The Patriot Post® · Teens, TikTok, and Other Transgressions
There is a real and present danger to your teen when it comes to TikTok. Beyond the usual dangers of child predators and sex traffickers, there are other influences that are leading them down a dark path.
It is probably one of the most infamous of all the social media platforms because of how sordid the content can be. It allows children as young as 13 to join the site ostensibly with parental permission (though it has no way of confirming that permission was granted). For these children, there are no filters in place to keep pornographic, drug-related, or alcohol-promotion videos from showing up on their “For You” pages. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there are hashtags dedicated to other forms of degradation and evil.
One such popular hashtag is #WitchTok. In this sphere, a viewer can find videos of all sorts of witchcraft how-to guides such as tarot card reading, casting spells, astral projection, tea leaf divination, charms, crystals, and other tools of the trade. Appalachian State University’s Linda Jencson defines modern-day witchery as “the revival of pre-Christian pagan gods, goddesses and spirits, their worship and ritual manipulation.” She adds, “It also involves an animistic sense of spiritual power and a reverence for nature. Neopagans focus much of their spiritual practice upon practical results, the ability to affect their environment for magical means.”
The large following of this neopagan movement indicates there are many who are seeking to find a higher power. The podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Episode 8: Demon Hunting” describes the primordial need for the inexplicable and the fine line between miracles and trickery. There is an ancient craving inside every human heart for the supernatural and for the feeling of astonishment. It pushes seekers to look for proof of the supernatural. Unfortunately, the teachings of the occult reject God by convincing the practitioner that the Self is the highest source of power.
The Federalist’s Joy Pullman deconstructs a Washington Post interview with a self-ascribed teenage witch by shining a light on the many admissions of the teen witch that backhandedly confirm what the Bible says to expect from occult practitioners.
One big takeaway from both the Post article and Pullman’s is that these modern-day witches see their ideology aligning very closely with that of the political Left. Just on the topic of “transgenderism,” the author of the Post article points out the correlation of the rejection of God with a further rejection of only having two sexes. This spurning also extends to the purpose of having only two sexes: procreation. Furthermore, Pullman notes that the teen witch in the interview also “openly connects gender dysphoria with occult experimentation, and both with unsupervised young people going deep into social media rabbit warrens.” The purpose of witchcraft is to find ways of knowing the future and controlling events that are not theirs to control. Those abilities are God’s alone.
The most profound takeaway that Pullman had was that “the left’s culture war is in fact a religious war.” It is a religious war wrapped in secularism and undergirded by neopaganism. The political progressive Left believes in abortion, the LGBTQ+ agenda and its perversions, Critical Race Theory, the deification of nature in the form of climate change, and the list goes on and on. At the heart of this agenda is a driving need to assert Self over control of everything, even the uncontrollable (nature).
TikTok is a main hub of social media for teens and young adults. Like all social media, it has its positive aspects such as lighthearted comedy, sweet family events, and fun dances to trending sound bites. More often than not, though, videos with bad motives and temptations corrupt the viewer. TikTok itself is a percolator brewing wickedness, and if your teens are on it, you may want to see what’s on their “For You” page. Better yet, get them off it.