TikTok Has A Ted Bundy Problem

By Abby Lee Hood


The world of TikTok is full of clown makeup, catchy dances, and Gen Z humor. Although there’s one trend that’s a little bit different, and darker: Hundreds of teens are role-playing Ted Bundy and other serial killers, along with their victims, for a crowd of millions.


For at least a couple of months, users on the social media app have been pretending to put on makeup as they get ready for a “date” with a known murderer, only to lay on the floor and be dragged off the screen as if they’ve been killed in the following frame. Other users pretend to be Bundy himself; several set up their phones to get a under-the-bed angle as if they’re hunting for their “victims.” The videos also use a handful of regular audio clips, which users can pick on the app and play in the background as they film.


They’re not alone in the trend, either: Other young users have used the app to roleplay as abuse victims or cult members, treating their videos with black-and-white filters or filming them in a dark room. And while TikTok videos are short — they run for a maximum of 15 seconds — it’s still enough time to get the point across.


It’s hard to mention who was the initial person to begin these trends or any time the opening video was posted since TikTok doesn’t show you the date of each post, although the videos are quite popular. (On August 3, a teen took things even further by alleging she was Bundy’s granddaughter, a claim she later backtracked as a “joke.”) A search for #charlesmanson shows the hashtag has more than 40,000 views; #tedbundy has more than 14.5 million views, while #truecrime clocks in at 7.7 million views. As of publish time, #serialkiller has earned over 16.4 million views.


The videos may have been inspired in part by what felt like an overload of pop culture really interested in exploring the crimes and notoriety of one of the most infamous serial killers in modern history. The four-part documentary series Conversations With a Killer dropped on Netflix in January; it was followed by the Zac Efron film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile in May. Each was seemingly timed to the 30-year anniversary of Bundy’s execution, and both works earned plenty of media coverage (though most of it was far from glowing).


Much of the criticism centered on the ways in which both assignments seemed to glorify or humanize Bundy; neither project spent much time memorializing the over 30 girls who were known victims. To experts, that signals a greater problem that the give attention to these cautionary tales are sending mixed messages about infamy and culpability.


“Media needs to be done in a very careful manner because of the potential of contagion and romanticizing the topic,” Dr. Christina Conolly, Chairperson of School Safety and Crisis Response at the National Association of School Psychologists, told MTV News. “We don't want individuals thinking that this could be a ‘cool' thing do to be famous.”


The movies, and also because the general popularity of true-crime drama as a whole, may help explain a uptick in the TikTok trend, nevertheless video creators distribute different perspectives on why they wanted to film their videos. Some creators told MTV News they wanted to raise awareness about issues like domestic violence; others, like George Garaway, mentioned they weren’t truly aware of the impact up until soon after they’d posted.


“I was quite surprised to be able to see that there was a lot of backlash Once I made my first video,” Garaway, whose TikTok account has 200,500 followers, mentioned in an interview with MTV News. “The majority of the comment section was telling me to ‘stop glorifying abuse.’


The creator has made a handful of Bundy videos; he told MTV News he viewed the project as a new challenge. Some of his videos feature audio from The Shining, or impersonations of Bundy in which he wears a button-up shirt and has applied lipstick kiss marks to his face and neck. Several clips are filmed in black white, and then some have racked up more than 100,000 likes, which Garaway mentioned makes them among his most popular videos. Although once he began obtaining negative feedback, he rapidly changed course.


“I didn’t realize at first that doing a video like this may could realistically harm or offended somebody, so I responded to these comments in apology about the situation,” he explained. He also updated some of the video captions to acknowledge the negative feedback and updated his content to exclude the serial killer specifically. In doing so, he found something curious: It was the specific murderer viewers were objecting to — not necessarily the depiction of predatory behavior.


“I should make the same exact video with the same creepy tone and themes, however as long as Ted Bundy’s name wasn’t involved it was all of a sudden imagined OK,” he said.


Garaway told MTV News that about one-fourth of his videos feature darker, serial killer themes, and that if the initial one had never gone viral he could might not directly have even continued making them — the rest of his videos are a diverse mix of jokes about makeup trends, and pop song dances.


However such a simplification may not hold water for another order of creators, who have been making videos calling out the trend and its apparent glorification of violence. Take Christina Alekseeva, a TikTok user with 1,100 followers. On June 9, she posted a video with a plot twist: Alternatively opposed to finishing the 15-second song clip most people have been using, her audio switches to a robotic voice asking people to stop making Bundy videos and to respect the families who lost loved ones.





“I don’t think that it’s right to create videos like this for clout,” Alekseeva mentioned of her video, which has just over 7,600 likes. “People pretending to be victims because its ‘aesthetic’ isn't OK.”


Although some users like Helen Cobos believe their clips go in back of a trend, and are as an alternative highlighting a painful reality. In one video, Cobos, who has 64,000 followers, applies makeup for a “date” with a stranger from The world wide web. By the end of the video, her makeup has been modified to create it look like she had been crying and someone bruised her face; the caption says the date didn’t go well. Cobos mentioned views and likes were not her motivation; her intention was to raise awareness around domestic abuse.


“At the end of the day if [the video] only derived five likes, it did not matter, because at least I knew that five people had… awareness,” Cobos told MTV News. “All [my] videos were created with a good purpose… I hope that in the end the message has been received.”


However Conolly believes that content like these videos would be harmful to TikTok users who don’t completely grasp the content of what they’re watching. She also pointed out how serious topics like this can actually trigger people as a substitute opposed to of providing aid them.


“Unfortunately videos like this might ‘normalize’ violence,” Conolly mentioned. “It can unfortunately lead to doing more harm than good.”


While a creator’s intentions might be in the correct place, weighing the reality of how people receive the intelligence is key. Alekseeva told MTV News she was shocked at people commenting on some videos with heart-eyes emojis, which The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History author Kevin Sullivan mentioned is in keeping with the history of females who attended Bundy’s trial and otherwise romanticized a known abuser and murderer.


“I have dealt with adult ladies who would love to have Bundy alive so they could date him,” Sullivan mentioned. “When I have [told] them that if Bundy were alive, he may very well murder you, they brush it off.” He also believes that media coverage has affected interest in several situations and criminals. Whenever he doesn’t believe most people have a unhealthy obsession, Sullivan told MTV News that because real, violent crime is everywhere in the world, media coverage affects people strongly.


Dr. John Mayer, a practicing clinical psychologist plus a visiting professor at the University of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey Mexico, also noted that interest in true crime isn't necessarily a bad thing.


“There is a psychologically healthy mechanism to watching crime shows,” he mentioned. “The healthy mechanism of watching disasters is a coping mechanism. It [gives] us data on the dangers to avoid and flee from.”


According to Mayer, interest in true crime is at a “all time high” due to the widespread availability of so various kinds of media. He noted that its popularity has led to arrests and may help people avoid or prevent dangerous situations, and likened the experience of watching true crime to riding a roller coaster — it could feel exhilarating and thrilling. The TikTok videos, nevertheless, worried him.


While TikTok was not accessible for comment on the trends, the platform does issue content curation and controls in its Safety Center and creates educational videos in-app for users and content that goes against the community guidelines can be announced and removed.


Trends rise and fall out popularity all of the time; some last for a couple of days or several weeks. It’s entirely possible these videos will fade from eats. Although such memories and traumas aren’t as conveniently erased for victims or their loved ones; for them, stories like this are the furthest thing from entertainment.