TikTok: Life on the Algorithm
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- Опубликовано: 14 авг 2024
- Let's talk about the hottest platform people over 35 don't seem to use.
Hank Green's video: • So...TikTok Sucks
Sarah Z's video: • The Horrifying Panopti...
00:00 Intro
03:00 What the heckin' heck is TikTok
08:25 Life on the Algorithm
19:04 Content One TikTok At A Time
31:04 Immoderate Moderation
35:59 Monetization
39:42 Warhol's Curse
47:41 Why Should We Care? 
Игры
Tiktok freaks me out because I already can't stand the amount of emphasis "recommended" content has on RUclips, so a platform that is all like that sounds like, a hopeless situation. I don't like robots telling me what I want to watch, I want to be making active decisions about what I'm watching, and even on RUclips that is becoming less and less of a choice. Even search results have recommended videos interrupting them now. Id rather miss out on the 30 seconds of content only happening on Tiktok than tell these companies that I prefer to have zero control over my experience using every platform and that it's ok if they let their robot decide for me what I want to see.
It feels like only a matter of time until the internet is no longer a place to FIND things and only a place to be SERVED things and I want to resist that as much as possible.
i never leave my subscriptions page on youtube
if i need something i use search and youtube fails to find anything every time
@@tsartomato it's genuinely annoying. You have to search outside of youtube to find results *on* RUclips.
But also, could it be argued that you are making a choice about the content you watch by engaging with stuff you actually like? I suppose ideally it's supposed to be used for discovery. Discovering new stuff. Instead of using the algorithm, you could instead take recommendations from friends or certain subreddits and things like that. What I don't like about most social media sites is the endless scrolling. That's different on RUclips. Here I find it somewhat difficult to find decent stuff to watch. So I can't endlessly scroll. I don't do shorts either. I don't know where I was going with this so I'll stop now. Btw your Animal Crossing video was super interesting.
@@tsartomato me too
I don't think this is really new. Newspapers, radio, TV, movies - all have been places where companies want to sell only one product, to 100% of the people. The newer media technologies start out as places where you search/find things, because that's how you attract new customers when you're small.
If it comforts you, it's not robots who are telling you what to watch, it's the advertisers and sponsors who pay the people who program the robots.
moderators being told that disability is a "low quality trait" that should be removed uh, sure is a thing!
Tik Tok was originally Chinese (?), so it makes sense that that would be a thing.
@@XDRosenheim It is entirely chinese - The application is a data harvesting super-virus of incredible proportion with a social media honey pot slapped on the side.
I wonder if that has to do with anything about Tik Tok being Chinese?
I don't really buy this as an explanation or an excuse. Eugenics-y ableism is not uncommon in the States either
@@ThePuzzleExpert sure - but it's not a product of the states. It's still a problem, but it won't matter until you convince the CCP to care.
So, if you see bullying and your response is to tell there person who was bullied to hide their traits or to hide the video of the person bullied, that's the point of bullying. You are helping the bully in that case.
I know that's only relevant to one part of the video but man being on the receiving end of that bullshit for a very long time just I feel it really needs to be said.
This video was 47 minutes of _solid_ down sides followed by "Well, if you aren't here you are missing out." I guess I'll continue to miss out. I get it. I get it a ton. But I also don't do heroin for the same reasons.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with missing out on stuff. Been doing that for years now!
I quit Facebook about 8 years ago.
More than happy to miss out based on all that's described in this video.
You'll be happier for it.
As a recovering heroin addict, at least that shit has medical value 😂
I like to rip on Tiktok more than I'd like to use it
"Could I interest you in everything all of the time?
A little bit of everything
All of the time
Apathy's a tragedy
And boredom is a crime
Anything and everything
All of the time"
Cringe
This has one again showed me why TikTok is such an annoying place to use. It's unbelievable people actually mentally engage with this. It's "stupid" even on a meme-internet-stupid-level. It's trash daytime TV, but you don't just leave it on while you leave the room, you actively engage with it - something you'd never do with daytime TV.
It's bewildering to me.
Glad to see the preview view option worked out for you! As someone who has around 3M followers on TikTok but only 70K on RUclips, it’s very important to my work so I’m interested in your views on it. Keep up the good work, love your videos! 🤙
Thank you so much for the advice. The alternative would have been so, so painful: creating a second account to view my own stuff as a stranger, and also having to *actually post* that footage.
One thing that always killed me about TikTok is the general attitude of it? Atleast for me it's fed into so many insecurities, self hatred, and nihilism I've felt to the point it made me sick. So while at one point I enjoyed it, I don't think I can ever go back. Being in the wrong side of TikTok can be super super brutal.
Fantastic video. I recognise that there's a lot of great stuff on TikTok, but so many facets of it - the attempt to grind your attention span down to a point, the algorithmic attenuation towards simplified and misleading versions of ideas (Twitter has this problem too!), and, as you talk about, the way "ugly" or gay or politically inconvenient or undesirable people are moderated out of existence for the sake of marketability - make me really hope this isn't the future of social media.
spoiler: its the future of social media
honestly lgbtq and leftwing propaganda is what tik tok is, so that definitely isnt moderated out of tik tok
This was a facinating watch. I don't use tiktok, and while I've heard people talk about how it's apparently terrible it was good to have a detailed breakdown into what it does well and how it has problems.
