Synthesia disease1/17/2024 ![]() Gray describes himself as “naturally creative” and he hopes his humorous approach will educate people about synesthesia. It worked: The Kirsty video got almost 700,000 views. Why did he do it? “My account is primarily to make people laugh and interest people,” he says-he also hopes to gain “a presence” on the app. “It sounds crass but ‘Kirsty’ has genuinely always been the smell of urine,” Gray says via email-though the comment was faked by a friend, his response on TikTok was real. His own name is a soft ham and cheese sandwich, slightly squashed in a lunchbox. He recalls sitting around the table eating strawberry pudding with his cousin Emily as a child, and remarking, “You must really like this!”-it was, after all, what her name tasted like. But he is, he says, a synesthete: Since he was a young boy, certain words have always provoked tastes, sensations, and images. Gray admits now that he asked a friend to submit the comment-there is no Kirsty with divorced parents. One of his videos, in which he says that the name “Kirsty” smells of urine, seems suspicious-there’s a comedic set-up to the video, as Gray is responding to the comment, “My friend’s parents just got divorced and she’s really sad. Henry Gray is a 23-year-old bar worker from Newcastle, England, who has 12,000 followers on his account, here he tells people what their names remind him of, and they can donate to his PayPal in return. Still, that doesn’t mean everything is always as it seems (or smells, or tastes). “To have people comment and say they feel really seen, that’s when social media is at its most powerful.” “For me as a kid, I felt really alone,” she says. ![]() For her, the app is a way to educate people about synesthesia and raise awareness. “It was reassuring to see the acceptance and the positive response,” Kraning says. On the whole, however, TikTok has been kind. “I understand it,” she says of the skepticism, “I understand that it’s a very strange thing if you haven’t been educated about it.” Kraning has taken an array of tests called the “ Synethesia Battery” that was developed by University of Texas scientists in 2007-the tests proved her auditory-visual synesthesia was consistent. (She’s the one who said Miley Cyrus’ voice was dark green with bits of blue.) Today, she sells artwork based on what she hears and talks about her synesthesia regularly on TikTok, where she has 512,000 followers. Kraning sees colors, textures, and patterns when she hears sounds, and used to struggle in school when teachers played music during tests. When she was a child, Kraning stopped discussing her senses after friends and family laughed or seemed confused. Is something suspicious occurring on #synesthesiatok? Content about the phenomenon is popular on the app: Videos tagged #synesthesia have accumulated some 289 million views, and synesthetes receive countless comments from people begging them to taste their names or describe the color of their favorite song (at least one TikToker solicits PayPal donations off the back of these requests).īut hang on: Synesthesia is rare, right? Lexical-gustatory synesthesia, the type where someone can taste words, is estimated to occur in less than 0.2 percent of the population-what are the chances so many of these singular synesthetes picked up TikTok? And how come disliked celebrities conveniently seem to taste bad, while beloved ones taste like “warm cornbread and snowflakes”? In the past, TikTokers with dissociative identity disorder (DID) have been accused of faking their diagnosis for fame. ![]() The name Harvey, according to TikToker has the flavor of flame-grilled BBQ sauce, while Daisy tastes “like butter that’s been left out in the sun.” What does Miley Cyrus’ voice look like? Last year, said it was dark green, with touches of sky blue.Īll of these TikTokers-and many more besides-have synesthesia, a perceptual condition where two senses are crossed, meaning synesthetes can smell colors or see music or taste sounds. This is not a metaphor-this is literally what TikTok user tastes when she listens to the internet personality belt out a tune. James Charles’ singing voice tastes like $5 vodka in a plastic bottle. ![]()
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