‘Ticcing’ and Tourette’s: An investigation of a growing phenomenon among young women

Scarlett Moffatt emerged triumphant from the reality TV jungle as winner of the 2016 season of I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Now she has her sights set on Louis Theroux and Stacey Dooley and the title of People’s Documentarian. Or so viewers may conclude by the end Britain’s Tourette’s Mystery: Scarlett Moffatt Investigates (Channel 4, Tuesday).

These films typically function as a knottier second cousin to the celebrity travelogue. Instead of trooping around India with Joanna Lumley or circumnavigating Dungarvan by pedal bike with Enda Kenny, we join a random C-lister as they explore an equally random topical issue.

Moffatt’s report on the alarming rise in cases of Tourette’s among young women in the UK during the lockdown is different. There’s a personal component, for one thing: Moffatt recalls developing Tourette’s-like tics at school as a teenager — around the time her father was diagnosed with cancer.

“We were talking about how lungs work,” she says. “I remember this overwhelming feeling of being totally aware of how my body works ...[and] all of a sudden developing these breathing tics.”

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A shallower celeb would have framed the entire documentary through the prism of her personal experience. However, Moffatt’s empathy overrides her ego as she travels Britain talking to young women who have started “ticcing” and/or blurting obscenities.

“I’d got a lot of school work. I’d stress out about it. I couldn’t complete my work because I was ticcing that much,” says 14-year-old Nicole, who has chronicled her experiences on social media (and received a volley of abuse for her troubles).

Meanwhile, Betsy on the Isle of Wight has severed her relationship with a friend because of their mutual tics. “When people tic together the tics get worse,” she says. “We’ll go into tic attacks.”

There is a second strand to the film. The past several years have seen a huge increase in the number of Tourette’s “influencers”, who discuss their tics on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.

Yet, as one neuroscientist tells Moffatt, the recommended advice is that people with tics try to avoid dwelling on the condition. What happens when tics become part of someone’s personal brand?

“Am I actually doing good? Am I doing everyone a favour?” wonders Tourette’s influencer Holly. “Am I making the situation worse?”

Holly feels her videos are ultimately of benefit because they make others with the condition feel less alone. Moffatt is sympathetic to that view — but also acknowledges the complexities of the issue.

She signs off by expressing the hope that whatever they do, kids get off their phones and away from social media and spend more time with their pals. It is an optimistic ending to a sensitive documentary. And it tells us that Moffatt can investigate hot-button topics as effectively as she can put up with Ant and Dec in the tropics.