From Peter Parker's Chem Notes to Jon Bernthal's Instagram

The creative genius and parasocial peril of TikTok's 'Wrong Text' trend

Go to the comment section of actor Jon Bernthal's Instagram on any given day and you will find yourself wading through a digital lexicon. Amid standard messages from film buffs admiring his performances in The Punisher, The Bear and We Own This City, thousands of comments from teenage girls and young women read like fragments of an ongoing interactive soap opera:

"Hey neighbour from 4B, can you fix my sink?"

"Tell my dad you're staying for dinner."

"That's literally my dad's best friend."

"Dada."

To an outsider, this looks like collective madness or a coordinated bot attack. To anyone who has spent time on the algorithmic storytelling side of TikTok, it is the predictable spillover of one of the platform's most dominant viral tropes: the 'Wrong Text' fanfiction trend.

What began as a playful exercise in second-person creative writing featuring Marvel superheroes has mutated into a sprawling internet phenomenon. On one hand, it represents a vibrant renaissance of youth-led creative writing, proving that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are actively engaging in narrative experimentation. On the other, its transition from fictional text bubbles to real-life social media harassment marks a worrying escalation in parasocial behaviour, one in which young audiences blur the line between a fictional character and a living human being, projecting complex romantic and paternal dynamics onto older actors.

How the 'Wrong Text' trend works

To understand how Jon Bernthal became TikTok's collective 'dad's best friend', you have to trace the trend back to its surprisingly innocent origins in Marvel fandom subcultures.

The format relies on the classic fanfiction device known as Y/N ('Your Name'), an interactive storytelling convention popularised on platforms like Wattpad, Tumblr and AO3. In Y/N stories, the reader inserts themselves as the protagonist. On TikTok, creators adapted the format into short-form videos built from slideshows or screen-recorded fake messaging apps, set to dramatic background audio.

The original premise followed a remarkably consistent setup:

1. The protagonist (Y/N) is texting two people at once: her current boyfriend and Peter Parker, specifically the MCU incarnation played by Tom Holland.

2. Peter texts asking for the chemistry notes from class. At the same moment, the boyfriend texts asking for an explicit photo.

3. Distracted or in a rush, Y/N sends the chemistry notes to the boyfriend and the explicit photo to Peter.

4. The narrative climax hinges entirely on Peter's reaction.

Early variations lived entirely within the realm of teenage romantic comedy. Comment sections became sprawling writers' rooms where users debated the canonical accuracy of his response. Would he stumble over his words and text back in a flurry of typos? Would he block the number out of pure, wholesome panic? Or would he play it smooth?

These debates were informal workshops on character voice and fandom canon: literary analysis disguised as TikTok banter, arguing over whether a character was acting 'OOC' (out of character) or staying true to his onscreen persona.

The shift to Frank Castle

Internet trends rarely stay still. Once the Peter Parker scenario reached saturation, TikTok creators did what fanfiction writers have done for decades: they raised the stakes and swapped the archetype.

Enter Frank Castle, the anti-hero of Marvel's The Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal.

The move from Holland's awkward teenage superhero to Bernthal's scarred military veteran marked a sharp shift in tone and in demographic target. Y/N was no longer texting a high school classmate. The algorithm began pushing scenarios in which she was texting her 'dad's best friend', her 'grumpy older neighbour in apartment 4B' or her 'guardian'.

Instead of a panicked teenager apologising for an image he was never meant to see, the Bernthal archetype answered with stern, protective authority:

"Delete this before I show your father."

"You've got the wrong number, kid. Put some clothes on."

"Who was that meant for?"

The trend exploded. Videos using his image, edits from The Punisher and clips of his voice racked up tens of millions of views. The archetype tapped a wildly popular literary trope: the morally grey older man who is terrifying to the world but quietly protective of the young protagonist.

Within weeks it had broken out of the 'Wrong Text' framework altogether and become an umbrella of tropes:

• The dad's best friend: an authoritative figure who bridges the gap between family safety and forbidden romance.

• The neighbour in 4B: the quiet, dangerous recluse who steps in to fix a broken sink, see off a bad boyfriend or offer unwanted advice.

• The stern guardian: a protector whose severity masks deep affection.

A creative awakening in the short-form era

It is easy for critics to dismiss TikTok trends as mindless consumption. But reading the 'Wrong Text' phenomenon through scepticism alone ignores a genuine shift in how young people engage with literature.

For two decades, fanfiction was largely confined to text-heavy repositories: FanFiction.net, Wattpad, Archive of Our Own. Those platforms remain active, but the short-form video ecosystem forced a transformation in how the stories are told. Creators turned text bubbles into micro-dramas, leaning on typography, pacing and image selection to carry emotion.

