Young Morticians Use TikTok to Talk About Death
A thriving community of TikTok morticians is taking the social media platform by storm and contributing to a growing awareness of death care professions among young people.
Beckie-Ann Galentine is just one of the TikTok stars who have built their following on videos featuring historic cemeteries, funeral industry insight, and embalming tips and tricks. The #mortician tag has garnered over 70 million views so far, with more fans and morticians joining the ranks every day.
Breaking the taboo
As Americans grapple with our death anxiety during a time when death looms over our lives more than ever, online communities like Mortuary TikTok and its counterparts on Instagram and Facebook help many people address their fears and process the death of loved ones. More than just a place to satiate morbid curiosity, TikTok serves as a nurturing, supportive, and positive space to process grief, explore mourning practices, and connect with peers having similar experiences.
Ranging from grief counselors and death doulas to embalmers and historians, mortuary social networks provide accessible and insightful information on death and dying, end-of-life care, grief, and funerary science. Funeral directors like Eileen Hollis appreciate the opportunity to showcase their family business to a wider audience and clear up misconceptions about the industry. “My family thinks it’s incredibly important to make informed decisions about your body not only in life but in death,” Hollis says.
Brenda, known as @mortedeanubis, agrees, dedicating her time on TikTok to answering questions about funeral homes, embalming, and the profession in general. “People often confuse all angles of death workers,” noting that while morticians prepare bodies for burial, they don’t, as many people assume, perform autopsies. In an industry that doesn’t have much of a social media presence, the young, mostly female morticians engaging with the public on TikTok tap into an entirely new demographic.
Let’s talk about grief
While TikTok morticians frequently field accusations of capitalizing on grief and disrespecting the dead, researchers contend that open and frank discussions about difficult topics have positive effects. Since the late 19th century, the “American way of death” has grown increasingly professionalized, with the bodies of loved ones sequestered from home and family in hospitals and funeral homes.
As Americans lost touch with the processes of the passing of loved ones and burial preparations, they also lost touch with healthy grief processes. As Megan Devine, psychotherapist and author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief & Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand, explains, “because we don’t talk about the realities of grief in our culture, no one really knows how to help.” Higher visibility of death-related topics can help grieving people access resources and connect with a supportive community.
Last responders
The morticians of TikTok, like many other medical and public health professionals, are also using their platform to combat misinformation about COVID-19, promote social distancing and mask-wearing, and illustrate the on-the-ground realities of the last responders dealing with the crisis on a daily basis. Funeral homes across the country, inundated with calls, are begging the public to heed public health recommendations to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