I absolutely refuse to download or use ticktock. I hate instagram, snap, and twitter. On RUclips, I can carefully control what I want thru my sub feed and explore new channels using RUclips's guiding hand. The idea of a machine just funneling shit directly down my throat based on what it thinks I like is just dystopian to me.
on twitter you follow people and only see the people you follow
afaik you can even turn off their retweets
also not a single machine ever in the history of them trying to create one managed to find anything i like. the algorithms are so bad it's pathetic
like, if i say i love rap and metal it will only suggest to me britney spirs or whoever is popular now. all youtube is recommending me at this point is the videos that i already watched. and i'm not gonna watch a video that i already saw a second time
It completely fries your attention span to boot.
"Everyone is both the right 30 second video away from being famous, and the wrong 30 second video away from being infamous" Very well put. Great video as usual dude
Interesting point about the rarity of memetic audio - there can be so much creativity in mere juxtaposition, and there are few low-lift places to do this between video and audio. YTMND felt like something special to me back in the day, and it hadn't occurred to me that there might be something about it that was still kind of novel in contemporary context -- had assumed my nostalgia was just for being the right age for it. Memey mashup music on YT isn't the same thing really.
I think audio content on YT was more prominent a few years ago, before YT started pushing hard the idea that every video should be long. Similar to how short animation was really popular back in the day, but has been pushed to the fringes since. Come to think of it, a lot of early YT felt in some ways quite like TikTok today, so perhaps TikTok is now filling this vacuum.
@@Medytacjusz Now that I think about it, those Steamed Hams and Bee Movie videos were a similar kind of meme (although not just audio-based but also video-based, since the content was almost exclusively remixes of the same meme, rather than personalized imitations/recontextualizing).
i think a very frightening part of tiktok, which you kind of touched on, is the fact that *anyone* can become the focal point of the app. the examples in this video were at least people who posted on the app of their own volition (not that this justifies the harassment ofc) , but it is entirely possible that someone could film you in public without your consent, for whatever reason they want, and you could unknowingly be the target of mass attention online. wild and terrifying stuff
He addressed that with the West Elm Caleb situation but yes the app is particularly susceptible to being a platform to leer at people who are different
I know someone who briefly became a bit famous after saying something dumb on one of those gotcha street interview conservative channels
@@dalmationblack jesus
To be fair none of this is new or unique to tiktok. See: Trigglypuff and other people who were turned into memes for the right to mock relentlessly, for years.
you might be interested in Hide The Pain Harold's TED talk "Waking up as a meme-hero"
25:00 So, here's a really interesting thing: Audio-in-memes almost took off outside of tiktok when webms became a major thing. However, most websites failed to support their audio component without an extension of some sort (this was the case with 4chan, but not 8chan, for example) so this died on the vine easily a few years before tiktok took off.
never installed tiktok once.. youtube shorts can be soul sucking enough, i can only imagine how deep the rabbit hole can go on an app that's more popular and with a more active algorithm... thanks for the video, and sharing a part of culture i otherwise would be somewhat oblivious to
i've never used TikTok but i can actually feel RUclips Shorts rotting my brain.
99% of RUclips shorts are just screen recordings of tiktok
god it’s so nice to see someone else who’s struggling with shorts addiction. i could uninstall tiktok but i can’t get rid of youtube shorts
@@leftovernoise Or Family Guy funny clips. I'm so tired of those.
@@adynat0n I'm sure a lot of those got screen recorded from TikTok too haha
Very illuminating! I'm 26 and was shown TikTok (TT?) for the first time time yesterday by a friend the same age as me. I hated all of it. While I appreciate the tech and culture of it all it was what I imagine being severely autistic is like while going to a scene music or k-pop concert: utter boredom mixed with complete sensory overload. Although I often get funny looks from people when I watch any internet documentary over 10 minutes so I'm likely the minority. Adults called me an old man at 3 years old so yeah... Also unsurprised at the disability thing. We typically don't get harrased, just treated like someone elses baby/puppy or silently pushed into the proverbial corner and semi-wilfully forgotten.
As someone that does have sensory processing disorder, I can confirm that this description of watching Tik-Tok videos is pretty accurate. :p
To me, TikTok is pretty much the same as Twitter - content that's too short to say anything meaningful, and I can already get my quick humor from motivational cat/dog/etc pictures.
PROZD's recent ban case (detailed on his youtube channel) comes to mine with how bad the platform treats content creators...
Also, as a marketing specialist, is kind of funny hearing from clients all the time, how they want to game the system of social media advertisment. So, for them, a brand view point, all social media platforms are essential unicorns to sell products but also are the alpha and omega on how their business is structure. This means that deveral brands that I've worked with ( small scale, start up brands, that's it) are laser focused on having Social Media presence even before selling a single product, because they are sure that having a tik tok or IG profile is the same (and even more essential) as having a local physical store,
I love watching this on mobile, because, no joke, directly after the segment where you talk at length about TikTok upholding a racist, ablist, and ultimately classist moderation policy in order to be as advertisement-friendly as possible, I get yet another unskippable TikTok ad shoved down my throat. You would think the omnipresent advertisement algorithms that now rule over practically every aspect of digital life would at least have a better sense of timing by now.
The fact that algorithms have rarely been able to tell pro-X content from anti-X content (or trying-to-satirize-X content) without relying on users to differentiate the two sides in some way is a consistent problem that every algorithm used by social media platforms seems to face.
@@timothymclean It's not a bug, it just works. If landing a pro-X video from a relatively unknown creator (without an established audience) in the anti-X feeds causes more engagement, that's what it's going to do. That's what's going to spur off videos criticizing it, and counter-criticism of that again. This regiment of outrage->release->outrage is addictive as fuck and generates "content".
