There’s a lot of weird content on TikTok, but it’s the video I watched last night that really has me worried. See, I’ve always been into occult and paranormal shit, you know? Browsing /x/, digging into the weirder parts of Reddit. I post on /nosleep once in a while. I have a folder full of creepy pastas. Just harmless fun, right?

The thing about TikTok, though, is that it has an algorithm, a machine-learning widget that tries to figure out what you like. And serve you more of it, in larger and more extreme doses, feeding back on itself with every click. So I started watching creepy stuff, ghost stories, found footage, overweight Goth chicks performing rituals they swear are Real Magic. And the algorithm served up more, and more. Maybe I just sensitized myself, but I started believing some of the shit I saw, and heard. I mean, it could be fake, but I started getting, like, physical reactions. Chills, cold sweats. And I’m a horror movie guy, I should be immune, right?

And then the video I’m talking about. I watched it right after breakfast, on a bright summer day in June, and I’m still freaking out about it. It’s this woman, standing in a dark room. Really thin, stringy hair, looks like she doesn’t care how she looks. She’s wearing a nightgown with little blue flowers on it, and it’s a full body shot so you can see she’s barefoot. For some reason, her toenails are painted this dark red color, like clotted blood. She just stands there for like ten seconds. And then she points at the camera, and says “DOOM!” And she starts laughing like a maniac, until the time runs out.

Since then, I’ve been seeing things: