If you’re not on TikTok, you are missing out on one of the most transformative social media apps out there.
Sure, it’s full of silly dances and skits, but it’s also a great hub for learning! From DIY projects to home tips, TikTok has helped many people (including me) navigate the world.
Now, it’s also helping women, teens, and young adults keep themselves safe, too.
#SafetyCalls were invented to keep women safe.
Designed to give people something to protect themselves when walking alone, safety call TikToks mimic real conversations or FaceTime calls to discourage any potential threats by assuming a person won’t be missed.
Users memorize the cues in the videos and then practice responding.
This is especially handy if your friends are busy and can’t give you a real-time safety call. Raise your hand if you’ve done one of those! Oh, it’s most millennial women reading this? Thought so.
They then save the video and keep it on their phone.
This allows for offline use, just in case you’re in an area where you have spotty cell reception.
Let’s check out the different types of calls now, shall we?
User Mandy Perdew took the trend and ran with it.
Her TikToks quickly shot to the top of the #safetycall hashtag. She provides a huge range of different situations, and also teaches tips and tricks for other users who want to record their own safety calls.
Mandy expanded the calls to include kids, too.
As a former kid with a working parent, I can’t tell you how much better I would have felt with this tool at my disposal. You can check out Mandy’s safety call for kids here .
She also included a crucial call.
The “mom I hate this sleepover/situation and I need a bad guy to blame to get me the heck out of here” call . Mom calls are the best calls.
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Helpful dads quickly jumped on the trend, too!
This one by a TikTok user with the best username I’ve ever seen, aka @budget_jasonstatham, is a fake Android call for anyone alone in a rideshare that seems suspicious.
Safety calls exist in multiple languages, too.
In fact, the safety call TikTok with the most views is this one by @martinacarta2, who provides instructions on the screen and a realistic one-sided conversation for the user.
People around the world started recording videos in their own dialects.
In addition to different languages, TikTok users started making videos in their dialects, too. This one is for when you feel unsafe in a cab or Uber, which happens quite a bit (in my personal experience, anyway.)
It’s so awesome to see TikTok users step up and make these videos for people in need.