The Sarah Z video on West Elm Caleb and the recent QAnon Anonymous episode about New Age TikTok have already convinced me to never download that damn app, but I think TikTok is just the beginning. Existing social media platforms will either adapt to be more TikTok than TikTok or will be replaced by the Facebook to TikToks' MySpace. I hate it here.
Instagram is another one that is changing to be more TikTok.
Q Anon Anonymous? Is that a podcast?
I hate it here too. The Internet used to be so magical. Now it just makes me feel gross honestly
@@nicoledoubleyouthere's a great video by Shadock called _The Web Has Lost It's Soul_ which discusses this well.
Thank you for the explanation, I've never been curious enough to look into TikTok myself, so was quite insightful
I appreciate that in both this video and your fortnite video, you're able to do a long thoughtful critique and still address why these things are popular and successful, even impressive in their way. Lots of lovely nuance beyond "haha kids these days are just dumber i guess"
Thanks for the vid!
For for reals, kids are dumber these days
Oh! Always fun to see the face behind the voice. Also since I'm 40 I guess that does explain my lack of interest in TikTok. I am fast approaching Grampa Simpson status.
I used to be "with it" . . . then they changed what "it" was.
don't worry, I'm a part of gen z and tiktok isn't appealing to me
So... you can't choose what to watch? Instead you have to keep watching random unsolicited videos?
Pass
I haven't taken the tik tok plunge because despite it's flaws, RUclips provides educational content like no other platform in existence. I can watch an indie creator give an hour long video lecture or find whole audio books or tutorials on software engineering. The tik tok thing looks like a terrible way to consume and process nuanced, real, useful information.
Word youtube does help me with detailed how to videos in graphic design while thr minute long tik tok ones just end up feeling rushed because of its 1 minute runtime limit
Never really understood TikTok and this video, for me personally, has given me all the reason I needed to continue to ignore it. I don't care about this "wealth of content and culture" when it comes at the price you describe.
Thanks for telling me all about it though - I have a more informed opinion against it now.
yup. pretty much
Fascinating! As a fellow elder millennial-one who has an anthropological fascination with Tik Tok, but no desire to actually use the app-I truly appreciate your field work
I've never clicked a vid so fast!
Bytedance, the company that owns TikTok, the CEO and founder of that company was forced out by the Chinese government in their crackdowns on tech billionaires (Like how Jack Ma was under house arrest for the last two years). So he made that company and now has no connection with it at all. It's crazy that this fun little app we use is intimately connected with these weird CCP crackdowns.
Glad that China is willing to actually prosecute rich people. Feels like the only country that will these days
@guy I mean I am pretty sure it was because he was anti CCP or something.
@@bestaround3323 In 2020 he was called a "mouthpiece of the CCP" by the USDOJ.
So... which is it? Is he a mouthpiece of the CCP, or is he anti-CCP?
@Théo I just said pretty sure to be honest as it was a guess. I remember hearing that China doesn't like billionaires because they have to much power and could be a threat to the government.
This could be completely wrong though as it is just my personal opinion. Thanks for correcting my prior error.
Honestly, this is the best introduction of TikTok I´ve seen. Praise youtube longvideo formats for featuring actual information.
Tiktok seems to be absolute poison for society, attention spans and generally creativity. Not to mention every other platform trying to emulate and prioritise videos, reels, shorts... sigh!
As someone who uses tiktok & tries to limit my time on that app you are completely right 😬😬
@@jessicabecho9474 Delete it now and never look back. Else it will consume your attention and your life.
I've seen marijuana turn very bright, intelligent, and promising young people to time wasting stoners.
I'm seeing tick toc do the same.
It's a skinner box only there is a fire hose of dopamine on tap. Shits dangerous.
You give that cloud the what for
@@jessicabecho9474 “tries to limit”
The ancient ability known as self control is apparently missing in todays youth.
@@joemahma3017the problem is these apps spend millions hiring behavioural psychologists in order to perfect the addiction. It's not that the newer generations are inherently "weaker" in some sense, It's that they're growing up in a world where corporations have been hacking their brains almost from birth
after watching this video, i feel good that watching this video is the most i have engaged with TikTok ever, and i am going to endeavor to keep it that way
This video kinda confirms why i don’t use Tiktok. It’s fantastic, people make amazing content on there, and it’s got it’s own unique community.
It’s twitter 2, complete with all that and all the same harassment, plus being incredibly addictive. Having another social media platform to use would just drive my life into an endless hellscape of “content”.
This is the first video that really clarified for me why I have not been able to vibe with Tiktok as a consumer. (As a creator it's simply because hahaha showing my *face*, are you kidding?) I have very bad SPD. I don't parse sound well. Most Tiktoks become noise to me where I only parse the visual meaning, and as such I just.... don't understand the majority of the messaging. That's really interesting! That's the first time I've seen that observation being made!
The crazy thing I learned here is THERE ARE NEWS TIKTOKS? Why?! Why the hell would anyone think TikTok was an appropriate platform for that?
If there's money to be made, it will happen.
Wrong way to think about it, ask why wouldnt people already on tiktok be interested in news too
Considering the aparant ease of creating videos, it makes sense to me that it would be a way of quickly getting new news out there.
Because young people generally don't watch television, read newspapers, or visit news websites regularly. I guess they prefer having news flashes condensed into bitesized chunks that get algorithmically delivered to them during their free time.
tiktok scares the shit out of me man. thanks for this video. you're the greatest.
