). In this role, Jey is hard at work publishing articles on the 23&Me website on the super scientificness of gender identity. Original Atheism+ blogpost (WARNING: prolonged and repeated violent self-retroactive misgendering, so not for the faint of identity, but a good rundown on the bro-atmosphere of the 2010s skeptic community): https://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/08/how-i-unwittingly-infiltrated-the-boys-club-why-its-time-for-a-new-wave-of-atheism/

Hi I have DID and i guess I downloaded that lady's personality from that dating ad lol because now I am fronting her!! xD uggghhh what is my life hahaha. anyway, just wanted to say you should look up the definition of "great" because my tits are, in fact, hugh mungus

I think it's kind of like astrology, reality shows, and pro wrestling, where most people understand that it's all bullshit, but it's entertaining bullshit, and it would totally ruin the mood if someone spoke up and was like: "um. excuse me. The identity known as 'Asuka' is supposed to have cat ears, but this system is currently wearing a tight fitting beanie so um... I'm starting to doubt that Asuka is a real person"

This podcast makes me laugh out loud more than any other. 5 mins in and it’s Jesse and his dissociative alter ego, an embittered Muslim lesbian…

Y'know, I think you're on to something. There's an untapped market for a 1-person Tik Tok sitcom with all those characters.

The internet DID community has been around for a long time. I remember when it was all the rage (nearly always self-diagnosed) on geeky Tumblr in 2010-2014. They overlapped with the "fictionkin" community, people who believed their alters were their favorite fictional characters brought to literal life and come to possess them from other dimensions - big debates over whether all manifestations of DID were just people contacting "real" people from other dimensions, whether DID made you trans, whether it was problematic to have alters from other races/genders, whether it was a mental illness at all. The whole thing exploded on Tumblr when the DID fictionkin began to branch out into being "factkin," people whose alters were or had been real living people, and then a big name in the community who had been famous for being in a system with a beloved webcomic character revealed they were also literally one of the Columbine shooters. I am not making this up. I still see it pop up from time to time, and it always surprises me and yet doesn't surprise me - the community has had more staying power than I would have expected from the origins of it I saw. You can download Discord mods that allow you to post as your alters with different text colors, names, and user pictures. People in the geeky communities I still hang out in tend to have a vague sense that you're supposed to take everything a multiple system says about their identity at face value, in the same way you take someone's pronouns at face value. Honestly, I find this tough - I accept the argument that "it doesn't cost you much to just use someone's preferred pronouns," but I can't get as far as "it doesn't cost you much to memorize a catalogue of up to 10 variances on communication style marking someone's alternate personalities, some of which may be anime characters." Fascinating to hear it's still hot on TikTok!

Really enjoying the absolute chaos of the personals section

"Itty-bitty-tittie-committee" = my Patreon fee for the month worth every damn penny.

I need some advice. I have DID ever since I listened to this, and my girlfriend kissed me when I was 7 year old Arnold. Do I call the police?

Same. Novellas podcast was one of the first I've be listen to but it turns out he is too biased in favor for his friends.

vorbei

I love how all the DID TikTokers have alters that teens would consider cool. It's never a stereotypical "Karen", a strict math teacher, an overly eager youth pastor, that annoying guy at work who's always trying to suck up to the boss, or a Ben Shapiro superfan. They might actually be taken more seriously if their alters weren't all "hot edgy teenage boy" or "immortal dragon."

Exactly … 😩😩😩

Sugaree

Close with a woman with DID, 15-20 years ago. A PA on disability. Our friendship eventually ended because of her mental health problems. It can be a very real disorder, but can see the potential for abuse given our current no good very bad cultural moment. And on the Irreversible Damage freak-out, just don’t get why ppl are so threatened by detransitioners.

Sugaree

I’m going to be entering the counseling field in the next year or two — I can’t help but be a bit nervous about all the overidentification with their mental illnesses and seemingly-fake disorders (like this Asystems DID stuff) that I see from people on tiktok. Have you seen any of this stuff in your work yet?

I'm a huge reader of Science Based Medicine, and part of the skeptic's "community". I was so disappointed with the way everything went down. Irreversible Damage may not have the best referencing, but the articles posted were in no way up to the standard I expect from SBM. I still can't find many good scientific articles about trans medical care, and it's harder and harder to trust sources, experts or even scientific studies. These are the people who are meant to ride or die with the scientific process, and at least attempt to see their biases. I hope that, once this hot button issue has cooled down, these skeptics will take a more critical look at the data. I can absolutely see both sides of the 'trans debate', but it's awfully hard to have a real opinion when I can't trust any information given, because of how charged the topic is.

Rambo on the Moon

I guess culture wars bullshit is a good distraction from our societies' and governments' failures to deal with multiple systemic collapse risks like global warming, crackpot right-wing political cultists, and capitalism's impending self-implosion.

Love my Saturday morning Katie and Jesse.

I agree w you.

JGraves

Thanks wasn't aware of that. To be clear I'm open to being convinced the renaming is the result of some cabal of activist therapists or whoever but to just assert a move like that is pure marketing and not take a couple minutes to justify it or cite an article just feels very lazy at best and at worst bad faith or conspiratorial.

Also there was a big kerfuffle about white DID having POC alters. I’ve spent too much time on Systemscringe and fakedisorderscringe. I know too much about all of this bc it annoys me so much. Also I’ve worked in mental health for 25 years and I met maybe one person who might have DID. It’s all just bullshit.

JGraves

Also the DSM authors are trying to transition diagnoses from discreet categories to spectrums and DID puts it on the dissociative spectrum

JGraves

Pretty sure it was renamed to dissociative identity disorder, because saying multiple personality disorder is a misleading to how symptoms are supposed to work. Namely multiple personality implies a distinct set of individual and separate personalities inhabiting a mind vs a single one that is fractured. Pretty important distinction. Is manic depression turning into bipolar disorder supposed to be "rebranding"? How about ADD to ADHD? The idea has been brought up twice now by Katie and the most argument I've heard from her for presenting the renaming of it as marketing was "several people different places criticized mpd so they rebranded to avoid engaging with the criticism". Somehow this all escaped the authors of the DSM and they just...what adopted a new name because they were told to? Come on.