The Tik Tok Sound that has Erupted a World of Emotions

I really just got on here to procrasinate, now it's got me crying

I love keeping up with fun Tik Tok trends. I think it's so cool to see how creative people are. However, nothing has ever quite caught my attention like the new sound that is going around Tik Tok right now. While this started simply as a girl cooking dinner, this has turned into a pretty sobering trend.

The caption of the video reads "decided to harmonize with my kitchen fan while making dinner" and the video is simply a girl humming to the sound of her fan while concentrating on preparing her meal. With 3.8 million likes (as of the day I am writing this), this sound has blown up and continues to blow up.

When I first heard this sound, the dance choreographer in me was thinking "dang, I wish she would have made this longer, like a minute and a half or 2 minutes. This would be a beautiful lyrical". But, I was also thinking about all of the emotions this song made me feel. lonely, peaceful, melancholy, broke, repaired, hot, cold, it was a cacophony of emotions. It was like that feeling of waking up from a 2 hour nap and just staring out the window while it pours down rain. Or waking up at the crack of dawn for a family road trip, and you get to see the sunrise and it feels like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

The things this sound makes me think of reminds me of a perfume commercial. There's no direct connetion between the things being said but it makes sense. It's like a bunch of words. Ok, word association, play this sound and my brain goes "air, hanging, feel, touch, water, light, rain". It reminds me of the scene in New Girl when Schmidt is listening to Winston play the bells and he says, "Goosepebbles, each one, a memory".

But in all seriousness, this sound is pulling out these strange emotions that just churn around in my brain in such a strange way. During Covid, I was 16 years old and I am just convinced music was so good then, so simple. There were so many songs that gave me this feeling, but the one in particular was called "Let Go" by Ark Patrol. It gives the same exact feeling. I can recall laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling just letting myself fall into this song and dive into the feelings it was drawing out of me.

The current trend with this sound is women sharing stories about how they realized they have grown up. They are mourning their childhood because it went by so quick. It seems like kids are expected to grow up so fast, especially in this day and age, this trend is somewhat therapeutic in the sense that women (because mostly women participate in this trend) are able to find some community in their struggles and some peace by telling their stories. However, I also saw a video of an art gallery called "what I was wearing" and this one broke my heart in particular because of the nature of the art (I'll let you guys watch that video but be aware, it could be triggering so please watch carefully).

I can relate to this feeling of time going by too quick. I have recently been faced with this strange feeling where things that used to identify me don't really make me myself anymore. Growing up, I always felt so special with my name being Olivia because at that time, my name was not very popular, so it made me unique. Also, my birthday is in June and I always felt a special connection to the month of June. Everyone wants to feel interesting and have something that makes special. But these things do not define me as a person, they are just the facts about me. As a kid you always have a plan and a routine, you just kinda follow your parents and that's that. I'm starting to get to the point where there's no plan, and it really makes me realize, that's all adulthood is. You just kinda fly by the seat of your pants. When you're born you feel like your parents know everything but, really, everything is new to them too and you're just kinda doing life together.

But this trend does make me think back on my life. It feels like everything went by so quick. I still remember how my parents would turn on the country music countdown on Saturday mornings and my brother and I would dance around the living room. Or the time my mom and I laid on the floor watching a movie and colored in Strawberry Shortcake coloring books. I remember my dad always driving us around on the 4 wheeler and letting us sit in the front so we could hold the handles. And when my sister was a baby, I remember my mom letting me take her into my 3rd grade classroom for show and tell. This Tik Tok sound weeds out the smallest memories from my inner brain and pulls them out for me to look at once again. It's a bittersweet feeling, but the feelings I get from this sound are much deeper than the ache I feel to have lived more in the moment back then. This feeling is so much more than that.

I don't know what this feeling is called. Maybe it's just realization or taking in a moment, but this is a very distinct feeling. The first time I felt this feeling and acknowledged this as a feeling was when I was 15. I was in a fight with my boyfriend at the time, he was older and I didn't have my license so I was waiting for my dad to pick me up. The things that happened before and during this fight were traumatic and after this fight was over, he suddenly became a person I didn't recognize. I remember feeling completely helpless. I lost all power and control. I didn't want to lose him, I loved him (for what I knew love to be). But he was taking advantage of me and I remember thinking to myself "did that really just happen? There's no way that really just happened. That only happens in movies, not real life", but it really did just happen. I couldn't let go, so I didn't. Within the other 7 months of us dating, this feeling eventually stopped happening. But in that moment, even though I wasn't actively thinking it, my life was changing, and it would never be the same again. I was holding back tears on the way home that night and I sobbed to my mom but I couldn't bring myself to talk about the depth of what had truly happened, a sincere regret of mine. But I cannot do it, even now it's hard.