Great video, like usual, but I have a gripe to pick. While one might miss out by not consuming TikTok, it's highly unlikely that watching TikTok will make your life or the world better.
Not watching a RUclips channel, or unsubscribing from Netflix, or not using TikTok might result in fewer conversation topics, or a less complete view of the world, but consider the opportunity cost. What else can you do with that time?
I know, talking about opportunity cost while leaving a RUclips comment.
You can say that about anything, really. Why play games, for example. Why read books even (outside of professional research).
I was responding to the (paraphrased) bit about "You ignore TikTok at your own peril, because it has a unique culture". My implied understanding of that was "you're not doing your homework and your worldview was incomplete". Which might be correct, but isn't evidence that I should start using TikTok.
If the point was "you're missing out on TikTok fun", then I guess I am, and I don't fault anyone for having fun on TikTok. But there is so much fun to be had, in media consumption and elsewhere, that I can easily ignore TikTok and have all the fun I want.
Of course, but if your goal is to have as complete a picture of contemporary culture as possible, then one might consider getting at least somewhat acquainted with TikTok. Some people are just curious about the world or have a strong drive to try to understand it and make sense of it, rather than just having fun. Or, perhaps, it is what's "fun" for them. Or perhaps they're driven to seek out new and different things from what they're used to (that's how you can also understand "unique culture" - as "not one you're familiar with").
But you might not care about any of those things, and that's fine too.
If your goal is to have a more complete view of contemporary culture, you have to weigh your options. You can't listen to every podcast and watch every TikTok and read every article. That's true whatever your goal is. TikTok's existence, popularity, and value are not sufficient evidence that's it's a worthwhile way to spend your time.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't spend time on it. We all make different judgement calls. But, stating the opposite, that it's a good way to spent time in light of other options, requires more evidence than is provided or available.
@@VanjaPejovic hasn't Errant Single made a whole video hour-length video about it? I mean, the sentence you mentioned isn't the only positive one about TikTok in the whole videoessay.
And not every podcast or article has as much of an imprint on everyday life, language, references of generations below 30 as TikTok. Though, actually, specific podcasts/articles aren't good examples, because we're talking about a FORMAT, rather than actual specific content. It's not about listening to every podcast/TikTok ever, but being familiar with the podcast/TikTok format as such, its possibilities and limitations.
But sure, you gotta pick and choose, time is finite. I haven't been to theatre or opera for ages. Just don't tell me there are no reasons.
I've seen people get sucked in to endless streams of micro videos. It's like their hypnotized. I never want that to happen to me. I want to carefully choose the videos I watch, usually long and in depth.
So I appreciate this video both for it's subject matter and length.
I used to be on tiktok, (I'm a cosplayer and former theater kid, so the idea of making quick little skits and mood pieces is very fun for me) but I got so tired of fighting the algorithm all the time. There would just be phases where it would refuse to show my videos to people who followed me. For weeks. (Plus all the work needed to use fake weapons and wound makeup without getting the video instantly banned and the constant need to change how we're spelling cosplay/c0splay/cospl4y/etc today because that tag might be shadowbanned.) It was exhausting, so I quit after about a year.
Great video! As an artist utilizing TikTok for short timelapses and quick reviews, I feel like what you said about TikTok's format being really geared towards people really rings true- other types of content, even if it's formatted for TikTok, just don't seem to do as well. It's a common meme in the artist spheres that Art Doesn't Do Well on TikTok, and sometimes it makes me wonder why I'm utilizing it at all- is it a platform I'm just having fun with, or am I trying to do something more with it that will never come to fruition because TikTok just isn't geared towards supporting the creators who utilize it.
Good to see you back. I'm over 35 and have never used Tiktok. All I used was Facebook, and that was over a decade ago now.
How has this only got like 40k views ?
This is a well written, well researched essay, it should be doing way better
I blame my monotone delivery, awkward screen presence, and a handful of editing errors.
I have to say on that point about Novak, that constant mockery of a man for being cringe isn't new at all, for exampled, look at Chis Chan or any of the kiwi farms victims. The difference with Novak is that he breaches the mainstream, honestly I think that's what really differentiates tiktok from prior sites like reddit or 4chan or tumblr , those tend to have a rather homogeneous userbase while tiktok i used by pretty much everyone under 30. If anything tiktok is just the acceleration and mainstreaming of old internet idioms and practices into something that is almost completely self contained and extremely widely appealing.
Wowowow let's not be that quick with the "everyone below 30", this 24y old happens to exist on the non-tiktok side of reality
My favorite side of tiktok is outside of it
I think i'll continue to ignore it at my peril. Any culture that's actually worth a damn will percolate out into the real world. If it doesn't, then it was merely a product of its own ecosystem, and it lived and died there. The world won't be any richer or poorer for having missed it.
i dont care about tik tok either but that's kind of a not good way of viewing culture
@@mutantfreak48 eh probably. I'm an old man screaming at a cloud. The only thing I can see coming out of a platform that has minutes long videos is probably music and that'll probably get to me though some music community or discovery service like Spotify or pandora, eventually.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'll consume something after the dust settles. I play games the same way too, waiting years for it to be all patched up and on discount for me to play.
I just don't see the need to tether myself to (another) video service that treats me like livestock just so I can be on the cutting edge of Muppet videos.
Amen. Being that hooked into the bleeding edge of culture is rarely healthy in my experience anyway.
If it matters I'll hear about it one way or another, on my terms.
