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Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a sophomore here at CU Boulder. While I may just be in my second year, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s Eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable Buff Bus system to navigating campus protests (or dodging them entirely). College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
It’s finals season at the University of Colorado Boulder, which means the campus feels like a pressure cooker powered by caffeine and collective dread. Everyone’s either writing essays, stuck in Norlin Library or pretending to “study” on the second floor of the University Memorial Center. And in between it all, I can’t seem to escape the viral TikTok trend that often displays an image of a happy person with text reading, “Right before the White Rabbit got me.” Now, if you are like me, decidedly offline and proud of it, you might be wondering, who exactly is this White Rabbit, and why is it getting everyone?
The trend borrows its name from “Alice in Wonderland” and its anxious hare, but instead of leading people down a literal hole, it’s a metaphorical one. On social media, “The White Rabbit” represents fate and the idea that unpreventable things will happen in the future and that there is nothing we can do to escape it. The trend is essentially a modern revival of the old “all roads lead to Rome” meme, this time centered on the idea of time running out, especially in relationships.
I saw one clip of a girl laughing with friends at a party; the caption read, “Last night before the White Rabbit got me.” Another showed a young man on a sunny hike, smiling at the camera. The comments beneath were flooded with empathy, speculation and dark humor. The trend has morphed into a way of talking about mental health, specifically the moments right before it unravels, without directly saying it. It’s strange how something so simple, like a photo, a caption, or the sound of a clock ticking in the background, can make thousands of people collectively sigh and type, “same.” The videos capture a very specific emotional space that I’ve personally really enjoyed on the app, seeing phrases like “the calm before the storm” or “the stillness before everything changes.” And even though we don’t know exactly what the “White Rabbit” did to these people, whether it was heartbreak, burnout, or loss, we recognize that feeling immediately.
Dearest readers, I don’t believe that this trend is about what happened next; it’s about the moment right before. The “before” photos are always bright and carefree, but knowing what’s implied adds a layer of melancholy that feels almost cinematic. It’s like watching the opening scene of a movie where you already know the ending. The funny part is, I don’t think most people posting about the White Rabbit are doing it to be dramatic. It’s more like a coded language, an emotional shorthand. Saying “the White Rabbit got me” sounds a lot less heavy than saying, “I’m struggling right now.” In the bizarre world of social media, where vulnerability is often punished and performative sadness is rewarded, trends like this are a compromise. They let people express pain without fully exposing themselves.
The trend is also a crash course into fatalism, the belief and attitude “of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable,” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In other words, it’s the idea that no matter what choices we make, the outcome is already written. The trend teaches us that the idea of the White Rabbit isn’t something we chase. It’s just something that eventually finds us. Yes, that’s melancholy, but I feel it’s important. There’s some comfort in acknowledging that everything is temporary, that even the happiest photos are only snapshots in time. Maybe we all need a gentle reminder that change isn’t always a tragedy; sometimes it’s just the next chapter turning, whether we’re ready or not. That said, I can’t help but laugh at how easily we’ve turned a literary creature into a symbol of doom. Lewis Carroll’s original White Rabbit was late, frantic and a little ridiculous, hardly a harbinger of despair. Maybe we’ve all become a bit too self-aware for our own good. We can’t just be happy at a party anymore without wondering when the metaphorical rabbit will catch up.
Overall, the White Rabbit trend feels like a collective coping mechanism for a generation that’s chronically overstimulated. We’ve all been told to “stay positive” so many times that pessimism now feels like rebellion. Posting “the White Rabbit got me” is just another way of saying, “I knew this wouldn’t last, but I hoped anyway.”
I’m okay with saying that I can see the beauty of it. Beneath the dark humor and fatalism is a strange kind of hope. Because even when people post about their inevitable downfall, they’re still posting. They’re still here, still talking, still connecting. And that’s enough. Buffs, finals are terrifying, no sugarcoating that. And yeah, the world might feel like it’s teetering on the edge, but after sitting through way too many episodes of “Ever After High,” I can confidently say this: it’s your destiny to do great things. The White Rabbit can wait its turn; finals, however, cannot.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Editor Alexia Bailey at alexia.bailey@colorado.edu
