Dark Reddit Confessions

Submission 14,596

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About

Dark Reddit Confessions refers to posts made to the anonymous confessions subreddit /r/confessions that are particularly dark or disturbing. Videos showcasing these confessions became popular on TikTok in late 2021 through early 2022, often posted by TikToker @wisely_chosen.

Origin

On August 13th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @wisely_chosen posted a video showcasing a dark Reddit confession from the /r/confessions^[3] subreddit where the user tells a story about almost becoming a school shooter (shown below). The video gained over 140,000 views in seven months. The original post gained over 5,900 upvotes in three years.

Spread

On November 14th, 2021, TikToker^[2] @wisely_chosen posted a video showcasing a dark Reddit confession taken from /r/confessions subreddit. The post is about a girl who pushes her severely autistic brother down the stairs after he frustrates her and ends up giving him brain damage and memory issues. She lies to her parents about it and tells them he simply fell. The video gained over 79,000 views in five months (shown below).

On November 29th, the same TikToker^[4]^[5] uploaded a video sharing a confession about a flight instructor whose student dies in an aerial maneuver, gaining over 476,000 views in four months (shown below, left). On January 23rd, he posted a video reading a confession from a paramedic who feels they're responsible for someone's death, gaining over 116,000 views in two months (shown below, right).

I Hate My Autistic Son

On September 3rd, 2014, Redditor vlog77 made a post to /r/confession^[6] titled, "I hate my autistic son." The Redditor went on to write, "I can't help it, my life is constantly terrible. I spend as much time at work as possible. The worst part is that I am supposed to pretend that I am happy about it. When we get together with the other parents and everyone is pretending their kids are as normal as anyone else. They are not. All of us secretly wish they were never born." The post (shown below) received over 960 upvotes in eight years.

In early March 2022, the TikTok^[7] account reddit.guy posted a video that read the "I hate my autistic son" story with a text-to-speech robot voice, having a Minecraft let's play video running in the background for ambiance. Although the video was later deleted by the account, TikToker^[8] djkhaledsdildo was the first to exploit it on March 2nd, earning roughly 45,900 plays and 6,200 likes in 20 days. The original sound became popular on TikTok over the following weeks (examples shown below).