As someone who's careful to never touch the "shorts" button on the youtube app because I really dislike that way of delivering content tiktok sounds like an absolute hellhole of an app. And yeah, I'm 32 and completely disconected from whatever the hell kids are doing these days, I just can't be asked to keep up with things I don't like. That said, this was an incredibly informative video to me, I now have some understanding of what's going on on that corner of the internet, so I thank you for doing this... and I'll stay as far away as possible from that tiktok thing just like how I noped out of ever using facebook as soon as I learned about what it was like 15 years ago.
Yo if you’re gonna get into making video essays on broadranging topics like Dan Olson I am 100% on board.
While very interesting, this just kills any reason for me to ever join Tik Tok. I'm tired of algorithms, i'm tired of chinese/facebook harsh marketing based on crappy user data, and i'm definitely tired of the atmosphere of "for clicks" which is why every month I have to scrub my subscriptions on YT.
Good video, hate tik tok.
That was a good 50 minute explanation on what TikTok is. Here's my 3 second explanation: videos go brrrr, which makes brain go brrrr
a day or 2 ago I was thinking about you, one of my favourite people on this platform (especially when it comes to video game content) and how I couldn't wait for a new video and here you are :)
can't wait to watch this, I'm sure it'll be a banger
it was a banger.
Is it bad that I don't even use TikTok but that I didn't find anything strange with the phrase "Dinks the starwars lore explaining puppet?"
Thanks for this well-reasoned, levelheaded primer! I can't mentally process a stream of short, contextless videos, so the platform isn't for me, but I agree that even those of us who don't use it should learn about it because of the influence it has on the future of digital content.
This entire platform is basically "horrible internet culture" compressed and boiled down to its most blatant form. You remember that thing the internet does, where they do horrible things to people for making a bad tweet a decade ago or someone just SAYING that they said a bad thing at some point? On tiktok, they do it for merely making a piece of content that they thought was dumb. No bad opinions, no accusations, no crude behavior or even tasteless joke. Literally just singing a song they thought was cringe. Apparently that was in itself enough to dox them. That was enough to call their fucking job and lie to have them fired. That was enough to FUCKING HUNT THEM DOWN! Shit like this makes me wonder if the internet was a mistake, but even worse, it makes me completely lose faith that humanity even has good people in it at all.
Read enough history and you realise it's nothing new, the internet just enables it more efficiently
@@Crispman_777 Thats what the last sentence in my comment was referring to. I was saying that it brings up the question of whether good people are even a thing at all.
Sure good people are a thing, wouldn’t let the actions of the terminally online skew that
This guy looking for good people on TikTok lmaoo
The world has good people. It also has people who don't mind enabling the worst among us if it lets them increase ad revenue a few percent.
I am glad I am ignoring TikTok, the same way I am ignoring Shorts and Explore tabs.
In this day and age, I can pick what I watch ... and I try not to watch rubbish.
Your video was really nice, and it pretty much convinced me, it was a right decision, at least for me.
Wonderful. It always a pleasure to see another errant signal float to me through the airwaves.
I've thought about starting a retro-gaming TikTok for my video game collection, but based on this video and the personal misgivings I've always had about the platform, I don't know if I ever will actually do it, especially if I were to end up on the "wrong side" of TikTok. Having already spent years on Facebook and Twitter and seeing what those sites do to people, I'm not wading into yet another quagmire of toxicity.
You might get to this later in the video, but being on the wrong side of Tiktok can indeed hurt the viewer. Like many algorithmically-based media sites, it can have a hard time telling the difference between content produced by a minority and bigotry against that minority. Unlike other platforms, because of the way it's constructed, it's impossible to avoid content it wants you to watch. If I get recommended Blaire White videos I can choose not to click on them. But a friend of mine (also trans) uses Tiktok and will sometimes have periods where the algorithm decides to start spewing anti-trans bigotry at her in the middle of her meme videos, and there's very little she can do.
>very little she could do
well using a different app would be one of those things.
@@TheEvilCheesecake I believe that was her eventual solution, yes :p
Knowing you guys "anti trans bigotry" just means basic biology.
Tik tok is bad cause it's a mental illness factory and glorifier, not because sometimes you see someone telling the truth...
@@corvaes "ableist" isn't a word. Why are you guys inventing ways to be offended?
@@09RetsamEdalb please learn the difference between "things that don't exist", and "things you haven't heard of, but most people have".
I hate the fact that I don’t have a way to get rid of youtube shorts from my feed because if you scroll long enough, you inevitably get sent to scams or graphic medical content that’s mildly to very traumatic. For god’s sake, how do cooking shorts end up sending you to graphic medical shorts.
This was a nice breakdown of my (unfortunately) favorite app. As a 25 year old with ADHD during the pandemic, I got very sucked in, and you so easily described why I got so sucked in and also all the parts of the app that make me very uncomfy
As a 29 year old with ADHD I'd like you to ask yourself whether you're really enjoying your time with it. I've wasted a ton of time on a lot of social media things. While I always wanted to go on there, I rarely ever felt that by the end of it my time there was worthwhile.
@@PauLtus_B it’s worth it when I’m at work waiting for some code to run. It’s great at filling awkward amounts of time. The tricky part is if I get hyper focused on it. I’ve gotten better, but in those cases you are absolutely right. But it also does help keep me away from some of my other even less healthy habits, so I stick with it as a sort of lesser evil type thing.
