Don't worry, some "baby witches" tried to hex the moon but elder witches on TikTok say everything's fine

TikTok’s a great place to watch celebrities debase themselves, toilets smoke, and teens piss their pants. It’s also become, in the absence of Tumblr, a gathering place for the world’s extremely online witches. Search #WitchTock on the app and you’ll find more than two billion posts, so, you know, when some drama goes down in their ranks it’s going to cast a broomstick-shaped shadow across the internet.

And that’s exactly what happened last night when a group of rogue “baby witches” raised the ire of their elders when they sought to hex both the moon and the Fae (though some reports on who did the individual hexings differ), which, in witch culture, is some real troll shit. As my colleague Katie Rife put it, hexing the moon is akin to “burning down the rainforest to spite the government.” It began on Reddit, but a viral thread from @heyyadoraa has become a primer for the curious.

Basically, @heyyadoraa explains that fucking with the Fae, mythical, fairy-like creatures that don’t abide by human morals, is some bush-league behavior that will get you cursed with “trickery for the rest of your life and maybe a bloodline curse.”

They add: “FAE / FAIR FOLK WORK IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS IN ANY FORM. THEY ARE TO BE RESPECTED BUT YOU SHOULD NOT BEGIN A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM WITHOUT YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN WITCHCRAFT AND RESEARCH ABOUT THEM.” Witchcraft 101, people.

As for the moon: Well, the moon will be fine. The problem with hexing the moon is that hexing the moon impacts the gods that rule the moon. Fuck with the moon and you fuck with Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon (among other things). Fuck with Artemis and you fuck with her brother, Apollo, the god of health and medicine. And fucking with the god of health and medicine in the middle of a pandemic? Well, you get it.

So, is it time to panic? Will Dr. Fauci be speared by a lightning bolt as COVID-19 coalesces into giant disease orbs that roll through cities like errant Madballs? No, because, according to the elder witches of TikTok, who seem like they know what they’re talking about, one does not simply hex the moon (or the sun, which the baby witches apparently want to hex next).

Some explain this calmly, asserting that hexing the moon is “not a thing.”

@stephanieandleo

Reply to @2218nam

♬ original sound – Stephanie

Others set their wisdom to song. User chaoticwitchaunt, for example, assures us (to the tune of Six’s “Don’t Lose Ur Head”) that “the gods will take care of it. They are not hurt, just annoyed. They also won’t take some kid’s stupidity out on the entire human race.”

@chaoticwitchaunt

keep in mind these are GODS/CELESTIAL OBJECTS we are talking abt. ✨let the universe take care of it✨ #witchtok #fyl

♬ im fitter – sam

WitchTokker thatonebluntwitch echoed the statement, saying that the anger in the community comes not from the actual hexing, but rather the “audacity of these idiots that would want to hex the moon or anything related to nature, because that’s a sacred thing in witchcraft.”

https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6851269531264961797
It’s relatable, honestly. Every subculture has its bright-eyed trolls, who long not for destruction so much as attention. And every subculture has its elders, who are exhausted by them and annoyed by what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophy underpinning the community. They’ll learn, eventually. They might draw the ire of cosmic deities and curse their bloodline in the process, but that’s just part of growing up.

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