TikTok is a popular app that many people love using. However, sometimes TikTok can be used as an extreme mode of procrastination. Maybe you only meant to watch 15 minutes of TikTok; suddenly, you’ve spent three hours scrolling through videos instead. With the amount of great content on the app, it can be a black hole, sucking all of the motivation from your body.
Like other popular social media apps, TikTok can be a vessel people use to compare themselves to others. Constantly seeing other people who seem perfectly dressed, beautiful and living a better life than you can be hard, and it can make you feel worse about yourself. Or maybe you’re already feeling bad about yourself, and you use TikTok as a way to avoid thinking about that.
In any case, TikTok is a fun app, but it might not always be the best for a person’s mental health. Luckily, there’s one TikTok account specifically made to help: cucumberlovesyou. By watching the videos on this wholesome and endearing account, it’s possible to spend time on TikTok while boosting your mood and motivating you to take time away from the app.
Cucumberlovesyou is a TikTok account with 237,000 followers. The account has less than 30 TikToks, but the videos have accumulated over 2.4 million views. What’s with all of the hype and love surrounding this specific account? A lot of the love from viewers is directed toward the mascot of the account: a small, green stuffed dinosaur named Cucumber.
The videos include shots of Cucumber doing cute, productive tasks and urging viewers to complete the tasks alongside him. A few of the things that the little dinosaur does are brush his teeth, drink water, go on walks, make tea, look for constellations, watch movies and so much more. To add to the wholesomeness, Cucumber even has a mini mask to wear when he goes on walks and a little cup to drink water out of with his viewers.
The actions might appear small, but the reminders can mean a lot. For some people struggling with their mental health, it can be difficult to complete everyday tasks. A supportive and non-judgmental reminder to open up windows and let in natural light, go for a walk, drink some water or even take a shower can help improve someone’s mood quite a bit.
These reminders will not magically fix the mental health of someone watching one of Cucumber’s videos, but they could remind viewers that there is someone who cares about them and their health. It’s a small sentiment, but it’s helped bring together a community of people who feel seen by the videos made by cucumberlovesyou.
@cucumberlovesyou 🥒❤️Selfcare Day With Cucumber!❤️🥒(pause at the end to read!) @bellzi #bellzieplush #cuketok #selfcareday #health #yourhealthmatters #bellzi
With a mix of soothing music, voice-overs and heartwarming quotes from Cucumber, the TikToks seek to help a wide range of people with their mental health. Some videos are a little more simple, where everyone’s favorite stuffed dinosaur helps viewers fall asleep at night, do their homework, workout or calm down after a crying session.
A few of the videos produced by cucumberlovesyou are a little more ambitious. Sometimes, Cucumber will use techniques to help his viewers that suffer from anxiety attacks, depression, uncontrollable tics or eating problems. The videos don’t include any medical advice, and they shouldn’t be used in place of medical help if that’s what someone needs.
However, the videos do offer tips like breathing in and out slowly, taking time to step outside and washing your face to calm down. In the video where Cucumber helps his viewers who have problems with eating, he takes a bite out of a strawberry and encourages the viewer to take a bite of food with him, no matter how small the bite has to be. The gestures are small, but helpful.
The rise of the account cucumberlovesyou has been swift, and there’s an entire community of people in the comments declaring how much Cucumber has helped them. In the first video posted to the account, viewers wrote comments like, “The fact that this helped me out of bed …” and, “Not me crying because a stuffed dinosaur named cucumber told me to take care of myself and that I’m going to be ok.”
Just those two comments show the impact that Cucumber has had on people’s mental health. It’s also important to note that a number of countries are still feeling the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many individuals are still feeling lonely due to prolonged isolation. Plus, online school still has a lot of students feeling unmotivated, unproductive and bad about themselves.
Cucumber acts as a little friend for everyone who watches his videos. He speaks to the viewers directly, with quotes like, “Cucumber is so proud of you. He knows how hard it has been. He wants you to know you are loved and worthy” and, “Cucumber understands that it gets lonely during these hard times, but it won’t last forever, keep your head up friend!”
Seeing this encouragement and positivity means the world to a lot of people. Another commenter even said, “Cucumber is one of the things keeping me from falling deeper into my depression, thank you so much for posting these. They help so much.” Cucumber has effectively created a community of individuals who are either grappling with their mental health, battling with quarantine isolation or are just going through a rough patch.
No matter how you’re feeling right now, if you ever need a pick me up, it could help to head over to the TikTok account cucumberlovesyou. If you ever feel like you spend too much time on the app and want some motivation to get up and do something else, watching a little stuffed dinosaur do another activity, like his homework, could help you finally get the boost you need to do yours. Because Cucumber loves you, and that might just be the support you need right now.