As an avid RUclips video essay consumer who IS intimately familiar with TikTok, this was the ~50min meditation on TikTok, & issues surrounding, that I was hoping for
Man, it's been a hot minute since I heard someone bring up YTMND.
As for TikTok, even as I learn more about it, I can't help but find many aspects of it... kinda disturbing. It's easy to dismiss someone's fears over new things because "old man don't understand them", but as someone who's usually quite open to new things, I find it scary BECAUSE I understand it.
Don't get me wrong: the whole "audio meme" thing is fascinating, and I guess it's actually kinda cool, but a lot of the other stuff... a lot of it makes me feel like TikTok shouldn't. It just shouldn't. And for that matter, neither should the CCP.
Stop uncritically consuming western propaganda. The CPC (the correct and non-racist acronym) is overwhelmingly supported by the people in China. Tiktok has no ties to the government in China it is owned by Tencent a corporation that the Chinese government has gone after in the past for misdeeds.
I am in kind of the same stance as you about disinterest in tik tok (lack of context, too much personalisation) - but fear mongering without explicit reasons is a farce
You don't say any reasons in your comments despite having the character limit to do so
And tiktok is the least of vectors CCP can use for data collection in the grand scheme of things, does it matter? Maybe, but there are far worse things to worry about if you are worried about CCP
@@aravindpallippara1577 I am wary of anything that is confirmed to be linked to the CCP. But the person you replied to said that the video helped him understand why he was afraid of it. That's probably why he didn't feel like he needed to explain it all. And I think he's right, the video did a great job of explaining why it can be scary. As for me. It's scary that you can get stuck into a certain part of TikTok and be in this bubble where it seems like everyone thinks and acts like you do, and if you think and/or do delusional stuff, like think you've got 5 personalities in your head, and so do the people you're watching on toktok, you will just keep getting sucked into that delusion. Or if the TikTok creates you watch all say the same terrible things, like say you're a racist, then being in a bubble where you think everyone thinks like you do, could make you more confident in your views and less afraid to get into contributions in real life. That's just an example, cuz I was having trouble putting my concerns into words. But it's just unhealthy to only be down what a machine thinks you'll like and win keep you watching for longer. It makes people mindless consumers and that's not good for anyone
Tik tok is basically a collection of reasons that shows what's wrong with the internet today
Amazing video! The sections with rapid swiping through the for you page did make me feel pretty motion sick to the point that I had to look away, which was a bummer because it was otherwise really well edited and I wanted to be able to watch, not just listen.
a COMMENT for ENGAGEMENT! Loved this!
funnily enough, i know you said this video was mostly to explain it for 30+ folks, but i'm technically the intended age demographic and i didn't even know half this stuff. still think The Dreaded Clock App is a blight upon society and you couldn't get me to join it with a gun to my head, though.
this video was an interesting experiment in "i want more than anything to hear all the smart things mr. franklin is saying to me, but every second i have to look at this app feels like i'm being ludovico technique'd". Truly harrowing. Trucked through it anyway for some of the most insightful and accessible analysis of the subject I've seen, thank you sir for your noble sacrifice.
I know you worked really hard on this and I just wanted to say I enjoyed it
My most memorable interaction with TikTok was not using it for months, checking back one day, being served a video of a US Soldier being trained to continue beating protestors after being pepper sprayed, and then closing the app again.
Also the bit where Fedora Chris complains about Spoiler Chris spoiling things, while still including the spoiler in order to content farm it, is such a type on that platform.
Hi Chris, I've never commented on one of your videos before but I wanted to let you know that I've been following you since the start of the channel and I find your analysis and discussion of games to be the finest that I've come across. I'm sure you can understand the magnitude of that statement given the number of youtubers commenting on games. My favorite thing about your work is your scholastic bent, the way that you evaluate games in terms of what they're trying to achieve and how you're conscientious about the implied values of games.
Oh this will be incredibly interesting
"people are making incredible things on this platform that you don't see anywhere else - like sandwiches out of dice roll. Ignore at your own parallel". Lol
Yeah, the conclusion was one of the bits that really suffered as a consequence of needing to get this out after two months.
If I had the ability to do it again, I'd really spend some time pointing out the immense power TikTok has to bring people together. Remember that time they made an entire fictional musical for Ratatouille, and then Disney actually performed it during the pandemic? Or the time they totally owned Trump's campaign, which embarrassed him so much he declared war on the platform? Or the time they collectively decided to make their own fictional lost media, with each person adding their own lore to a show that supposedly aired for one season in the 90's and then was never released again? TikTok can catapult obscure songs into the Billboard Hot 100. It can make a Pug appear on the Today Show. It has a *profound* amount of creative output and cultural cache, and I think it's hard to argue against that.
I just argued in favor of it really poorly there at the end in the rush to get it out the door. :/
ah, nice to know that bias automation has come to its logical conclusion and made people like me invisible without anyone specific to blame. i fucking hate it here
I'm late to the party, but thanks so much for the thoughtful breakdown. Really digging the way you dig past the surface layer of items and acknowledge the good and bad in a situation.
zoomer here, the truth is that tiktok is as confusing to gen x as youtube was to boomers, especially when it comes to perceived popularity. 1m followers on tiktok is closer to 100k on youtube, or even less because the engagement of each follower is much much lower. just as big early youtubers like fred and smosh got on tv shows because boomers saw youtube as tv, gen x sees tiktok as youtube.
Damn what a good video. You write impeccably. I look forward to every upload whenever they may be
Great video! A lot of info on a plataform i ignore, and will keep doing it.
