Culture is Sick!
It just depends on how you say it
MØRNING. As TikTok tics, Instagram face, and phantom vibration syndrome confirm our tethered existence, the line between sickness and digital culture-bound syndrome has become blurred. Are these new digitally-induced strains signs of personal weakness, or symptoms of something much worse? Which app, pill or hack will save us this time? Writer Jerome Williams unpacks the epidemic further.
Digital culture expanded the boundaries of who we are and where we gather, but then it did something we didn’t expect: it made us sick.
How? In the mid-noughties, the world stampeded onto the Internet, knocking down the fences mainstream media had built, allowing us to roam freely. Plagued with the absolute power to view whatever we wanted, when we wanted, the way we consumed media changed forever. Riddled with this newfound glut of choices, digital culture grimaced and coiled over, displaying signs of sicknesses we define as culture-bound syndromes.
More common pre-Web 2.0 culture-bound syndromes are psychological conditions shaped by specific cultural beliefs. What one society labels an illness, another calls spiritual or social distress. Viewed under the same microscope, digital culture teems with signs of infection. New strains of digital syndromes run rampant, fuelled by the endless scroll of viral reels, hashtags, memes and trends. Accelerating violently and magnifying our collective anxieties. Did our digital culture mutate into a mass hysteria? Is this group psychosis, a firmware update, or are we diehard Beliebers lost to the digital void? Let’s step back and take stock of our health to date.
Unlike universally recognised illnesses like a broken bone or the common cold, these syndromes take root in cultural belief systems, social narratives, and shared worries. Through a self-fulfilling cycle, the surrounding community reinforces the reality of the syndrome, making its symptoms feel more real and severe than logic alone would suggest.
Discovered in Southern Italy, Tarantism was a dancing mania believed to be induced by the bite of a wolf spider. The majority insisted that any victim had to act out a frenzied dance to prevent death. The dance, the Tarantella, adopted a folk style and 6/8 time, featuring tambourines and multiple, highly necessary flirtatious interactions between dancers. In East and South East Asia, Koro, scandalously named after the word for turtle, presented as a delusional disorder where individuals were struck by the overpowering belief that their sex organs were slowly retracting and would eventually disappear entirely. To treat a severe bout of Koro, medical professionals would administer a dose of sex education while addressing any underlying psychiatric conditions. In Malaysia, Amok syndrome displayed itself as an aggressive dissociative behavioural pattern that filtered into the English language as the well-known idiom, running amok. In cases of Amok, patients entered sudden episodes of mass violence, then sank into prolonged brooding. Once geographically quarantined, culture-bound syndromes now multiply rapidly, amplified and globalised by technology.
What was once isolated now spreads in binary, coursing through the information superhighway, shaping identities and behaviours worldwide in nanoseconds. The mechanics of belief, social reinforcement, and imitation remain the same, but the vehicle and its velocity have levelled up. Data from Statista estimates that the average social media user scrolls between 100 kilometres (62 miles) and 150 kilometres (93 miles) per year, making the thumb the chief superspreader. Under the halo of technology, digital syndromes devilishly jump from screen to person, echoing and evolving in phrases, images, and gestures as rapidly evolving cultural organisms. Forming the picture of a growing mediascape, bound not by place but by a constantly updating feed. As the Internet grew wider and more dense, our ★stars★ shone brighter and reached further, while culture-bound syndromes flew on a private jet, international passport in hand. Spinning on a supercharged flywheel of Observe → Imitate → Amplify → Normalise → Repeat, these syndromes could now influence even the most lost of our tribes.
Clinging to the underbelly of their hosts, digital syndromes camouflage themselves as objects, aesthetics, and lifestyles, reborn as bootleg social talismans. Swiping, liking, or adding them to cart offers a fleeting relief from the discomfort that drives our global consumption. After a quick scroll, have you felt the urge to look, feel, or act differently? You may be experiencing Snapchat Dysmorphia, a syndrome driven by AR filters and constant selfie editing, where people alter their appearance to match a favourite filter. Perhaps it’s a mild case of Mewing, an online orthodontic TikTok trend that links to Victorian facial symmetry ideals, leading people to engage in DIY jawline reshaping tutorials. Felt the ill-will of medieval superstition? Get yourself some leeches. Not to mention, early 2000s style chain emails and copypastas are also back, taunting us with bad juju and hexes: “Forward this to 10 people in 24 hours or face 7 years of bad luck.”
What about happily ever afters? Even love has gone glitchy, with users falling deeply for chatbots like Replika and ChatGPT, then seeking violent revenge when a system wide update deletes their digital beaus. Did you feel that? It might be Phantom Vibration Syndrome. A ghoulish buzz in your pocket that never was, conjured by a lifetime tethered to a smartphone. Deeper into dystopia, teenage girls develop TikTok tics, repeating words like “skibidi” or “woohoo” while unconsciously mimicking the content they consume daily. Each of these cases underscores the mind’s uncanny power to assert control over the body without explanation. Technology hypnotises us, bending perception until our own bodies turn against us. With no sign of technology slowing down, what is the cure for these new digital strains?
We’re not slaves to technology and the digital syndromes it carries. We’re restless, unsure of ourselves and untethered in an uncertain world misadvertised as certain. Practical methods from lockbox timers, dumbphone swaps and time-restricted apps, to more extreme deterrents like biometric punishment systems and digital chastity belts, work on a surface level. However deeper healing is found in jagged little pills taken patiently over time. Feeling a TikTok tic coming on? It’s time to curate your feed, blocking out the content that repeatedly pulls you into lifesucking doomscrolls. Searching for love in all the wrong places? Start with bidding farewell to toxic relationships with artificial intelligence. Sensing a few phantom buzzes in your pocket, or unconsciously reopening an app after closing it? Take that as a prompt to cool off for a bit, put the phone back in your holster and reconnect with real bodily movement..
In closing, no cure is stronger than a daily dose of sentience and free will. If you’re feeling a little under the weather, remember who you are and where you’re headed. Be actively and blissfully aware of the ways digital culture shapes how you see the world, and how it sees you back.
Words by Jerome Williams. Cover image via Wikimedia, Bible of Wenceslaus IV. Edited by Sui Donovan and Shadeh Kavousian. Brought to you by @morning.fyi.
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This was such a brilliant read. Great use of metaphors, I reckon you could create some visuals and share this even with schools etc. Or even make an animated series for education 👏