Why We Can’t Resist TikTok’s Bottle-Smashing Trend: A Neuroscience Perspective
How Our Brain’s Reward System Keeps Us Hooked on Viral Trends
Greetings! It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and this time I want to share some thoughts about a TikTok trend that caught me by surprise. Bottles smashed on stairs. Play the video below:
This video belongs to the account @mrpotee, which has more than 3M followers; this particular video has over 230M views!! 😮
This other profile, @rachapotes, made its first video a few days ago, June 27, 2023. The profile already has more than 1M followers and this video that I shared has already been watched more than 270M times. According to tiktoker @maxjones.ai, the RachaPotes profile must have already earned more than USD 180,000 in just a few days!! 💰
In the tumultuous world of social networks, trends rise and fall like the tides, dancing to the inconsistent rhythm of the ocean of digital interactions. Some barely make a splash, while others trigger a real tsunami that quickly captures the attention of millions of users.
If you analyze the “bottle-explode” wave, you soon realize that the idea is surprisingly simple, but strangely mesmerizing. A bottle or jar of glass, filled with a variety of food, drink, or decoration material, with their respectively colored contents, is rolled from the highest step of a staircase. The camera’s focus diligently follows its fall, at each step, to witness up close the point of fragmentation, which sometimes results in a visually and audibly pleasing(?) explosion, or the resistant bravery of the glass jar that does not break after so many falls.
The previous question mark is due to my questioning whether these images and sounds can really be pleasing. But, as these videos are usually tagged with tags like #asmr, #satisfying, and #asmrtiktoks and do not accompany any musical track — just the raw and unfiltered sound of the glass breaking, I believe it is part of the phenomenon that the internet has helped to amplify, called ASMR.
Imagine that you are listening to the soft sound of rain hitting the window or the rustling of the pages of a book being turned or the noise of cutting food in the kitchen. Or even whispers, from someone who speaks close to you, or from some specialized youtuber, who uses ultra-sensitive microphones to amplify each interaction between mouth, tooth, tongue, and saliva in their whispered voice. If you feel a pleasant tingling at the top of your head that spreads through your body, bringing a sense of relaxation and well-being you will be experiencing what is called ASMR, an acronym that means Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a sensory phenomenon that drags millions of fans on the internet.
ASMR is often triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, the “triggers”, and can vary from person to person, but generally include soft and repetitive sounds, delicate and amplified movements that you would normally not pay attention to, unless your focus is on it. Many people use ASMR videos to help relax, reduce stress, and even to help fall asleep.
However, not everyone reacts the same way to these stimuli. I, for example, have what is called misophonia, which literally means “hatred of sound”, an intense and negative emotional response that these sounds provoke. Not the sound of the bottles exploding, but what is usually seen of hyper-amplified ASMR sounds.
But could the sound of glass shattering be an ASMR trigger sound? This leads us to question: and if the sound alone does not fully explain the phenomenon, what else could contribute to the hypnotic attraction that glass destruction videos exert on us?
The answer may lie in other aspects of how our brains respond to these videos. Watching the fall and subsequent disintegration of the enclosure triggers a good dopamine discharge. Your brain begins to anticipate each roll of the bottle or glass jar down the stairs and the expectation of when, how, where, and in what way the burst will happen keeps you magnetized by the effect of the neurotransmitter linked to desire and reward.
Anticipation is an emotional and cognitive state that occurs when an individual expects or anticipates a future reward. A stimulus that suggests a reward is on the way frequently causes this to happen. The reward, on the other hand, is the result or prize that is received after this expectation.
Dopamine plays a role in both the anticipation of reward and the reward itself. During reward anticipation, dopamine is released in response to a signal indicating that a reward is on the way. This creates a state of expectation and excitement. This is what happens when we watch a suspense movie, where tension builds up to the climax. When the reward is received, dopamine is again released in response to the reward itself, creating a sense of satisfaction. In the case of shattered glass, the shapes of the packages along with their colorful contents, liquid or solid, often of varied textures, become the visually gratifying reward after the container breaks. We like patterns of colors spread on a screen.
Reward anticipation is a powerful phenomenon to win and tie the audience. It’s no wonder that TikTok itself, as a platform, takes advantage of this phenomenon. If you think about it, calling the app media or social network is inaccurate, according to what they themselves think about themselves! By calling themselves an entertainment platform, TikTok demonstrates why it is a phenomenon. Everything revolves around its prediction algorithm, which is constantly showing you a next video. You don’t know what might come next, you have no control over what might appear, and your dopamine remains increased to wait for the next (uncertain) reward that will come after the next skip. The advantage of TikTok is that its algorithm is so well made, that you are constantly being surprised by videos that interest you a lot, keeping your eyes glued for minutes, if not hours. The feeling is that we are becoming more and more addicted. And why not, if addiction affects exactly this same brain reward circuit?
In summary, the trend of smashing bottles on TikTok is a captivating example of how the neuroscience of behavior can be applied to understand and create viral content. Through sensory exploration, as in the case of ASMR, and understanding phenomena that activate our reward system, we can begin to unravel why certain content captures our attention and goes viral.
However, it is important to remember that these are just hypotheses based on observations and interpretations. For a deeper and more accurate understanding, rigorous scientific studies would be necessary. In addition, it is crucial to consider the risks and negative consequences associated with them, such as physical safety, imagine a teenager wanting to create something like this and getting hurt, or even a discussion about waste of food and drinks.
It is worth remembering that neuroscience can help us understand why certain content goes viral, but creating successful content involves much more than just understanding the human brain, requiring creativity, innovation, understanding of the target audience, and most importantly, authenticity.
So, the next time you’re hooked by a viral video, try asking yourself: what’s happening in my brain right now? Only by questioning can we use the fascinating world of behavioral neuroscience to create new and surprising things.
Had you already known about this trend? Share your ideas here in the comments section, and don’t forget to leave your like and share the text!
