By skyforbes 
A stranger is inside her house. For two days, millions of followers have been watching influencer Gabbie Hanna’s life unravel in a barrage of hundreds of bizarre TikTok videos. Now, a man who knocked on her door asking to use the bathroom is livestreaming from her living room, calling himself a “brother in Christ” while she is in the throes of a severe manic episode. This wasn’t just a mental health crisis broadcast in real-time; it was the scene of a uniquely modern true crime — a story not of a single perpetrator, but of a catastrophic, system-wide failure that exploited a vulnerable woman for clicks.
The incident exposed the dark underbelly of the creator economy, where a person’s suffering can become viral content, amplified by an algorithm that rewards engagement over well-being. The police were called multiple times, but the system wasn’t built for this. TikTok’s moderation was absent. And a watching world was split between concern, mockery, and morbid entertainment. This case forces us to ask a terrifying question: when a crisis unfolds live on our screens, who is responsible, and what is our role in the crime?
The Timeline of a Digital Collapse
Gabbie Hanna’s journey to that moment was a decade in the making. She rose to fame on Vine in 2013, one of the few creators who successfully navigated the platform’s shutdown to build an even bigger audience on YouTube. But her success was shadowed by a toxic environment, particularly during her time with David…