I know what some of you are thinking; why on Earth would someone choose to not only mother roughly 60 creepy crawly critters like snakes and tarantulas, but show such severe emotional distress at their demise? Is a bond with such creatures even possible?
Pack those thoughts in, folks; the “why” of love is almost never relevant in any situation. The only fact that matters here is that TikTok‘s @yourworstdream1988 loved her pets, and someone decided to weaponize that love to inflict deep pain upon her.
In the 21-second video above, Ashley, whose profile consists of a number of videos with her and her pets, shares a heartbreaking glimpse into the tanks that her reptiles and arachnids once called home. Their lives were taken by her ex-boyfriend who, per the TikTok’s description, not only dumped their tanks out violently but fed some of them to her dog, which no doubt caused further endangerment to her canine companion.
As alluded to earlier, some commenters were taken aback by the number of spiders that once shared a roof with Ashley, who explained in a reply to a comment that they participated in a therapy routine with her. Not that Ashley needed to explain herself, of course; there’s an easy explanation for the allure of pet spiders, and specifically tarantulas. According to The Daily Wag, tarantulas are actually quite harmless and friendly; even if they end up biting you, you can rule out any long-term issues on account of their venom having little to no effect on humans. This, in addition to the fact that they’re fascinating to observe from both an aesthetic and behavioral standpoint.
And yet, far too many comments were quick to rule out the legitimacy of Ashley’s grief because they were just spiders and snakes. Think about that; rather than examine the heinousness of this act that was done specifically to exploit the love she has for her pets in order to make her feel pain (carried out by a man who is very clearly operating from a place of deep pain himself), some folks thought it appropriate to suggest that she just shouldn’t feel her grief.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not terribly on board with this trend of absolving ourselves of the responsibility to care about one another. By turning our attention away from the nuances of love and pain to instead question the legitimacy of either of those things, we are complicit. Let’s do better, folks.