Do you feel confident, beautiful, and strong? TikTok is trying to change that. Specifically, a toxic new trend on TikTok designed to tear others down — and kill any fledgling sparks of happiness in your teen. This trend is called the “bp edit,” and it may be designed to look harmless, but sometimes, that’s the worst kind of bullying. (How many times has “it’s just a joke!” hurt you? Exactly.) The “bp edit” is a sign of a darker internet culture influencing the minds of our youth, and it’s definitely something parents should look out for.

It Stands for ‘Black Pill’

The ‘bp edit’ stands for “black pill edit,” and it’s part of a misogynistic incel (involuntary celibate) culture. To understand, first you have to know what black pill is. According to a New America report, it started from the red pill in The Matrix, where male supremacist would use this terminology when males “realized” that men don’t hold systemic power of privilege under a feminist society. In 2016 (when Donald Trump was first elected president), this same toxic internet group transitioned to a black pill mentality. They say that women choose sexual partners based only on looks, which they say are genetically determined, and society must be changed so men will be in charge again.

A 2021 study published in Men and Masculinities analyzed more than 9,000 comments from a leading incel forum and found that this ideology normalizes misogyny, treats women as scapegoats, and encourages traditional gender norms.

What Is a ‘BP Edit’?

So to participate in the “bp edit” trend, you take a TikTok from someone else, and re-edit the video to bully, shame, and embarrass the original poster. For example, this video of a teen girl, who said in part, “if I was a boy, I’d be like the hottest guy at school.” Someone edited the video and wrote over the top, “you can fool yourself. I promise it won’t help.” Then they edited the video to make the girl look like a boy, with light facial hair and a short haircut, writing, “mogged” on top. “Mogged,” by the way, is a term that means someone is physically superior to someone else. So in this video, they slammed the attractiveness of the girl next, by adding clips of male models and influencers, implying that this girl isn’t attractive.

Another TikToker took a video of a group of teen boys, who walked in front of the camera one by one with text over saying, “you can’t have a group full of good looking people.” The TikToker who did the “bp edit” zoomed in on one of the boys in the group, then added a bunch of videos of male models in order to say this guy wasn’t good-looking. It’s immature, stupid, and just plain mean for no reason. “Bp edits” are brutal, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see yourself a victim of one of these takedowns, especially during the vulnerable adolescent years.

Even if you aren’t a victim of one of these edits, teens are still influenced by them. Some even shared videos of the“looksmaxxing” or other ways they are trying to get more attractive with the hope of being included in someone else’s “bp edit,” as if it was an honor instead of a horrible new trend.

This Culture Is Harming Teens

Teens, especially teen boys, are getting information from “alpha” male influencers (think: Andrew Tate), and it’s affecting their mental health. A study in June found that 63 percent of young men are regularly engaging with men and masculinity influencers. Those who regularly watched these videos reported that they felt “worse mental health outcomes, a reduced willingness to prioritize their mental health, and higher rates of risky health behaviors.” It also found that young men watching this content felt significantly higher levels of worthlessness (27 percent vs. 23 percent), nervousness (26 percent vs. 19 percent) and sadness (26 percent vs. 19 percent).”

One 18-year-old male previously told SheKnows as part of its Be a Man project, “When you’re a teenage boy, you’re looking for an answer to what being a man means. And one thing about Andrew Tate, I think his counterculture movement is very attractive to teen boys because no responsible parent figure is going to find Andrew Tate to be a good role model. So maybe that’s why it’s so compelling.”

A new study by Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that despite YouTube’s ban on influencer Andrew Tate, who faces 21 criminal charges in Britain including rape and human trafficking, misogynistic videos featuring Tate are still amassing millions of views on YouTube, which are accessible to boys as young as 13. The study found that 58 out of the 100 most-viewed videos featuring Tate promoted misogynist views that violate YouTube’s policies on hate speech.

Some of the views promoted by Tate in these videos include: “Women definitely obey, and they will clean your room, and they’ll make you coffee, and they’ll share you and they’ll do anything you say.” And, “You can’t find a woman. You have to make a woman. You have to teach her and guide her. She has to learn from you. She has to grow from you.”

So when teens take these harmful ideas from Andrew Tate and similar videos, then use it to degrade other teens online, it can be detrimental to their mental health. One May 2025 study by Florida Atlantic University of students ages 13-17 found that 18 different types of cyberbullying (from being left out of group chats to tracking or stalking someone) led to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study also found that 87 percent of teens experienced at least one of the 18 forms of cyberbullying.

Tessa Stuckey, MA, LPC, founder of Project LookUp, previouslytold SheKnows that no matter the severity of cyberbullying, it affects teens “because adolescence is a developmental period deeply rooted in peer acceptance and social belonging.”

She told us, “When teens are excluded or rejected online, their brains process it similarly to physical pain. It attacks their self-worth, identity, and perceived social value — often in a public or permanent way due to the nature of digital platforms.”

It’s imperative to talk to your teens about the “bp edit” trend. Whether they are a victim, they are doing it to others, or they are trying to look attractive enough to be included in someone else’s “bp edit,” this is worth a conversation about self-worth, harmful internet culture, and protecting their mental health.

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