The unlikely place young workers fight mental-health taboos
Twenty-three-year-old Londoner Max Selwood has a popular TikTok account, but not the kind you might expect. Unlike the dance trends and cooking how-tos that blew up on the platform in 2020, Selwood’s videos focus on a less fun – but also popular – subject: mental health.
Selwood, who has anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), posts clips about social anxiety, mood changes, toxic masculinity and more. He first started posting about mental health on Instagram about three years ago, but began posting on TikTok not long before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“TikTok has a younger demographic, [and] I want them to be able to see that it’s fine to feel [bad], it’s fine to feel great, and if you do have mental health issues, it’s absolutely fine to address them and speak to people about them,” says Selwood. He adds that these posts help him work through his own feelings, too.