Young Woman's Brother Praised For Throwing Water In Her Face For Following A Trend, But It's Deeply Concerning
This stereotype is getting a little old.
Aleksandra Konoplia photos, studioroman, Natali Brill, Slatan | Canva 20-year-old TikTok influencer Giulia G Amato has amassed over 2.7 million followers on the social media platform, with her videos regularly reaching hundreds of thousands of views. Her most recent video, however, is making waves for all the wrong reasons. In just 19 hours, the video had received over 4.3 million views and over a thousand comments praising the way her brother, Sa, acted in the clip — but what he did was more concerning than caring.
Giulia’s brother splashed water on her while she was doing a TikTok trend.
The trend Giulia was performing for her TikTok video involves a song called “ecstacy” by SUICIDAL-IDOL. Although the song was released in July 2021, it regained its popularity earlier this year and has now turned into a trend where conventionally attractive people can show off their good looks.
Giulia was doing pretty much the same thing everyone else who participated in the trend was doing, except she acted out the lyrics that go, “sticking out your tongue for the picture.” She stuck her tongue out at the beginning of the line as her brother walked in at the same time.
As she continues to mouth the lyrics of the song, her brother, who had just taken a sip from the water bottle, shoots her a disapproving glare. He appears to say something before throwing his phone on the bed, taking a few more steps, and saying “Stop” as she turns to face him. She’s met by the water in Sa’s bottle, completely in shock by what he had just done before he grabs the camera and stops it from recording.
Text in the video reads, “pov your brother sees you doing this trend,” and the caption says “bro said no way.” She’s laughing it off as a joke, but her reaction in the video appears to be a very strong one. People in the comments similarly laughed it off and even praised him.
“That's a very loving and protective brother,” one person wrote of Sa. “He saving you girl,” someone else claimed. “He’s like ‘my friends are gonna see this, and I don't want to hear it,’” a third shared, and even Giulia replied by saying “EXACTLY WHAT HE SAYS.”
While we now understand why he did it, some people pointed out the hypocrisy of his actions, and how it might actually be a toxic sibling relationship.
The stereotypical ‘overprotective brother’ trope has boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.
Splashing water in your sister’s face while she’s doing a TikTok trend should be one of those boundaries. Sibling abuse or sibling bullying is the most common form of family violence, even more so than parent-child abuse, according to Choosing Therapy. One form of sibling abuse is emotional abuse, which Choosing Therapy considers behaviors such as name-calling, belittling, teasing, insulting, threatening, destroying property, relational aggression, intimidation, and asserting power or control.
A few of these could be used to describe the way her brother behaved, and although we only have a mere glimpse of what their everyday relationship might look like, it should be noted that this behavior is not okay.
In response to the comment praising Sa, calling him “loving and protective,” someone replied, “You mean misogynistic? Guarantee he watches other women do these same videos, so why’s it a problem?”
His behavior implies that his sister is not allowed to express herself or be provocative in any way. She’s not allowed to show off her looks and look good for TikTok. Even if the reason is just so his friends don’t tease him — that’s not on her, that’s on his friends.
In the comments, Giulia doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal, and while that could just be because this stereotype is normalized, the truth is we don’t know what their relationship is like.
Having a protective sibling relationship could be a positive thing, so long as boundaries are established and never crossed.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.