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Lindsay Clancy's TikTok fandom ignores the real victims: Her kids

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At first I could see why some women felt bad for Lindsay Clancy. Admittedly, I did a little.

I have watched the 36-year-old mother, paralyzed from the waist down after a failed suicide attempt, stand trial in Massachusetts to determine whether she’s legally responsible for killing her three kids on on Jan. 24, 2023.

Clancy wept openly on July 29 as a prosecutor held up the clothing her babies wore when she strangled them to death.

As a witness described on Aug. 12 the injuries Clancy inflicted when her children died, she sobbed, "I can't do it!" and the trial had to take a break.

Her trial has been televised for weeks now, perhaps the first of its kind in America to unfold while TikTok and Instagram are at peak engagement.

Reactions online, though, fed by an algorithm hungry for emotional outbursts and likes, have opened a dark window into what many women are actually feeling about motherhood and Clancy. It goes well beyond a dose of justice or a touch of compassion and has devolved into solidarity with, even veneration of, the mother of three.

From her wheelchair and without a single word of testimony, Clancy has whipped up a frenzied fandom of women who have made her a martyr. It's dangerous and disgusting.

Women are identifying with Lindsay Clancy. That's concerning.

On TikTok and Instagram, hundreds, if not thousands, of women are empathizing with or rallying around Clancy: from........

© USA TODAY