This week, dozens of Christian creators on TikTok prepared for what they thought would be a biblical Rapture.
In Australia, Tilahun Desalegn said he sold his car. Thousands of miles away in Colorado, Melissa Johnston created flowcharts and care packages for those who would be left behind.
In Chicago, De’Mico Harden began documenting the signs — pointing out anytime the clock struck 9:23, a date that was among the three-day window when the Rapture was supposed to take place.
But by Wednesday afternoon, no such end had come — instead, confusion and disappointment had set in for some believers. Many had been posting videos to TikTok about what people should expect when the Rapture occurs, namely that Jesus will take true believers to heaven as Earth enters an apocalypse.
“OK, um, Rapture update, Wednesday, 9/24, sorry to report, I don’t think it actually happened,” TikTok creator AveragePickleballGuy said. “Everybody I know is still here. … A lot of people on my comments have told me that I was duped and didn’t know what I was talking about. I just kind of fell into this, I didn’t have all the facts, so I wanted to issue a public apology to anybody who took me seriously.”
The prediction that the Rapture would begin on Sept. 23, during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, appeared to originate with a South African pastor named Joshua Mhlakela, who had shared his theory in an interview with religious YouTube channel Centtwinz TV in June.
Mhlakela doubled down on the theory in a later appearance on the podcast, saying that when the Rapture happens, people will disappear in the blink of an eye and “God’s judgment will leave the world unrecognizable.”
As the date neared, his apocalyptic prophecy, which he projected with “100% confidence,” went viral.
“For believers, the Rapture represents the ultimate validation,” Landon Schnabel, an associate professor of sociology at Cornell University, said. “Rapture beliefs create powerful in-group/out-group dynamics. Believers develop a sense of special knowledge and moral superiority, while simultaneously feeling persecuted by a world that doesn’t understand them.”
The Rapture now joins the ongoing list of doomsday theories that have captivated the masses, such as the 2000 Y2K bug or when the ancient Mayan calendar predicted the apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012.
But according to Schnabel, what sets this Armageddon apart from the rest is the explosive reaction from the public.
Interest in the word “rapture” increased by 1,000% in the last three days, with a search volume of over 1 million, according to Google Trends. Peak interest in “rapture” in the U.S. hit around midnight on Tuesday, the day Mhlakela had said it would happen. On TikTok, more than 290,000 posts use the #rapture hashtag.
The meme-ification of the Rapture across social media also helped thrust the prediction into the mainstream. Many of the videos posted to TikTok are sketches or jokes surrounding the theory. Even Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” poked fun at the theory.
“Previous predictions spread through niche religious networks or required mainstream media coverage to go viral,” Schnabel said. “TikTok’s algorithm can take a South African preacher’s prediction and put it in front of millions of young people in hours.”
In the last 24 hours, some who gave up after waiting for the Rapture to arrive have called on Mhlakela to apologize for his “fake Rapture prophesy.”
Mhlakela could not be reached by NBC News. He is expected to appear on Centtwinz again on Friday for an exclusive interview, the YouTubers said in their Instagram story on Wednesday.
Others online wanted TikTokers who pushed Mhlakela’s theory to admit they were wrong.
But some believers continue to hold out hope, which Schnabel said is unsurprising.
“The public mockery actually strengthens believers’ commitment by confirming their persecution narrative,” he said. “The social bonds created around shared belief are often stronger than the belief itself.”
Or, as TikToker Desalegn put it in a video to his followers Wednesday: “At this point, I’ve got nothing to lose but to continue to believe.”