SERIES
Mental health disorders today are better diagnosed, but are still often misunderstood.
Tourette’s syndrome has taken social media by storm in recent years. Videos of people who suffer from the neurological disorder, which causes rapid involuntary motions and sounds, have been watched 5.6 billion times on TikTok. On YouTube, people with Tourette’s have become stars.
One of them is a 23-year-old German by the name of Jan Zimmermann. The videos on his channel Gewitter Im Kopf – meaning ‘Thunder in my head’ – have been watched more than 300 million times since he began in early 2019.
At the same time, referral numbers to Tourette clinics, particularly of teenage girls, have increased dramatically in nations including the US, Germany, Denmark and Australia. Scientists are trying to establish cause and effect. Do the tics ofYouTube andTikTok stars have anything to do with the rise in referrals? Is this a new mental condition
