Lois Heslop

The rise of WitchTok

  • From Spectator Life
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Halloween might be over, but Witching Hour has accelerated on TikTok. #WitchTok (or Witch TikTok) is the viral take on spirituality – think Paganism, psychics, and seances in 60 second videos. The hashtag #WitchTok currently has over 20.7 billion views on the video app. In comparison, #Kardashian only has 6.4 billion, and #LoveIsland clocks up a mere 4.9 billion. 

As an enthusiastic TikTok user, I started liking WitchTok videos during lockdown. I found myself drawn in by beautiful witches with their crystals and soft-spoken voices. Influencer branding has inevitably pounced on this spiritual trend; the creators of this content practice both magic and sales, and while I can’t speak for the former, the latter is extremely effective. The gentle marketing worked on me – I bought Tarot cards and incense and celebrated the Summer Solstice this year in the most mystical way I could. Big brands have recently caught on. A browse in my local Urban Outfitters (an American clothing store import marketed at Gen Z) reveals card decks, books on witching and healing crystals covering the lifestyle tables. 

While the origins are English, Wicca really took off when it spread to the United States and collided with 1960s counterculture.

None of this is new – as anyone who has been to Stonehenge at Midsummer would know. WitchTok is the 2021 update on the psychic listings in early-2000s teen magazines, fortune tellers at funfairs, and crystal shops on Glastonbury High Street. Some witching veterans would roll their eyes at this being called a fad – at the last census, 56,620 people identified their religion as Pagan, and 1,766 as Wicca. While the idea of witchcraft has been around for millennia, the type practiced on TikTok is mostly based on Wicca, a modern Pagan religion dating from the 1950s. Wicca, developed by a retired English civil servant named Gerald Gardner, is often described as an invented tradition.

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