One of the reasons i dislike it a lot, is the change of mind it gives to people, reducing their attention span, to be even shorter. All social networks do this, but Tik Tok wins by far. Being that fast and immediate isn't healthy.
100% agree. This has played out recently with the Depp/Heard trial with so many people rushing to give "their opinion" and camps forming to harass "the other side". Utterly, utterly unhinged behaviour.
Can't remember who said it, or where I it heard it, but what has always stuck with me was "Social media is cancer for the soul". After spending more than a few minutes on any of those platforms I feel like my time was wasted. I guess I'm a fuddy duddy and that's how I like it.
I think you did a great job describing both the issues and the positive sides of TikTok. As a user (not a creator) on this platform, my problem mostly comes down to the lack of control one has over what they watch. At least with sites likes RUclips, you have the ability to control which video you click on based on that video's thumbnail and title. I don't mind that there's an algorithm tracking the content, but I do care about my ability for self-censorship.
Well thanks for confirming that TikTok is an absolute scourge on society for me. Now I can go back to ignoring it.
I've been really excited for this video and you've delivered something that really meets those expectations. It might be somewhat orthogonal to the subject here, but I do wish more people spent the time trying to pry social media platforms as systems, and what their specific design promotes its users to do.
A while ago I wrote about how, despite it being toted as a viable alternative and "better version" of Twitter, Mastodon ended up being a copy of Twitter because its developers largely assumed that Twitter's problems stem from the way its backend infrastructure was implemented, and were seemingly unaware that Twitter's core design features-short form text delivered sorta-chronologically to followers who can reply and retweet effortlessly-may have some role in developing the fairly impersonal nature of the platform. While Mastodon definitely appeals to a certain segment of people, it definitely is a much more niche one who either largely treat their circles as a glorified Discord server, or who simply ignore the instant system entirely (which is the system the entire platform supposedly bases itself around) and just hang out on the primary instance, effectively just making a parallel Twitter. Just one dominated predominantly by the specific subset of white, middle-class tech men who have set up at least one device in their home to run Linux themselves.
On the topic of Discord, I also levy this appeal to those who complain about the death of IRC and web forums, where those spaces have now been replaced by the likes of Discord. A typical complaint is how Discord's chat system is not a good replacement as a forum, as one can't as easily search for past discussions or answers to questions asked previously, making the preservation of knowledge far more sketchy. While I don't think this is wrong or even a bad thing to worry about, I find that the typical kneejerk reaction ends up being "well, all we have to do is go back", not only as if there were a magical rewind button one can simply press to make everything into a forum, but also seems to not consider the possibility that perhaps Discord as a community organisation platform has some very, very compelling features that the old webforum system did not have. There could be a lot of insight to be gained for a real project on how to make the forums model work in 2022, but I've never seen anyone actually even consider the possibility that people might see legitimate value in Discord and that it's not just some vague supernatural force that has corrupted the minds of youth.
Also, just exploring and explaining the culture of a younger generation in a non-patronising or overtly negative way I think is something we need more of right now. We don't need any more generational wars blaming swathes of young people for the system they end up in.
Good work, man!
Hey, could I get a link to where you wrote about this topic? It seems very interesting.
My partner really wants me to point out that there was (and is still a bit) a really strong but different trend of memetic audio on soundcloud as well
Outstanding video. Can you imagine the stuff TikTok moderators don't allow on the platform?! Yikes.
this is one of those videos that would suck as a tiktok, thank you for making it for us on old man youtube land
Dude. Thank you so much for a new video!
Thank you fir making this video! It kinda reminds me of that one Shamus Young article - "This Game is Bad for You". This is basically that, but on steroids...
Tiktok is banned in India for two years now, much of the landscape has changed now.
35:40 not sure about this, because in India Tiktok was a bridge for folks in lower social and economic ladder to shine in Indian Zeitgeist (and garnered "strong reactions" from higher social/economy standing folks)
After the ban, they got shunned again.
Video by Soch Mohak Mandal is a great summary of that scenario.
Edit :- Can't link that because my comments dissappear to some folks when I put any links.
You'll need to search it
Got into TikTok at the start of this year after my girlfriend kept egging me to download and use it. I had staunchly avoided using it-despite being the target demographic for the app-and expected it to be cringe with all the “tiktok bad” hivemind on the internet, but I was pleasantly surprised instead. I share the exact same thoughts for why you like TikTok as you explained in the “Content One TikTok At A Time” section. TikTok just simply has a unique form of content and culture that you don’t see anywhere else.
I’m a little more blasé about the toxicity on the app sometimes because toxicity just seems to be a part of the internet now (and always has been), but even so, I can’t help but feel like there’s something so dystopian about the app; all the diverse content, good and bad, flooding in trying to grab what’s left of my attention span. I just can’t help but wonder what it’s doing to our minds. I’m not trying to be a boomer and say “phone bad” but it is something I think about after realizing I spend an hour on tiktok after I wake up and before I sleep.
Anyways, cool video, just about sums up my thoughts with TikTok
Being a "little more blasé" about toxicity is exactly why the internet was allowed to get as toxic as it has in the first place. I am old enough to remember the earlier days of what would be considered "the mainstream internet" and while there have always been some crappy people hanging around making things worse for others, it wasn't nearly as normalized as it later became. Now we are in a situation where we just kinda sit around and accept outright terrible behavior online because if we don't, we might need to actually acknowledge our own role in the whole mess.
