Another day, another ‘disturbing trend’ coming out of social media.
Except today, it feels personal. I stare at my phone in disbelief. I gulp. My heart beats faster and louder and I’m not sure what to think. Is this… distress? Yes, this must be what it feels like to be triggered, from some place deep in your body you know is there, that lies dormant, until you feel the need to speak from it.
I’m just an ordinary Jewish woman living in Australia, with European Jewish heritage. I come from a family of Progressive Jews, was educated at a religious school and raised by the many hands of a Jewish community.
As a woman in my thirties, I’m not religious or particularly observant, but I do see my heritage as a fundamental part of my self. And it’s a shared self – which is why a lot of other Jews might be staring at their phones in disbelief today, too.
This week, a trend has gone viral on TikTok where creators pretend they are Holocaust survivors, speaking to their followers from heaven. Some wear makeup to look like burns and bruises and sunken cheeks, and tell improvised stories of how they died in the Nazi death camps. Most of the videos are accompanied by the Bruno Mars single ‘Locked Out Of Heaven’.
Read the article by Tamara Davis in Mamamia.