Europe: Chelsea, a funeral director in Brussels, dislikes the drab perception of her line of work. She joined the #deathtok movement, which aims to break the taboo around death on social media, just before the summer. Through TikTok, she now has millions of fans. She says, “I believe I am the only Belgian who does this.”
The 29-year-old has been posting brief videos about her employment on TikTok for two months but wants not to use her last name. She demonstrates how she hangs bouquets, folds obituaries, and arranges hearses in her workplace. She emphasizes that this is not advertising, and that’s why she doesn’t even want the specific town of the company where she works to be known. Her only goal is to provide information about her everyday work to a wider audience.
She receives a remarkable amount of views from it: a video in which she fastens cushions in a casket has received 4.2 million views so far. Approximately three million people have seen the video in which she fills an urn with someone’s ashes. Another 1.9 million viewers viewed a video of her building a baby’s coffin. “Although it has collapsed, TikTok is still somewhat obscure. I’m not sure why certain films receive so much attention while others don’t, “she claims.
A #deathtokker, Chelsea. Since last year, the hashtag has sporadically appeared on TikTok, particularly in the US. According to a New York newspaper, “Millennials put the ‘fun’ back into funeral.” Young funeral directors frequently share videos concerning their line of work with a strong dose of dark humour.
Chelsea says she started making videos because people asked her what she did for a living. Because funeral directors typically work for the same families, she claims that few people are familiar with the field. “Before I began my education, I didn’t truly understand what it meant. Despite being a beautician, I had been considering painting the faces of corpses for a while. However, I had no idea where to go for the relevant details.
