Following the release of
photos suggesting that Justin Bieber was smoking marijuana at a party,
the hashtag #cuttingforbieber -- a supposed protest against the star's alleged drug use by way of self-injury -- started showing up all over Twitter on Monday, Complex Music reports.
Initially, it appeared as if teens were cutting themselves as a way to voice their disproval of Bieber's supposed actions. (
As Complex Music notes, a few Twitter users appeared to use the hashtag alongside pictures of arms with cuts.) But later the news outlet announced it tracked the hashtag's origins to 4Chan and suggested the posts -- and the photos -- were all a hoax.
Still, as Gawker notes, the
hashtag began trending nationally within just a few hours, and the response was fierce. Some users clearly believed the trend was real and made jokes about people who cut, while others admonished the practice and called the notion of fans cutting to protest Bieber's supposed actions disturbing.
The hoax draws attention to an issue that was affecting as much as
15 percent of the adolescent population in 2008, according to the New York Times.
Insensitivity aside, there are bigger problems with such a prank.
Janis Whitlock, a Cornell University professor who has studied teens and self-injury, told The Huffington Post that images of cutting can potentially serve as triggers for those who are already vulnerable or prone to self-injury.
"In the 1990s, there were 14 pop icons that came out and talked about cutting," Whitlock said. "They weren't necessarily advocating it, but they talked about it as part of their history and that really did make a difference in terms of getting it out there into the world as an idea that was then available to young people."
While the hashtag is not likely to attract a new wave of people to the practice, Whitlock said it reinforces the idea of self-injury as a method of expression.
"Ideas are as contagious as germs," she said.