Does sad TikTok music make people sadder?

In the recent years of TikTok, sad songs have been one of the overpowering trends, from ‘We’ll Never Have Sex’ by Leith Ross to ‘complex’ by Katie Gregson-MacLeod. It seems the best way to make it big on the platform right now is to know how to write sad, relatable lyrics and put them to a few sad chords. For the majority of people, songs like these endlessly dominate their ‘For You’ page until they’re released and become irrelevant to make space for the next Phoebe Bridgers-Esque artist. So, the question here is, does this music make users of the app sadder?

There are always two sides to the story, and that statement stands with this question. On the one hand, it has been found that sad music can put depressed people into a toxic cycle of negativity and can actually prohibit people from improving their mental health. When lyrics become too relatable or hit too close to home, it becomes difficult for those who are in a delicate mindset to separate real life from the lyrics of a song written by someone who potentially had a similar trauma. This cycle of listening to sad songs over and over again is one that can be very dangerous and mentally exhausting.

On the other hand, sad music could be used by listeners to help them to vent their emotions. When it comes to depression, something as simple as having someone to relate to can always potentially have a huge positive impact. Knowing that someone has experienced similar situations to you, and having it written down in the form of art could be very therapeutic for those who are just looking for a bit of reliability.

With these trending sad TikTok songs, users normally pick out specific lyrics related to them. For example, when Katie Gregson-MacLeod first posted an excerpt of her single ‘complex’, users were quick to use her music and pick out a couple of lines which they related to the most.

“I cry in his bathroom; he turns off the big light.”

The above line was arguably the most quoted, it’s a feeling that a lot of people have experienced. The line is soul-destroying to those who have had their heart broken by someone they love, having someone they care about so deeply care so little about them. It’s a feeling which is so strong and overpowering especially when you are young and naïve, which suits a platform like TikTok with a majority of the users being young people. Having a feeling like this being put into words is likely very therapeutic to young people who want to feel less alone. This is the bigger issue here, and this is why sharing such personal art is so important, not only to the listeners, but also to the artist.

So, why does TikTok have anything to do with this? TikTok uses an algorithm which means that if you like a video that relates to a topic, they will push videos of the same topic to your ‘For You’ page. This means that liking one video of someone singing about their heartbreaking, relatable experiences will likely lead you to more videos of a similar nature. This could either lead users to fall down a rabbit hole of sad music or find solitude in music that finally puts their emotions into words.