The Impact of Gamified Cyberbullying Trends on Adolescent Mental Health on TikTok in the U.S.

Online discourse within gamified TikTok trends generates varied forms of audience engagement and harassment behaviors. Using text mining, this study examined the prevalence and nature of cyberbullying directed at adolescent males and females in the U.S. within gamified contexts on TikTok. Analysis of 50,755 comments from 60 TikTok videos revealed that non-cyberbullying comments occurred significantly more than expected (97.1% for males, 96.7% for females), Among cyberbullying behaviors, sexualization dominated responses to both genders (92.46% of male-directed cyberbullying, 89.19% of female-directed cyberbullying), while traditional harassment tactics occurred less frequently than anticipated. Notable gendered differences emerged in topic modeling, with males' content provoking performance-based harassment themes (Masculine Roasting, Rhyme Roasting) and females' content attracting appearance-focused commentary (Rating Culture, Sexualized Commentary). Sentiment analysis revealed that female adolescents received proportionally more neutral responses and fewer negative reactions compared to males. These findings demonstrate that while overt cyberbullying remains relatively infrequent on TikTok due to platform moderation, gamified contexts create environments where sexualized harassment becomes the predominant form of harmful behavior, with distinct gendered patterns requiring targeted intervention strategies.