TikTok trend has people posting vulnerable thoughts to pink and yellow text

A new colorful internet trend has people feeling vulnerable and posting about it.

Since late 2025, people have taken to TikTok to post their feelings and thoughts about love, loss, loneliness, and more, ending the text on each video with "pink font" or "yellow font." While it might just seem confessional, users say the addition of the colorful font adds a notice to other users that it is an intentionally vulnerable post.

While the "yellow font" posts tend to be introspectively vulnerable and raw, the "pink font" posts can carry a lighter tone that focuses more on love, relationships and romance, though many of the posts are still self-critical.

If you're seeing colorful text in your social media posts, here's what to know about the trend.

What are the pink and yellow font theories?

Videos using yellow text began popping up in late 2025 though it is not clear when the trend definitively started. However, one early video by user @yellowfont.halfspeed with over a million views dates back to Nov. 27, 2025.

As explained by TikTok user @missingslippers, the use of the yellow text is not just for aesthetic purposes, but as a social signal for the viewer to know that the video is emotionally raw and exposing in some cases.

"People began to associate the text with vulnerability and seriousness," user @missingslippers said. "Psychologically, this works because it’s a form of social signaling because seeing the yellow font instantly tells the viewer that the post is personal or vulnerable. Because of that, people react with it and engage with it differently by being more empathetic and more serious."

In a different video with over 54,000 likes, the "yellow font theory" is defined similarly, with the yellow text being used to "express emotional vulnerability and introspection, often paired with themes of self-doubt, unreciprocated feelings, or existential acceptance."

As for the use of the pink text, user @missingslippers describes it as a similar variation of the popular "yellow font" trend.

"The pink font signals love, longing, romance, and because people have learned the code to associate between the two, seeing the pink text immediately tells the viewers that the post is about love or romance," @missingslippers explains in the video. "Overall, the rise of the yellow font theory shows us how we understand and also learn emotional signals online."

See social media users embrace font theory

While the trend might be a bit ambiguous, people are still using it in their own way to publicly get their feelings out there.

In one video with 2 million likes, the words "I don't think I have ever had an appropriate reaction to anything in my life I'm either crashing out or saying nothing and giving it no second thoughts yellow font btw" sit in the middle of the post in yellow text.

Other "yellow font" videos carry similar themes of loneliness and yearning for more. A Jan. 2 video with over 547,000 likes uses only the color in the post, which has the words "god, if I'm meant to be alone [please] take away my desire to feel loved" with the words "yellow font" in the caption.

Alternatively, many of the "pink font" videos tend to be more hopeful in wording. In one "pink font" video by user @galleryofasexyleoo, a clip of a person jumping into a bed and being hugged by friends is accompanied by the words "What I mean when I say I want to be alone pink font" in soft pink text.

A more serious video by user @aliaengles declares the words "i hate how easily i shut down. i hate how much i overthink. i hate how quiet i get when i care. pink font."

There are also accounts dedicated to the trend alongside many other videos, spanning topics from politics to advice to personal relationships, also pepper TikTok, with the text accompanying them in different shades of pink and yellow.

Kate Perez covers national trends and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected] or on X @katecperez_.