Over the next two weeks, Jessica uploaded 39 videos packed with educational content, walking her audience through the entire experience and offering a day-by-day breakdown of her journey with misoprostol and mifepristone, colloquially known as the abortion pill.

“I really wanted people to see that abortion doesn’t need to be this traumatic, scary, huge decision,” she tells Glamour.

Women often share their personal experiences online to help each other feel less alone, and in diary-style “get-ready-with-me” TikToks, popularized by creators like Alix Earle and Bethenny Frankel from Real Housewives of New York, they discuss topics from their daily activities to their relationships or even their finances. These videos are seen as a comforting phenomenon because they make viewers feel like they’re chatting with a close friend.

So to share her abortion, Jessica decided on a similarly lighthearted tagline: “Have an Abortion on the Couch with Me.” This framing was intentional—she aimed to normalize abortion in a tense political climate.

Normalizing the procedure is more crucial than ever in the wake of the Dobbs decision, which ruled that Americans have no constitutional right to an abortion, striking down the seminal Roe v. Wade. Since Dobbs, 14 states have banned abortion in nearly all circumstances, with other states placing strict restrictions on the procedure. Iowa, for example, recently banned abortion after six weeks gestation in most circumstances, before many people even know they’re pregnant.

As a counter to the often heated and emotionally charged abortion debate, Jessica aimed to present her information in a casual tone. She believes this approach helped some viewers of her videos steer clear of feeling unnecessarily traumatized by outside opinions while they navigated their own decisions. One commenter shared that Jessica’s rhetoric around the procedure felt healing and that she appreciated her guilt-free perspective, while another said they no longer felt the need to keep their abortion a secret.

“Many people online were saying to me, ‘This is such a huge decision. How do you make this decision?’” Jessica says. “Well, choosing not to have a kid is the easiest decision I’ve ever made.” She adds, “But you know what’s a big decision? Having a child.”

And she’s not alone in sharing her abortion story on TikTok. The hashtag “My Abortion Story” has racked up 46.8 million views, with some creators starting to document their experiences in real-time. One creator starts their video with a cheery, “Come along with me to Planned Parenthood for my medical abortion,” then first stops at a coffee shop for an iced latte before picking up mifepristone and misoprostol. Another video titled “Have an Abortion with Me” features someone explaining their internal struggle about making the video, but ultimately decided it was crucial because it was the exact information they had been searching for.

“‘I was like, “What’s going to happen?”’ the woman narrates in a voiceover while dancing in her kitchen.

Sunni, a 30-year-old living in Brooklyn, was one of these creators. She is calm and informative while taking you through her abortion journey in her video, which includes everything from cooking and DIY beauty to playing with her daughter. She also shares essential resources like how to access abortion medication in New York and by mail, Planned Parenthood hours, and information on abortion funds. The video also features real-time footage with a voiceover detailing her body’s reaction to the pill.



“I filmed the vlog because, when I was going through the experience, there was a shortage of lifestyle vlogs that would walk you through the reality of the process,” Sunni tells Glamour, adding, “I also think reproductive health will always be a pertinent topic, even in a post-Roe era. We know that women have needed abortions for lots of different reasons, and right now, we need to work to help people access modern healthcare without criminalization.”

Like Sunni’s video, commenters on Jessica’s video have shared how her perspective shifted their views on abortion. Some are currently navigating their own abortions or making plans, while others reflect on how her insights have helped them find peace after their procedures.

“Your self-assurance is truly healing to me,” one commenter writes to Jessica, while another expresses gratitude with, “Thank you for making this video! I knew about abortion pills, but I had no idea how they worked.”

That’s what Dr. Staci Tanouye says is so effective about videos like these.

“They do a great job of sharing a true life experience honestly and without sensationalizing it—keeping it real and not inducing fear,” says Dr. Tanouye, an ob-gyn practicing in Florida. “Nothing is fear-mongering about their videos; both normalize the abortion experience, which seems to be the intent.”

She adds, “Beyond that, they’re incredibly educational.” Dr. Tanouye also notes that this is a common hope among practicing physicians: that conversations about women’s health care will be accessible, transparent informative, and free from alarmism.

Take one video in the series, for example, where Jessica explains her abortion journey with the same clarity and conviction you might expect from a sex educator in a classroom or a doctor.

“It’s only five pills. It’s a [medication] abortion,” she says. “You can have this up to 11 weeks of pregnancy, and I’m only at five.”

She clarifies that this method is often confused with the morning-after pill or Plan B by commenters, which instead prevents ovulation and thus stops fertilization.

“But not only were people mixing the two up, but plenty of viewers were also saying to me, ‘I didn’t even know [medication] abortion was an option,’” she says—a staggering realization when it is taken into account that 63% of all abortions in the US in 2023 were medication abortions.

