While for some, their coming out ends in a heartwarming way, for others, it isn’t as pleasant. Sadly, there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding people’s sexualities. One of them is that it comes from evil forces that need to be cast out. So, in cases like that, after coming out, people can put people into, let’s say, interesting situations. Like today’s OP, whose parents hired an exorcist for his room to get rid of demons and put angels into his closet. Sounds ridiculous? That’s what many people online thought, too.

More info: TikTok

Recently, a TikToker shared a video of his parents performing an exorcism for his room after he came out as gay

Image credits: andrewhartzler

@andrewhartzler, or simply Andrew Hartzler, is a TikToker who, in their bio, calls himself an “explorer.” Andrew makes various videos regarding his life, social and political updates, and similar things. 

As you can already guess, the video we’re talking about today was also posted by this TikTok creator. It was an old video of Andrew’s parents performing an exorcism in his room after he came out. Well, let’s just say you can hear Jesus’ name a bunch of times in the video. 

The exorcism consisted of people walking around the TikToker’s teenage room, saying Jesus’ name a bunch of times, and other stuff that was supposed to work to cast out demons

Image credits: andrewhartzler

An exorcism is a process of forcing evil spirits to abandon an object, place, or person used in Christian and Jewish traditions. In some cases, like the one in the video, homosexuality by some people is deemed as an evil or demonic spirit that needs to be cast out, which leads to things such as gay exorcisms existing. Yet, contrary to typical exorcisms, gay ones are typically kept secret within the church.

Still, it doesn’t stop some churches from implementing it. For example, Jamaican novelist Marlon James has opened up about being the subject of a gay exorcism process at a Pentecostal church, which he described as “a kind of mental control.” Another clear example of it is the OP of today’s video. 

While initially, the video seems quite sad, knowing this was his parents’ reaction to coming out, it is also kind of funny in a bleak way

Image credits: andrewhartzler

Basically, a gay exorcism is a form of conversion therapy. It’s a form of “therapy” used to “repair” a person or “cure” them from their attraction to the same sex, their gender identity, or their sexual identity and expression. It can take the form of, as we already saw, religious practices, but it can also be in the form of psychotherapy or even medical interventions. 

Every mainstream medical and mental health organization has rejected this practice for decades, as its effects aren’t based on any medical or scientific evidence and can even lead to serious harm to the individual. For instance, it is proven that people who underwent this kind of “therapy” ended up suffering from psychological distress, including higher rates of mental illnesses like depression, as well as thoughts or actions of self-harm and substance abuse. 

So, people in the comments did not shy away from making great jokes about the situation

Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)

Keeping this in mind, today’s video, which is currently sitting at 3.8M views, is quite a heartbreaking one. After all, it shows how his parents can’t deal with the fact that their son is gay so badly that they decide to exorcize it out of him. 

At the same time, it’s a bit funny, too. As many people in the comments pointed out — the exorcism clearly didn’t do its job, as the gayness brought by the devils wasn’t expelled. Besides, the frequent mention of Jesus’ name in the video reminded some people of a viral and hilarious TikTok sound and the meme “Holy Spirit activate,” which makes it all even more funny. 

For example, they took the phrase “angels in the closet” and joked about how it would kind of be a good band name

Image credits: Qnoops (not the actual photo)

So, the video’s duality of being heartbreaking and funny at the same time is probably a reason why it’s doing very well on TikTok. While at first you might be flabbergasted by the situation, soon, it becomes pretty funny, just as many folks online said. 

Well, at least it seems that the man whose parents hosted this exorcism seems to be doing pretty well regarding his sexuality right now, as far as we know. Additionally, he had this pretty amusing video to post online to skyrocket his views on the platform and even have an article written about it. So, in a way, maybe things aren’t that bad, are they? 

Or they compared the repetition of Jesus’ name to the viral TikTok meme “Holy Spirit activate,” all of which you can see here:

@andrewhartzler hi um ya obvi i was in the closet sir #comingout #college #exorcist ♬ original sound – andrew hartzler

It’s no surprise this video managed to collect several million views in just a few days, and it’s pretty clear that this number will go even higher

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