A New TikTok Meme Is All About the Horrible Things People Say to One Another

Trends on TikTok can range from absurdly dangerous to harmless and hilarious, and the emotional damage meme thankfully falls into the second category. Although the trend has gained steam on TikTok, there are still plenty of people who want to know exactly what the meme is and how they can participate in it themselves now that it's become one of the most popular things on the platform.

Users across TikTok are sharing videos that end with a short clip in which a man in a suit yells "emotional damage." Typically, the clips involve some sort of humiliation, which is then memed by users adding the clip to the end in order to make the pain into something funny. In one prominent example, a man dressed as a clown interviews a woman dressed as a wrestler about the barbells near her.

When she says the barbells weigh 200 lbs., the clown responds with, "That's what your scale says too." Then, the clip of the man screaming "emotional damage" plays to complete the meme. The trend is really just a series of sick burns that all feature the same clip at the end of them.

It's unclear where the original clip comes from or how the trend got started, but it's certainly picked up steam on TikTok recently.

The emotional damage meme is actually pretty easy to participate in yourself. All you need is a clip of someone being humiliated, whether it's you or someone you know. Typically, the humiliation involves a light insult. Once you have a clip that works well, all you need to do is take the emotional damage clip and add it to the end of your video.

As the trend becomes more and more popular, not every video associated with it is going to take off. Still, there are a number of videos that are a part of this challenge that have proven themselves to be very popular on TikTok, each earning millions of views. There's even an account dedicated to the meme with seven videos on their page, with each video accumulating millions of views.

It can be perfectly healthy to share slightly embarrassing moments that caused emotional damage, but users should not feel like they have to bear their souls to take part in this trend. Every person has been lightly roasted at some point in their lives, and those are the kinds of moments this trend should involve.

TikTok is a place to go for entertainment, but it doesn't have to mean being so vulnerable that people can reopen your wounds online, or create new ones that you didn't think were possible. The emotional damage meme is meant to expose some damage that you've received in the past, not open you up to new emotional damage because you've decided to post a meme in the present.