The trend got kids writing again. Teenagers who would never open a blank Word document to start a 50,000-word novel were suddenly drafting dialogue, building narrative tension and testing character dynamics in fifteen-second slideshows.

The comment sections function as collaborative workshops. Readers pitch alternative lines and request sequels:

"Part 2 where the boyfriend finds out?"

"Make one where he actually picks up the phone instead of texting."

"His response felt too sweet. Frank Castle would be way more blasé about it."

This is active reading. Participants are analysing motivation, tone, pacing and conflict resolution. In an era of algorithmic feeds built for passive consumption, the trend asked users to read, imagine and write.

When fiction bleeds into reality

The outlet was real, but its boundaries collapsed quickly. The core problem arrived when users stopped separating the fictional character from the living human being who plays him.

Fans began exporting the inside jokes of TikTok Y/N stories straight onto Bernthal's personal accounts. When he posted routine photos of his family or his work, the comments were overrun. Rather than engaging with the post, thousands of commenters treated his profile as an extended roleplay arena.

"Hey neighbour, my heating's gone, can you come check it?"

"Does my dad know you're posting this?"

"Dada please come home."

There is a fundamental difference between writing fanfiction on a dedicated platform and projecting a fictional role onto a real person's page. Bernthal never opted into a global Y/N fantasy. Flooding his public presence with pseudo-flirtatious or paternal roleplay conscripts an unconsenting adult into a performance he did not agree to give.

By treating him as a vessel for Frank Castle or the neighbour in 4B, fans reduce a man with a personal life to an interactive archetype. It is a failure of digital media literacy: an inability to hold the line between the role an actor plays and the person who plays it.

The parasocial paradox

Beyond the etiquette breach, the psychology underneath the trend raises harder questions about youth culture and romantic idealisation.

Why did a generation of young girls pivot from teenage heartthrobs like Tom Holland or Timothée Chalamet to a gruff, middle-aged character actor?

The answer lies in the comfort offered by the hyper-protective older male type. In a landscape defined by social anxiety, the appeal of a stern protector figure is immense. The tropes combine two distinct cravings:

• Paternal safety: the desire for an unshakeable guardian who sets boundaries, offers protection and fixes problems, right down to the sink.

• Romantic validation: the taboo thrill of being seen as mature or special by a figure of status and authority.

The 'Wrong Text' framing is what makes the blend work. By staging the encounter as an accident, the narrative absolves Y/N of agency and of guilt. She gets the thrill of being noticed by an older, powerful figure without the responsibility of having initiated anything.

Exploring taboo dynamics inside the safe container of fiction is a normal part of adolescent development. Parasocial fixation on real-world authority figures is a different matter. These tropes run on unequal power, and when that inequality is romanticised uncritically it can distort what young people expect from real relationships, making age-inappropriate attention from older men read as romantic rather than predatory.

There is a quieter cost too. Replacing peer relationships with idealised, hyper-controlled fantasies about distant actors can stall emotional maturity. A fictionalised text bubble will never reject you. It offers all the dopamine of romantic validation with none of the risk of real intimacy.

Where do we go from here?

The trend is neither a cultural calamity nor a harmless joke. It is a messy snapshot of modern internet culture, sitting at the intersection of fandom, adolescence and algorithmic reach.

The internet has always had fanfiction, and young audiences have always had crushes on older actors. What has changed is access. Twenty years ago a teenager's fanfiction lived in a spiral notebook or a password-protected forum. Today the distance between a fan's wildest fantasy and the actor's direct messages is a single click.

Re-establishing boundaries does not mean shaming young people for writing fanfiction or enjoying tropes. It means reinforcing the basic rules of fandom literacy:

• Keep fan content in fan spaces. TikTok Y/N accounts, Wattpad and AO3 exist for exactly this kind of exploration.

• Leave the actor's real accounts alone. A personal Instagram should stay free of forced roleplay.

• Hold the line between actor and character. Jon Bernthal plays dark, complex roles. He is not a concierge for internet fantasies.

At the same time, the creative spark behind all this deserves credit. The teenagers writing these scenarios are experimenting with structure, voice and dialogue. They are reading, writing and building communities through storytelling, and that is a habit worth encouraging, refining and pointing towards original work.

If the 'Wrong Text' trend proves anything, it is that the appetite for story, drama and connection is as strong as it has ever been. Young creators will keep reinventing how we tell stories. The challenge is making sure that as our imaginative worlds expand, our respect for real-world boundaries expands with them.