Woman reveals dangerous implications of latest TikTok trend

If you’ve spent even a few minutes browsing TikTok over the past month, you’ve likely come across content creators pairing the wind tunnel face effect with a snippet of a classical Indian song. The premise of the wind tunnel trend — which has been replicated over 2.6M times as of writing — may appear harmless. But Monique Virk, a 22-year-old student from California, believes there are more insidious implications to the trend. In a now-viral video, Virk explained how using a classical Indian song as the butt of a TikTok joke — especially when combined with mocking facial expressions or gestures — can contribute to discrimination. “I get everyone is just laughing at the filter, but why use that Indian song? Is that filter what Indians look and sound like to you?”. “when you let little things like that slide, you’re going to start to see people being even more offensive”. Ultimately, Virk says she hopes her story can help others stop and listen before perpetuating potentially harmful ideals. “I know not everyone may agree, but instead of invalidating our feelings now that we are speaking up, it is important to try their best to understand the message we are trying to get across”