CancerTok? WTF
[GENX "GET OFF MY LAWN" RANT]
I was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1996. On an answering machine. You couldn't Google symptoms. There was no Facebook to crowdsource fear. No Reddit threads of rage. No TikTok cancer influencers. Just me, a dial-up modem, and a death sentence on cassette tape with no pencil to unsnag it. (Look it up, kids)
So you'll forgive me if I don't have the emotional bandwidth for this deranged witch hunt against Sydney Towle, a 21-year-old who might have cancer, and posted some videos about it. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows? And here's the thing—why does it matter?
I lived through AOL chat rooms, 4chan, Tumblr, and YouTube comment sections. I've seen peak internet toxicity. But this level of cyber bloodlust? It's a new low. And it's targeted at a maybe cancer patient.
We now live in a culture where you're not sick enough until the mob says so, where personal trauma needs receipts, timestamps, a second opinion, and a frieken QR code.
And if you don't livestream your biopsy, you're a fraud.
Yes, I have met our species, but what happened to decency? To minding your own damn business? We're throwing pitchforks at a 21-year-old girl for having the audacity to maybe be sick on the internet. Why? Because two other people faked it once, and Netflix made a documentary about it?
I don't pretend to "get" TikTok. Or the clout economy. Or why you'd share your chemo on Reels. (We had "red flag" convos at Stupid Cancer way back in 2007 about your "digital footprint" haunting you for life – but, hey, it's a free country (for now.)
But I do get what it's like to have your life collapse, to not know who you are anymore, to desperately try to make sense of the chaos and look for meaning, connection, or just a way to breathe.
And if she's lying? So what. You know how many real cancer patients get ignored, gaslit, or accused of faking it anyway?
We've become a culture of performative outrage addicts with zero empathy and less perspective. The real fraud isn't her. It's us.
So yeah—I'm reposting this because I've had cancer, because I've lived through real pain, and because I still believe in giving people grace before gutting them for sport.
And because I want off this planet.
Can someone please explain how we got here? Because I'm seriously about to beat a squishmallow to death.
NY TIMES ➡️ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/nyregion/sydney-towle-cancer-videos-tiktok.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EU8.sSxp.H6tBZMVH-vG1&smid=nytcore-android-share