I installed it out of curiosity, and God damn, this is the worst form of social media yet. It seems like it’s designed to accomplish two things: keep me scrolling, and eventually make me depressed. It’s basically paralyzing to use.
I didn’t make an account, so I guess its a bit like looking at the front page of YouTube, which is also terrible. But out of all the social media I’ve used in my life tiktok seems like the worst because of how much it sucks you in, and the type of content on it. Runner up is Instagram, but I deleted my account there years ago and never looked back.
Call me a boomer or w/e, but this shit melts your brain even more than everything else already does.
Meanwhile on Douyin:
First vid: I live in 东北, here’s me going to an all you can eat buffet for ¥12.50
Second vid: Some university kids pretending to be birds in their dorm room
Third vid: white guy speaks fluent Mandarin!
4th: American conservative that hates Iran cannot find it on a map, points at Azerbaijan, Egypt and Turkey
5th: a clip from The Good Doctor for some reason
It’s the same brain melting, endless scroll, do not look away kind of app though.
The content of what I saw on tiktok was almost equally as boring and vanilla, but the form of it is insidious
I think people yearn for short form meaningless distractions. Why do you think Garfield is in circulation? For fun? I don’t hear anyone laughing.