Some commenters expressed surprise that the symptoms described—cramping, bleeding, passing clots—weren’t as excruciating as they anticipated. One commenter even noted their astonishment that Jessica could speak to the camera at all without, say, crying out in unbearable, excruciating pain.

According to Dr. Tanouye, it’s no surprise that misinformation is rampant everywhere, with social media serving as a potent amplifier.

“Platforms with algorithms, like TikTok, are designed to push sensationalized content. Unfortunately, this includes misinformation about women’s health,” says Dr. Tanouye, adding, “In today’s political climate, where women’s health issues are often exaggerated, these platforms exploit that tendency, causing false information to spread like wildfire.”


The combination of a high-interest topic and the taboo around openly discussing women’s health creates a perfect storm for misinformation to thrive. And it’s not only TikTok that is a hotbed for inaccurate information surrounding abortion; it’s also deeply ingrained in the fabric of American politics. For example, during the 2024 presidential debate, Donald Trump suggested that after-birth abortions were a thing (yes, you read that right). This claim, which falsely refers to “post-birth” abortions, describes infanticide, which is not a legal practice—and is in no way anyone advocating for it to be. In fact, 93% of abortions occur in the first trimester, as seen in Jessica’s experience.

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According to Dr. Tanouye, the key to combating this surge of misinformation—including mischaracterizations of abortion statistics, demonization of abortion methods, false claims about fetal pain, and misleading medical risks—is to follow Jessica’s approach. This method encourages reliable sources to share their stories. “Fact and truth aren’t always sensational, making them harder to disseminate, but they are crucial for penetrating the conversation,” she explains.

Abortion should be as painless and normalized as swatching a foundation or swiping an eye shadow across a lid—in a true “Get Ready With Me” fashion. She hopes the choice is free from stigma or unnecessary emotional complexity, allowing women to decide without added pressure shame, and regret.

“I just want people not to be ashamed of their abortions,” Jessica says. “I want it to be like any decision you make for yourself; you should feel empowered.”

Burn books are showing up in offices, and just like Mean Girls‘s high school principal, we’re scared and about to sound the alarm.

The movie’s “burn book”—the notebook where Regina George and her minions wrote down awful things about everyone who rubbed them the wrong way—is iconic. In the movie, when the burn book goes public, it ignites a jungle-style fight in the high school halls. We hadn’t thought burn books were meant to be emulated!

But don’t try telling that to TikTok because you might just end up in one. According to the social media site, burn books are trending. No, not in the bedrooms of clique-y teens—but among irritated employees.

One recent video, addressed to those who work from home, explains how a (very private) burn book where you write down the obnoxious things coworkers or bosses do can help you vent some of your frustrations. The video, posted by user @tropicalagitations, is overlaid with the text, “Please don’t attempt this if you work in an office.” In it, the user shares how she keeps a notebook by her desk to rid herself of her daily work angst while she works.

“You’re writing down for your own catharsis: Why would you say that? Your haircut is ugly. As petty as you want,” the video says. “Whatever you have to do to get it out of your system to release your inner demons.” The video currently has more than 741,000 views, so it’s clearly resonating with WFH employees who have gripes they don’t want to let bubble over and affect their productivity.

However, it seems that not everyone is taking the “only try this at home” advice to heart. Search the hashtag #burnbook on TikTok, and you can find a great number of videos by users leaning into the trend who work from home and the office. Some even call out coworkers by their names and photographs.

Clearly, some of these burn books are in good fun and not meant to be cruel. Many are even posted from business accounts as a way of connecting with employees, by giving them playful labels taken from the film. One video, posted by Bam Advertising, shows a burn book with office workers labeled with funny descriptions like “eats kids’ food,” “Swiftie,” and “donut hater.”

However, others are serious about their burn books and how the trend may actually help workers cope with the daily annoyances regardless of where they work. One burn book video, posted by @mirandaarmfield, has the user saying, “I feel like this is gonna be really helpful when you have to listen to people all day,” and argues that it can be really grating to listen to certain people who repeat themselves, have annoying habits, and so on. The video is overlaid with the words, “Work burn book = better mental health.”

Nathalie Savell, a psychotherapist based in Maryland, agrees that getting out frustrations is often better than keeping them in. But she warns that those using the technique need to stay self-aware about the habit.

“Venting encourages certain patterns in the brain, so there needs to be some kind of limit on it, or it may perpetuate negative-thinking patterns,” she tells Fast Company. Savell adds that “people can easily get stuck in complaining mode,” so having a positive mindset, rather than focusing too much on the negative, is important.

Writing down frustrations in a diary-like format is certainly better than exploding on coworkers. It may even help workers let go of some general work angst. But as Savell cautions, maybe don’t go full “mean girl,” or just like in the film, it may be hard to change the pattern.

And definitely, don’t let those unleashed inner thoughts escape your home office, or the result could be more than a hall fight. It could put you out of a job.