Why people post themselves crying online

(CNN) — There was a time when crying in front of others might have induced shame and embarrassment.

But for younger generations who can scarcely remember a time without social media, it’s now common to post teary-eyed photos and videos for all your followers to see.

In recent memory, there was the woman who wept while recounting a humiliating evening during which she hoped to meet a potential partner; the Gen Z job seeker who cried on a New York sidewalk after getting rejected by numerous employers; and the fresh graduate who broke down upon realizing the relentless grind of the 9-to-5 workday.

Then there are crying selfies, couple breakup videos and weeping in response to movies.

These, virtual, public displays of emotion have populated social media feeds for years. A counterpoint to the carefully curated “highlight reel” that showcases only life’s best moments, crying online ostensibly presents a more honest and authentic self-portrait.

But for all the tear-streaked sharing (or oversharing, depending on who you ask) that happens on TikTok and Instagram, there are observers who can’t fathom what would possess someone in the throes of an emotional episode to pull out their phone and press record: How upset are you really, the insinuation goes, if your impulse in that moment is to turn your pain into content?

“It’s almost like sex,” says Amie McNee, a writer and creative coach who has posted herself crying. “It’s really private, and the public culture doesn’t want to look at you when you do it.”

Crying online is a vast internet genre spanning spontaneous shows of emotion, self-deprecating memes and carefully curated suffering, and the reasons people express these feelings online vary.

Call it brave. Call it attention-seeking. Call it cringe. Whatever your attitude toward people who cry on the internet, the phenomenon seems to stir something in us.

Some people are looking for connection

Some people post themselves crying because they feel alone in a particular moment.

When McNee, 32, was navigating rejection in her writing career about a decade ago, she didn’t know other people in creative fields and turned to social media to find a community. She used her Instagram page to share the ups and downs of becoming an author — sometimes, that meant showing herself crying before her shift at a day job she wanted to quit.

“I wanted to be witnessed in pain,” she says.

McNee says her thought process in those moments wasn’t as calculated as people might imagine: She didn’t rush to record simply because she felt tears coming on. Rather, she was upset and reached for her phone because she wanted to feel seen and supported by people who understood. The tears were ancillary.

Sharing her tears online helped McNee connect with others who could empathize with her specific struggles and signaled to others that it was okay to feel the same. And because she had built relationships with her followers through her posts, she says her moments of vulnerability were met with compassion rather than suspicion.

Others cry online because their emotional needs aren’t being satisfied elsewhere. Tristan Blackwood, 27, says he struggled to make friends as a teenager and used to vent on TikTok by posting clips of tears streaming down his face.

“I just wanted to be validated,” he says. “(I was thinking) someone, please see me. I need help.”

The comments he got online were often unkind, accusing him of seeking attention and drama. Blackwood says those assessments weren’t necessarily incorrect, but the response fed into an already negative self-image. Trapped in an unhealthy cycle, he continued to make similar posts.

Later, he says he realized he was using social media to cope with his lack of a support system, and eventually sought therapy and developed offline relationships to better cope.

Crying online gets attention

Shedding tears online can also be a reliable magnet for engagement.

In 2017, Emmy Hartman filmed herself having an emotional breakdown after getting a traffic ticket and uploaded the video to Twitter, only intending for it to be seen by her friends.

The two-minute clip captured Hartman’s rollercoaster of emotions as she rattled off everything going wrong in her life — then 17, she alternated between crying hysterically and laughing deliriously, and at one point, even burst into song.

It went viral, and within a few years, she was a TikTok star with more than two million followers and a burgeoning music career to boot.

It would be reductive to attribute Hartman’s success entirely to her teenage outburst. Still, when started building her TikTok presence early on, people recognized her as the girl who cried in that infamous video, providing an undeniable boost.

“It kind of gave me my entire social media career,” she adds.

Hartman is hardly the first person to generate attention from an excessive display of emotion online (See Cara Cunningham’s tearful 2007 plea to “Leave Britney Alone!”). And even though Hartman didn’t post herself crying with the aim of becoming an internet personality, the notion that users can flip their raw emotion into financial opportunity is notable.

Ysabel Gerrard, a senior lecturer in digital media and society at the University of Sheffield, England, says some savvy digital creators and influencers are now using that to their advantage.

“Now you’ve got crying and tears as a way of generating engagement, views, likes, clicks and helping to build your brand,” she says. “It’s monetizable in a way that it literally never has been in society.”

We’re often skeptical of crying posts

In an era where internet attention can be fickle, authenticity — or at least the perception of it — is the ultimate social media currency. While many users now post themselves crying online to signal genuineness, striking the right balance can prove tricky.

Jess Rauchberg, a researcher who studies digital cultures and social media, points to lifestyle influencer Remi Bader as an example. Bader built a sizable TikTok following by calling out fashion companies for not sufficiently accommodating plus-size consumers, but her original brand shifted after she experienced a breakup and well-publicized weight loss transformation.

Over the past year, Bader has shared weepy posts about her heartbreak and other situations on her pages, and the reception to her tears has been mixed.

While many loyal followers have responded to her sobbing with support and sympathy, others have accused her of insincere theatrics. Whether fairly or not, Rauchberg says some viewers interpreted Bader’s intense display of emotion as a ploy to stay relevant while her brand identity evolved. (Bader did not immediately comment when asked about the reception to her social media posts.)

The line between performance and authenticity, or between oversharing and vulnerability, is subjective. But it’s worth considering who is doing the crying and how that emotion fits into their overall social media presence, says Rauchberg.

“There are moments where we do need to ask ourselves: Is this authentic? Is this credible? And what does this crying post serve?” she says.

The context in which crying appears online can also affect how it’s seen, Gerrard adds. Tearing up while talking in a video about a difficult experience is generally perceived as more genuine than sobbing to the camera with little to no context. Strive as we might to be real online, though, the mere fact that we’re presenting these emotions for audience consumption makes it all a bit murkier.

“If every form of communication, even face to face without smartphones, is a performance of the self … and you’re putting a particularly crafted version of yourself forward, can a crying video ever truly be authentic?” she says.

Sometimes, it’s not that deep

Our society has always harbored some skepticism toward intense emotional displays (the phrase “crocodile tears” long predates social media), Gerrard says.

The impulse to film our tears does pose bigger questions about how social media might be changing our relationship to crying. Are we becoming more emotional now that there are incentives to sharing our pain online? Is it healthy to filter our feelings through a phone screen? Can crying online actually lead to catharsis?

Our answers to those questions might ultimately come down to generational divides.

“We’re constantly critiquing that we only share a highlight reel on these apps, and then as soon as anyone dares to share the vulnerable moments or the realness of life, which includes crying, we tell them to go back to posting their beach photos,” McNee says.

The boundaries between online and offline aren’t as rigid for Gen Z and Gen Alpha as they are for older generations. As incomprehensible as it might seem to those who are selective about what they post on social media, having a camera rolling while tears fall feels perfectly natural for others.

Hartman posts herself crying on TikTok often without giving it much thought. She says she’s always been an emotional person and realizes that her feelings aren’t always rational — not long ago, she shared footage of herself crying over remembering that her dog will one day die. If others can relate, why not put it out there?

“It’s so ridiculous that I am sobbing the way I’m sobbing, that I just want to share how ridiculous it is and how emotional I am,” she says. “It’s okay to cry over stupid, dumb things, and it can be funny.”

Strong emotions appeal to our human nature, even if some people might wince when they’re displayed so brazenly on their screens. Judging by the pervasiveness of teary-eyed content, we also can’t seem to look away.

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