Happy Monday. I wanted to expand a bit on the woman on TikTok who fell in love with her psychiatrist, so that’s below. After this newsletter, I am removing myself from any and all content relating to this saga — and I suggest you do the same. The only caveat would be if the doctor makes any kind of comment.

Also in this edition: A Camp Rock reunion (!!!), performative male update (scoop?), AI soulmates, and more.

For as long as the internet has existed, there have been people posting through their personal crises. Whether it’s Eugenia Cooney promoting anorexia, World of T-Shirts documenting his descent into addiction, or Gabbie Hanna posting a hundred erratic rants, creators have gotten countless views for their public breakdowns. 

Enter the latest subject of viral intrigue: Kendra Hilty, the woman who fell in love with her psychiatrist. 

In case you missed the recap in last Thursday’s newsletter, to make a very long story short, Hilty came on TikTok to share her story about how she fell in love with her psychiatrist. She had seen him for years and had expressed her romantic feelings for him. She accused him of manipulating her into falling for him and criticized him for not ending the doctor-patient relationship. She described incidents in which she would make a pass at him and he would deflect her advances, which she believes was done to make her “work harder” at getting his affection. She said that she told him that they had a “special patient-doctor relationship” and he countered by explicitly calling it a “professional” exchange. 

Hilty later told him about a sex dream that she had about him. After he reacted uncomfortably to this, she said she believed it was because she had “psychically downloaded” one of his secret fantasies about her and he was shocked to hear it out loud. She has used ChatGPT (who she calls Henry) and Claude AI to further validate her perspective and has ended her relationships with real-life mental health professionals (including the psychiatrist). She programmed her AI chat/companion/pseudotherapy bots to call her “The Oracle” and has said that God told her to post her story on TikTok.

Since the beginning of August, Hilty has made 37 installments (so far) discussing this psychiatrist saga. When breakdowns like this happen, I wonder if there is any good that can come out of it. I question what value there is in viewing it, talking about it, or reporting on it. (I recognize the irony in sharing it here.)

Considering that this woman has her own ADHD and sobriety coaching business, I think it is relevant and valuable to bring attention to the fact that she seems to have a loose grasp on psychological concepts. A former friend and client recently spoke out about how Hilty charged her $3,000 for addiction support that turned into an unwanted human design course. This person said that Hilty’s psychiatrist series gave her a better understanding about why her sessions felt off. While unfortunate, this is the most productive thing to come out of this whole situation. 

The other dark, albeit semi-useful, lesson to glean from Hilty’s story is the potential pitfalls of AI therapy, which has been a hot topic of late.

Otherwise, people are psychoanalyzing her or straight-up dunking on her. There are mental health professionals on the app explaining typical protocol for transference, or the projection of one’s own feelings onto their therapist. There are people with zero qualifications diagnosing her with every personality disorder you can think of. And even more people that are simply calling her crazy.

What are you supposed to do when someone seems to be going through some sort of episode online? That is the eternal question. Because as much as the internet has promoted wellness, it has also incentivized unwellness. 

Every day, people come online to share concerning behavior that they believe is normal. Then, millions come to gawk at them, turning them into lolcows. Their viral breakdowns become entertainment and we keep pushing them for our further enjoyment. While this attention is not usually good, it can often be intoxicating. Plus, engagement is engagement — so those eyeballs can easily turn into cash.

It is human nature to rubberneck at a public spiral. Doing so fulfills some of our ugliest, base desires — to feel superior to others, to witness their madness, to be outraged by them, or to wish ill upon them. But will we look back at this time period and regret using others’ suffering for our own enjoyment? There is certainly some precedence for this kind of remorse, although we are in unprecedented times when it comes to the constant stream and cycle of meltdowns.

People have long debated what kind of action should be taken when creators like this pop up. While many may consume their content with glee, there are others who recognize that things can easily take a left turn. They hope to intervene in some way before that happens. 

That’s how you get a situation like Gabbie Hanna’s where viewers see erratic behavior and take action. Sometimes it’s misguided or makes things worse. In Hanna’s case, a stranger pulled up to her house while other people called the cops.

The most common solution that people push for in these instances is deplatforming. If we take away the incentives that encourage people to spiral further, then it may push them to get better. But social media sites often don’t take action, or even if they do, it can be like whack-a-mole to get a person off their platform permanently (see: Ash Trevino).

As always, the only thing we can control is our own actions. For starters, don’t be like the hundreds of people who subscribed (paid $4) to Kendra Hilty’s TikTok Live community just to be able to comment on her actions.

While it is ingrained in our culture to point and laugh at a crashout, it would be best for everyone if we did it a little less. The internet is full of this stuff and we can’t entertain all of it! At a certain point, it only serves to make us more enraged and the person more sick. At least for our own sakes, it’s probably best to take back our attentions.

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. In honor of last night’s Camp Rock reunion (more below), some songs for my Disney Channel babes <3

In this week’s playlist:

• This is Me - Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas (from Camp Rock)

• Rock Star - Miley Cyrus (from Hannah Montana)

• One and the Same - Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato (from Princess Protection Program)

• Starstruck - Sterling Knight (from Starstruck)

• Determinate - Bridgit Mendler, Naomi Scott, Hayley Kiyoko, and Adam Hicks (from Lemonade Mouth)

• Scream - Zac Efron (from High School Musical 3)

• Strut - The Cheetah Girls (from The Cheetah Girls 2)

• Push It to the Limit - Corbin Bleu (from Jump In!)

Other things I want to share with you.

• The Jonas Brothers brought out DEMI LOVATO during their first JONAS20 show at MetLife Stadium yesterday. NEVER IN MY LIFETIME did I ever believe I would ever see this reunion. Joe and Demi SANG TO EACH OTHER! 

• Read Yap Year oomfie Steffi Cao on bringing back whimsy in our dim, slop-ridden lives.

• Y’all, look what I spotted in the wild. This is in the men’s section at H&M. Performative males have infiltrated mainstream culture👇

• Speaking of concerning uses of AI, r/AISoulmates has sparked discourse (of course).

• Celine Song responded to the “broke boy” chatter around her movie Materialists. 

• JADE revealed the tracklist for her new album That’s Showbiz, Baby! via Pinterest mood boards. I love this.