Is this TikTok story about falling for a psychiatrist real or engagement bait?
Someone on the internet is saying she fell in love with her psychiatrist in a multi-part video series on TikTok. No one can really tell if she's telling her truth, telling the truth, or trolling for engagement. But no matter the motive, millions of people are watching.
About a week ago, TikTok creator @kendrahilty made a video that started with the words "I fell in love with my psychiatrist..." The video garnered more than 1.3 million views, 31,000 likes, 8,000 saves, and a grand total of zero comments (she disabled them). She followed that video up with a dozen other videos responding to comments like "Have you filed a complaint on this guy?" (She did not) and "You had a psychiatrist you saw that often?!?" (She saw him every month).
Then, she turned it into a multi-part series reminiscent of "Who TF Did I Marry?" and titled the videos with some version of "I was in love with my psychiatrist and he kept me anyway." Each video is between 30 seconds and six minutes long, she's been updating them daily, and they each have anywhere from 300,000 to 3.4 million views. She is currently on Part 19. @kendrahilty has uploaded 33 videos, each averaging about 848,800 views at the time of this publication.
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So far, the videos total nearly an hour and a half of viewing time. That's a lot of time to watch a TikTok video but, as Mashable's Tim Marcin has pointed out, it's not a lot of time to listen to a podcast, which is how many people consume story-time TikTok's anyway.
The response has been mixed. People in the r/therapists subreddit are debating whether the psychiatrist did actually display any predatory behavior. Users on TikTok are trying to decide if she's telling the truth or just making engagement bait.
Either way, it doesn't look like she's done posting any time soon — and she's certainly starting conversation.
Topics TikTok
Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.
Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.