I experienced this feeling again when I was 18 years old. I was just starting college and my mental health had taken an abrupt turn I had never experienced before. I had my first uncontrollable panic attack. I had them every single day. I was scared to be alone because when I was alone, all I could do was sob, moaning out for the anguish to go away. I couldn't eat and all the crying made me sick. Even during times where I was happy, I would have to walk away and cry. It got so bad my mom would take days off work to help me focus on school. She seemed to be the only person who could get me out of my terrified state (btw my mom is literally my hero. I hope someday I can be just like her). There would be moments when I was all alone and it was just for a brief moment where I would get a break from the panic. It literally felt like when you're swimming and the waters are deep, but your head is like at surface level with the water and you can feel it on your chin but you're just watching the waves, catching your breath. It's overwhleming and calming and beautiful and terrifying all at once. I'd stare at the wall and just let myself feel the feeling of drowning in my own feelings. Accepting the moment and wallowing in it. That's what this sound makes me feel.

But, the fact that so many women can all relate to this sound says something about the experience of womanhood. And when I say that, I don't mean the whole "women and men aren't equal and I can't be sucessful and ..." no, this is not what I mean. However, I do think that women have experiences that are primarily special to women, not that men can't experience similar feelings, but it's just different for women. I think women experience emotions differently than men and that's why this trend is primarily for women. The sounds they hear generate a feeling that they now understand but when they first felt it, it was unique.

The most potent feeling I can understand is when you know a relationship is over and there's nothing you can do. You can't let go because you love him too much, but he's fading away. All you can do is blame yourself because he's just fallen out of love and instead of breaking up with you, he does all the boyfriend things but without the love and joy like normal. It's so painful. It's like cuddling with a pillow, it's comfy but there's no emotion. Or the day after the breakup. You wake up and pray it's just a dream. You can't sit still because if you stop working or walking your brain will make you think about them and you'll never stop crying. Nothing is comfortable. It's the Kenny Chesney song where he explains it perfectly, "turn the tv off to turn it on again" (there's more lyrics but that line, though being so plain, stabs me in the heart every time).

Loneliness is a terrible feeling. And this sound is the anthem to the lonliness epidemic we are facing as a generation today. It breaks my heart. Everyone understands it, yet no one understands it. It's hopeless and vengeful. All you can do is look back on your life at all the things you've done and wonder how things could have gone differently if you had said something or done something differently. This isn't a new idea either, all of this has been said before and this is why this sound is such an anomaly.

Here it is: this sound just perfectly describes your heart longing for something that's just not there at the moment. The distorded shading of the world when you're aching for someone you miss so much. The numbing feeling of yearning for someone to care when you feel all alone.

And I've only spoken about the first 5 seconds of the sound. See, she harmonizes with the fan, but her tone changes. Every time she changes her tone, a new feeling emerges. This feeling can be best described as the "finally freedom" feeling. It's almost like when a character has been imprisoned for years and finally gets released, or something traumatic happens and life is going to change. The best way I can describe it is like the scene in The Hunger Games when Katniss and Peeta go to eat the berries but the game person stops them and they win the Hunger Games.

But, here's the thing. If you took the kitchen fan out of her singing, I think the song would give a happier feeling. It would be used to show cute newborn baby videos about how fast their babies are growing up or like a pretty sunset with a cliche quote. But, the kitchen fan is the most powerful thing. I have noticed that when something traumatic happens, people tend to cling onto a sensory thing that is consistent. A lot of times when people experience trauma, they tend to notice like how clear the sky is or they stare at a blank wall. The buzzing of the kitchen fan is a familiar sound that your brain could cling onto to find a consistenly familiar calm sense in the midst of chaos (please note that I don't know any science on this and I'm just thinking out loud). I think this sound is so powerful because the fan sound triggers the sense in our brain that highlights traumatic memories and her beautiful singing is letting that memory pour all the emotions out of the memory, allowing us the chance to reflect. If that were true, then this type of music could be really helpful in therapy. Maybe we should just keep watching it, letting our emotions spill out, allowing ourselves to feel it, and making peace with the things we cannot control.

Anyways, let me know what you think! Leave a comment with a song you find powerful that you can just fall into. If you have any suggestions on what I should talk about next, let me know! Thank you so much for reading! Best wishes,

Livi