The standard explanation for why someone would trust a stranger on TikTok over a doctor, scientist, or credentialed professional is that the person is gullible. The internet has made everyone prone to the confidence it dresses up as experience. Careful people would use better sources. It’s a neat explanation. It also completely misses the point in many cases.
The missing piece is the quality of the alternative. The question is not just whether the TikTok person is trustworthy, but how the expert interaction actually feels. And for many people, formal and reliable communication doesn’t feel like being informed. It felt like being controlled. Or fixed. Or addressed in a register that makes it quite clear that the questions presented have been somewhat seriously neglected.
This perception has a name and an example. A high school teacher In London, she made it clear when she told Fortune that her students trust influencers more than teachers: “Teachers and young people think we’re here because we get paid. There’s this idea that influencers are ‘original’ and experts do their thing.” He was describing teenagers, but the dynamics he identified were not limited to teenagers. It is not irrational to feel that there is an institutional interest in the official voice’s response. This is true in many cases.
I have observed this myself. Not in a dramatic way, not by replacing medical advice with viral videos. But I found myself more engaged with someone explaining a complicated subject in layman’s terms and some parts of it seeming downright vague than a reliable source speaking on the record who leaves no room for questions and says it’s settled. It felt like the first conversation. Second, it felt like a briefing I wasn’t really invited to attend.
The wider change this reflects is well documented. Richard EdelmanThe CEO of the global communications firm that administers the annual Trust Barometer described the structural change directly in its 2025 report: “Trust has traditionally been top-down. We’ve lost it from leaders and it’s being passed down to peers.” The report, based on surveys of 28 countries, found government trust at its lowest level in more than two decades, with every category of institutional leadership showing double-digit increases in distrust compared to a few years ago. Confidence was not lost. He moved. Laterally and downwards, toward people who share the same position in the world as the information seeker.
TikTok and similar platforms found their openings here. A 2022 Reuters Institute study found that 55% young people Now get news from social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram rather than traditional news outlets. This figure is particularly relevant to news, but the pattern is also applicable to health, finance, relationships, and any other area where people seek guidance. The winning format is not the most influential format. Treats the viewer not as a problem to be managed, but as someone to understand.
None of this means that the TikTok stranger is right. Unofficial, linkable audio does not guarantee accuracy, and there is a well-documented record of virus tips causing real damage. The cold spoon eye trick is harmless. It is not a skin care cream that spreads wrinkles. Financial advice from someone whose only feature is a traffic light is a different matter. Trusting a voice because it sounds authentic is not the same as trusting a voice because it is tested by evidence. The two can overlap, but not always.
The point is not that unofficial sources are better. The fact is that the loss of trust in the officials was not inevitable. There were reasons for this. Among them: communication that values authority over clarity, speaks in a way that discourages follow-up questions, and treats complexity as something that can be simplified rather than actually explained. People who feel humiliated are not better informed by being told that they should trust people who talk down to them. They’re looking for someone who won’t leave.
The Stranger on TikTok realized something that many credentialing agencies are slow to admit: if the person you’re trying to reach has already decided not to talk to them, it’s not enough to be right. Expertise expressed as passion tends to produce exactly the result it seeks to prevent.
