"Guess Who" TikTok Trend

About

"Guess Who" TikTok Trend refers to a social game on TikTok where users, often teenagers and middle-schoolers, post vague descriptive quotes and images relating to people in their classes to TikTok and ask others to guess who they're referring to. The trend spread in April 2022 and became the subject of controversy for encouraging cyberbullying and its potential to doxx people, as the accounts often mention specific schools by initial and identifying information about students. The images used in such posts typically resemble starter pack memes.

Origin

One of the earliest known "Guess Who" accounts on TikTok^[1] is @wtf.bro.5, which posted its first video on April 3rd, 2022 (shown below). The video is captioned "Guess the 6 grader" and shows images of hairstyles, clothing, and the word "Taurus," gaining over 11,000 views in a month.

Spread

New "Guess Who" TikTok^[2][3][4] accounts opened over the course of the month throughout April 2022, including @guessswho.cms1 and @gwentiscoed, @killicomaine_guesswho, some videos gaining significant traction. For example, on April 4th, a video by TikToker @wtf.bro.5 gained over 563,000 views in a month (shown below).

Some accounts use subjective and potentially bullying descriptors for the game. For example, on April 6th, TikToker @guesswhoths..3071 posted a video describing a person as a "slut," "acts like she is 20" and used an image of a vodka bottle and vape (shown below).

Controversy

On May 6th, 2022, Schools Week^[5] published an article titled "New TikTok social media trend torments school pupils" about the trend and how dangerous it is, likening it to a form of bullying. In the article, they mention how some of the clues are revealing, "initials or year group," "references to physical appearance, sexuality and personality" and "encourage other pupils to tag the victims in the comments section." The article also says that Brockington College in Enderby, Leicestershire had three of these accounts removed, but it reportedly took them weeks of "battling" to get them taken down.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References