[imagesource: TikTok / amillandbritt / treeisalive / rocknrelmusic]

We should be careful of social media as it sweeps viewers up into dramas that often lack nuance, with people quick to call out what they deem offensive.

People jump on the bandwagon of the latest outcry and call to action, only to hop off when more information unfolds.

And while I am all for ‘normalising’ (a word that TikTok loves) changing one’s mind, because a lot of information out there is very rarely set in stone, and often biased or unchecked, it does give a person a bit of whiplash.

TikTok’s obsession with cults, called ‘CultTok’, for example, has taken many of those involved on a wild ride.

VICE reported on a bunch of “amateur detectives” who were sleuthing on the social media platform, having set out to expose what they all believed was an ominous cult called The Garden in Tennessee.

However, The Garden, describing itself as an “off-grid intentional community” with an educational focus, might have been the victims of a modern-day witch hunt.

The faces of The Garden, Julia Heim, and Tree (who is the person in the middle from the image above) made their little commune go viral on TikTok, with the intention of showing young folk looking for a “safe place” how to get involved.

But the storm of online attention forced them to close their commune to the public, especially after some members of the community had started receiving threats of violence.

The story of The Garden, and how it became mixed up in all of this, is detailed in VICE’s mini doccie,  Cult or Commune: Inside ‘The Garden:

[source:vice]