The Media Lied To You About Tourette’s
The Media Lied To You About Tourette’s
BY TARA LERMAN
“Are you sure you have Tourette’s?” Matt asked me on our 4th date. “When I think of Tourette’s, I think of that YouTuber, Tourette’s Guy.”
I paused, partially in disbelief that Matt would have the nerve to question my condition, and partially because of how wrong he was.
Tourette’s Guy is a fictional YouTube personality who gained fandom in the early aughts of YouTube. The series features a clumsy, poorly dressed man who curses and yells, and isn’t very nice to the people around him. Tourette’s Guy’s expression of Tourette’s looks vastly different from my own, and the dozens of other people I’ve met with the condition.
It’s just one of many inaccurate depictions of Tourette’s syndrome in the media.
Matt’s response, however, is a common one. When I disclose my condition to new friends, colleagues, or romantic partners, I am often met with confusion. “I had no idea,” some say.
“You don’t look like you have Tourette’s,” others point out.
According to the Tourette Association of America, Tourette’s syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by sudden, involuntary movements and sounds called tics. Tics can wax and wane depending on factors like anxiety, sleep, and even something as random as the temperature. For me, these tics range from loud and noticeable mouth-clicking sounds to quiet but painful tongue tics inside my mouth that leave me with bruises for days.
The urge to tic can feel like an itch I need to scratch or the uncomfortable sensation before a sneeze. I often mask in public places so that I don’t distract the people around me or draw attention to myself. And the more these urges build up inside of me, the worse they become. Suppressing my natural movements for an extended period of time often results in what’s known as a “tic attack,” my body exploding with intense movements and sounds all at once.
But unless they’ve met someone who has Tourette’s, most people don’t actually know what the condition looks like — and how differently it presents itself in each person who has it. Instead, they’ve formed a stereotype shaped by one-liners and lazy tropes in television and movies, placing an added burden on people who actually have the condition to educate others.
One common misconception about Tourette’s syndrome is that it’s the “swearing disease.”
While it’s true that around 10% of people with Tourette’s experience coprolalia, or involuntary outbursts of swear words or derogatory remarks, many TV shows and films overemphasize coprolalia as a symptom of Tourette’s due to its “shock” factor.
The classic rom-com How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, for example, is one film that uses Tourette’s as a comedic trope. When Ben (Matthew McConaughey) takes Andie (Kate Hudson) to meet his family, he finds his parents and siblings are playing the card game Bullshit. As Ben and Andie enter his parents’ house, his mom yells “bullshit!” as part of the game.
Jokingly, Ben turns to Andie and says, “My entire family suffers from Tourette’s, I hope that’s not a problem.”
The film 500 Days of Summer uses a similar trope. In one scene, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschenel) play a game in a park in which they say the word “penis” quietly, growing gradually louder and eventually yelling it. Naturally, a passerby looks their way, disgusted by their inappropriate behavior.
“Sorry, Tourette’s,” Tom says, using the condition — one which he does not actually have — to avoid trouble.
Both of these films were made in the early 2000s at a time when low-brow comedy was quite common. However, the same types of jokes about Tourette’s continue to infiltrate today’s most popular entertainment.
Take the critically acclaimed HBO dramedy, White Lotus. In season one, Nicole Mossbacher (Connie Britton) reaches a breaking point with her daughter Olivia’s (Sydney Sweeney) continuous insults.
“I'm fucking over this,” she says, continuing with an f-word-riddled tirade.
“Mom, what's with the Tourette's?” Olivia responds, referring to Nicole’s use of strong language.
No one of these jokes is particularly offensive on its own; what’s more troubling is how often they happen. Yellowstone, Sirens, and the latest season of Black Mirror also feature one-liners that mock Tourette’s.
When dozens of movies and television shows integrate these tropes into their storylines, viewers begin to develop fallacious ideas about the condition. And those misconceptions are as contagious as the common cold.
The problem with this kind of representation is that it makes people think that Tourette’s looks a specific way — namely, outbursts of profanity. The experiences of people with coprolalia deserve to be better understood instead of reduced to a punchline. These portrayals also fail to consider the lived experiences of the other 90% of people with Tourette’s, those of us who do not swear but might instead cough, snort, jerk our necks, flex our abs, or tap our feet. People in the Tourette’s community like to say that if you've met one person with Tourette’s, you’ve only met one person with Tourette’s. Like all neurodivergence, Tourette’s shows up differently in everyone.
Simplified punchlines also fail to recognize the positive characteristics of people with Tourette’s. In my case, living with this disorder has made me more empathetic because I know how it feels to be ostracized for something beyond my control — and I never want to make anyone else feel that way. It’s given me a sense of patience and serenity in the face of chaos, because I live inside a body that moves and acts without my permission. I also attribute traits like curiosity, detail orientation, and creativity to my Tourette’s.
Of course, the media doesn’t tell you any of that.
BIO: Tara Lerman is a writer, editor, and journalist based in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in Business Insider and Made of Millions. She is on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Tourette’s Syndrome Alliance.
