People are buying crystals that in crystal culture are associated with causing bad things to happen, then are making TikToks blaming the crystals when bad things happen.
Moldavite is a forest green crystal found in the Czech Republic as a result of a meteor impact millions of years ago. It’s also a crystal that, according to people in the wellness and spirituality communities, can aid in spiritual transformation but is so powerful that it can also tear other parts of your life apart.
Videos by VICE
Over the past couple of months on TikTok, the crystal has become very popular among burgeoning witches and spiritualists because it is known for being so powerful. When you search “moldavite” on the platform, though, you’ll see a lot of videos of teenagers crying because of the havoc they say it has wreaked on their lives.
One TikToker who bought a moldavite earring lost their boyfriend, then lost one of their parents to cancer, and then totaled their car.
Even if the power of crystals is not real, the power that moldavite has over these TikTokers is real, or seems real to them (it’s worth noting that one of the easiest things to do on the internet is to lie about bad things happening to you for sympathy). If I were sixteen, I would not be able to resist buying a cursed crystal and then pretending it ruined my life. Even though many of the things that are happening to these people can literally happen at any time (and many happen a lot more frequently when you’re a teenager—breakups, heartbreak, totaling your car, losing friends), at least some of these people believe that their moldavite crystals brought these things into their life.
This has had the amusing side effect of other TikTokers in the spirituality community telling people that they’re sleeping on equally powerful crystals that do not have a reputation for ruining your life. According to this TikToker, malachite is not just similarly powerful to moldavite, but cheaper, and won’t cause your partner to break up with you. Maybe reach for that one instead of the $40 moldavite earring.