Whitlock quoted in Huffington Post piece about cutting hashtag

January 15, 2013

A recent piece on the Huffington Post revealed the hashtag "#cuttingforbieber" to be a hoax created to make fun of Justin Bieber fans. Contacted for comment, Dr. Janis Whitlock (director, Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior) noted the danger of publicly joking about self-injury.

In the 1990s, there were 14 pop icons that came out and talked about cutting. They weren't necessarily advocating it, but they talked about it as part of their history and that really did make a difference in terms of getting it out there into the world as an idea that was then available to young people.

'Cutting For Bieber' Twitter Hoax Allegedly Started By 4Chan - Huffington Post