@@startrekmike Most of those toxic "witch hunts" shown in the video were started and fueled by people who found someone else to be toxic and decided to do something about it. With the exception of a few truly terrible acts, I think we have gotten to a point where we can't even agree on what's toxic anymore and where some lines should be drawn.
Also, from what I see, the internet of today is a whole other thing from what it used to be. It has become an extension of human social interaction, but focused and amplified, both for the goods and bads, and that's why toxicity is just another part of it that we accept.
@@startrekmike Could it be because we previously were creating the spaces instead of plopping ourselves onto a company's public porch? Instead of being on a forum or a chatroom devoted to a few key topics, we're tossed around into various random pools of people. Innevitably we run into the someone that's splashing everyone with no regard for how they wish to spend their time. However instead of dealing with the person, looking for their mom, maybe talking to them about it not being the time or place for that, we move to another section of the pool and let the others splash each other.
If you commented on a forum thread, you're expecting to continue the discussion. Now you expect to just walk away and not hear anything further.
@@ferinzz That is certainly part of it. There was a lot of value in the more segmented internet we had before the rise of large-scale social media. One could find a lot of pleasant, generally good natured communities that actually bothered to moderate themselves.
There is another aspect to consider though. We never really bothered to take a hard, long look at ourselves and our own place in this mess. For example. I have a few friends who were very much part of some of the more troubling parts of 4chan but when we discuss how such communities contributed to the problem, they get defensive and deny their particular community's involvement because that would mean that they would have to also take a hard look at their own behavior and how that reflects on them as people.
That is the problem we have right now. We don't want to solve a lot of the rampant behavior problems online because that would naturally force us to acknowledge our own behaviors and how we might have contributed to the problem or actively feed into it.
Hearing that Chris lives in North Carolina I now know where my nothing, amorphous, not-exactly-southern, not-exactly-atlantic accent is. I feel so seen and yet so alone
great stuff, don't listen to any of the eventual haters. this is good shit, insightful, necessary. props to you sir for providing more than a decade of entertainment and brainfood.
This is a great video that explains TikTok extremely well to people who don’t use the platform. A lot of videos vaguely talk about the horrors of the for you page and culture on TikTok being dangerous to individuals, but the way that you very well explained how the mechanics work and used examples of issues caused by those mechanics was refreshing.
I think at 18 minutes you perfectly explained why I really highly dislike using tiktok and prefer to only watch ‘content’ on RUclips. Also why I hate how we can’t remove RUclips shorts. I want to control what I interact with, with a recc’ feed for when “I” decide I want the damn algorithm to give me anything. but I also realize that this will slowly be taken away from us, at least I’m guessing.
This is a bloody brilliant video. Thank you for this!
Tangential to this, I really don't understand RUclips trying go like, capture the same energy with shorts.
As a viewer it's not what I come to the platform for, and as a creator, there's so many weird elements to it that make it more like a place to repost tiktoks than a place to *do* youtube. Like, the aspect ratio and the portrait layout requirement make it so it's legit impossible to use them for something like enticing short form clips that resemble your other content. You can't use it for trailer-type things, and that seems like a wildly missed opportunity.
The whole Tik Tok eternal feed feels so alien to me that I'm actively avoiding RUclips Shorts even from creators I like and want to see stuff from.
"Oh, wait... if I click this funny looking thing, it'll take me to the Shorts Feed? Well screw that"
a) Very weird to see you in a video. Good choice for a video about tiktoc. b) please do more long form videos. it's the only reason to continue to coming to these kinds of video hosting sites. as always, stellar work.
Funnily enough, I experienced Chrissy Wake Up almost completely backwards. First, I heard the shitpost versions which had gone through 3 or 4 successive remixes and were used in completely unrelated contexts. Then I started hearing versions closer to the original. Then I saw it used in a way that tipped me off that it came from Stranger Things (I don't watch the show). Then I went to RUclips to see what the original scene was. And now, at long last, this video taught me that schmoyoho's behind it all like it's 2010 RUclips again. TikTok!
I did some research into the adult swim tiktok trend from like a year ago for a video. I came to the conclusion that while there are some great artists on there it’s mostly empty calories. A lot of ads and sensible chuckle worthy jokes. I can confirm that it has a scary way of figuring out what you’re into because my feed is mostly anime edits cut to lofi hip hop.
👍👍
I actually use the following tab in my profile on tiktok more often. I find the "Home" feed makes me super anxious. Too much too fast for me.
I just wish youtube had an option to hide the "shorts"..
On the one hand, the audio memes and low barrier to entry are intriguing - it's not to my taste, personally, but I can see why that's a niche that people would flock to.
The rest of TikTok, however... yeah, the idea of a blind algorithm serving up an endless stream of "content" to whatever audience it damn well pleases while simultaneously stripping that "content" of any and all context sounds like a literal nightmare.
"Tiktok is looking to make content creation as easy as possible, so that people can make the easiest possible content, and all the horror and misery that can encapsulate." Feels like a real succinct way to describe the thing you're talking about with the downsides of the low barrier to entry.
Stg, it feels like every company is just trying to repeat the reality tv boom of the early 00's, "How do I get as much ultra cheap content as possible that causes people to throw as much $, time, data at me as I can handle?"
It's really gross and it has not done the conversations around the internet & meatspace well.
Low barriers to entry don't have to be a bad thing. Search engines let you look for and find the stuff you're most interested in, ignoring all the chaff on the floor for the few delicious grains of wheat.
Of course, TikTok would rather use an algorithm to guess what you'll engage with.