What is hiding behind the latest trend of Medusa on Tik Tok? Dark stories that unfortunately represent reality for many women and girls.
The video consists in posting an almost innocent phrase with which the sad story had begun. In this was, girls victims of sexual violence find the strength to open up and share their experience with a video. After the short story, the photo of Medusa is attached, accompanied by the song of Billie Eilish, in which she quotes “If I knew it all then, would I do it again? Would I do it again?”.
You’ve probably heard or studied the character of Medusa, but you should know that she wasn’t always a bad monster. Do you know the entire story? Medusa’s story is unfortunately very similar to that of many other women. Her character was born in Greek mythology, she was a young girl known for her beauty, the only mortal among three sisters. Her outward appearance does not go unnoticed among men, so much that the god Poseidon raped her in one of his temples. Athena to punish her, (as if she was guilty!) transformed her into the famous monster, the Gorgon, that we all know, with snakes instead of hair and with the power to petrify people just by looking to them.
This is the real power of Tik Tok, create communities, group people who have something in common, that can be interests, experiences, emotions, feelings, stories, not necessarily positive.
Absurdly, it might be easier to tell your story on social media to unknown people, rather than to friends or parents, hoping to meet someone who can really understand. And that’s just what happens on Tik Tok, we discover that we are not alone, that maybe what happened to us happened to other people and we feel understood, even if by unknown people.
