#FairyFlying TikTok Trend With Over 66M Views Raises Self-Harm Concerns

Is this a “fairy” innocent trend or could it spell trouble? A new “Fairy Flying” trend on TikTok has various people posting videos of their bodies seemingly hanging in the air without showing what’s happening above their shoulders. Posts using the hashtag #fairyflying have already gotten over 66.4 million views on TikTok, meaning that people are flying to this trend making it already “fairy” popular. The apparent intent of such videos is to appear like a fairy flying in the air. However, many of these videos show bodies from the shoulder-down, chest-down, or hips-down hanging seemingly lifeless in the air. You’ve gotta wonder what these images may trigger and what people may do to imitate what they are seeing because that’s what people on social media often do.

For example, @emmytherattypatty posted a video that has already amassed over 3.4 million views and showed a woman with her back to the camera, appearing as if she were floating in a room. As you can see in the following screen shot of the video, her head was bent forward so that you really could not see it very well:

Now, she was flapping her arms with background music that included the lyrics, “She was a fairy.” And the video did include the hashtag #fairy. This could be a very innocent attempt at showing a clever optical illusion in good fun. However, what was happening may not have necessarily been “fairy” obvious to all of the viewers. For example, one comment under the video read, “I was terrified for my life before I noticed what was happening.”

If you scroll through the other videos using the #fairflying hashtag, you’ll find many different variations of this body-floating-in-the-air-theme. They range from videos where it is obvious that the person is trying to look like he or she is flying to those that display only a pair of legs dangling in the air limp or in some cases even quivering. Without the proper context, a number of these videos could look like people have hung themselves, which is not exactly the most comforting of images. In fact, a publication in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry summarized evidence from 15 studies that showed how looking at images of self-harm can lead to an increase in self-harm. This can result from such images triggering urges to self-harm and normalizing self-harm so that people feel “more at home” doing so.

Plus, guess what many people do when they see something trending on social media? Yep, they try to imitate it. Not only that, they may try to one-up it, sort of like an arms race. Or in this case an arms and legs race.

Naturally, the floating aspect of these videos is fake. If you look carefully at the video from @emmytherattypatty, it’s a bunch of Crocs. She uses a pair of Crocs—perhaps taped to her feet—to obscure the likely fact that she has her feet planted on the edge of the desk. In other words, she is not really flying but rather pumping her feet up and down to give that illusion.

Now, the question is how many people will fall off desks and tables trying to imitate such a move. Or send the items on such furniture flying all over the place. Furniture doesn’t typically come with the warning, “Do not attempt to be a fairy on this.” But standing on the edge of any type of furniture isn’t the safest position.

Moreover, how many people may injure themselves trying to up the ante? Suspending yourself with wires and various contraptions may work in Hollywood where you have an entire stunt team and stage crew surrounding you. But trying such a stunt when you only have a poster of Harry Styles watching over you could end up in all sorts of problems.

Additionally, these days you can’t tell what is real versus video-edited. The actual means and contraptions used to make it look like someone is flying could be heavily Pixie-lated, so to speak. So, if you don’t have access to video-editing, you may be attempting in real life what someone never actually tried.

Social media has continued to blur the lines between reality and make-believe further and further. Just because you see someone seemingly flying on TikTok, doesn’t mean that you should wing it yourself.