“Watch me pretend to punch my girlfriend”: exploring youth responses to viral dating violence

Dating violence among adolescents is a severe public health issue that has escalated rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article explores young people’s responses to social media trends normalizing dating violence. Through analysis of the “pretend to punch your girlfriend” trend on the social media platform TikTok, this study asks: how do youth make sense of dating violence on social media? And what do their emotional responses reveal about emerging attitudes towards dating violence and relationship equity? This study explores the “feeling rules” constructed by youth in response to dating violence online through a mixed-method analysis of user comments. This article concludes with platform design solutions to regulate the rise of dating violence on social networks.