People don’t like it because:
- It’s the new thing. If alcohol were introduced today it would be banned in every country on earth. People tolerate Facebook, Twitter, Insta because that’s what’s been around. They all do the same thing, but TikTok is new and scary.
- Short form video is scary! It’s a new form of entertainment, and old people don’t like new forms of entertainment. See: every newly introduced form of entertainment in history, books included.
- They are misinformed about what data a mobile application can and cannot do, and the level of security built into both iOS and Android. Rest “assured”, they are collecting as much data as they can – just like every app creator on the planet. What they aren’t doing is capturing mic data while you’re sleeping (that’s not how microphones in phones work), stealing your passwords from your clipboard (OS’s notify users about clipboard paste)
- China bad. This primes people to consider negative press about it with a less skeptical eye, feeding the above points. (Don’t misconstrue me as being pro-China, I’m not, and that’s not what this post is about.)
TikTok is Chinese spyware. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube is American spyware.
I hate the short video thing. I find many zoomers are into TikTok. The short video length, the subtitles on videos, the filters and the attention span effect it causes does not help. Yeah I get it, social media is bad for everyone in high doses, but zoomers are such a subverted generation and short videos do not help, weather that is TikTok or YouTube shorts.
I am not in favor of banning Tiktok or short video platforms, I wish people will use social media for learning things, exploring ideas and not watching stupid clips of some kid talking about their day. That is what bothers me most about TikTok rise to fame. It is not how it is Chinese based and a privacy nightmare, it is how it changes peoples interaction online and how they use the internet.
Did you feel the same way about Vine?
I’m a millennial and don’t use tiktok, but things change and they’re supposed to. Your argument started off good, but immediately went sideways. Privacy is an actual problem, your beef with gen z is not. You sound like an old man shaking his cane at the sky. We can all cry over how much we miss AIM and Myspace, but they’re gone. This shit won’t last forever either.
Yes, however TikTok is more successful in adoption than Vine. Only a few girls I knew were hooked on Vine.
Yeah I get it. I sound like a old cranky man. Every generation has its flaws. If I have beef with zoomers, then I guess I have beef with every generation alive. I just see TikTok is not helping zoomers. Zoomers seem to be the most subverted generation. Zoomers were raised by society to be the best consumer generatiom that ever lived. Corporate America has achieved creating a generation who is bad with money, chasing identity, wanting status and applause without doing the work, bombarded with ads, very depressed and riddle with mental illness, and very lonely. TikTok is just adding gas to the fire.
Of course not all zoomers are like this. However many zoomers I met just simply fall under these things I listed above and I interact with many zoomers in my day to day life.
I am not for censorship, so I do oppose censoring Tiktok. Unfortunately I have no solutions to offer, all I see is a problem.
Have you actually had a conversation with anyone from gen z? Watched any of the content they produce? They’re radically anti-capitalist and are well aware they’re living in a dystopia. Of course they have mental health issues. Look at the world they’re inheriting from us and tell me why they should feel any differently.
But maybe they should just swallow their feelings and beat their girlfriends because that’s what their forefathers did? Feelings are icky.
And they’re bad because they’d rather make money pursuing their passions than grinding for some pedophilic billionaire? Get real. If they were left to their own devices, this world would be closer to a utopia than humanity has ever been before.
Also, they’re funny as fuck, creative, inventive, and wonderfully culturally aware. Love Gen z.
Any issues they have can be attributed to two things:
Edit: Here, let me provide a nice little example for you. I guess just be glad you’ll die before my children? Positivity! :)
Chill out! This is what I mean by gen z being subverted. So many of then think climate change is man made and just give a fuck about the wrong things. Gen z heart in many ways is in the right place but their intentions are flawed. I do know some based zoomers and they are good friends who yes I talk to very often. The gen z attitude toward their bosses is understandable to a good extent, as long their reasoning for it is being red pilled on how their is a sociopathic mindset in the wealthy elites.
People said the exact same thing about YouTube, and people’s desires for fame. The world still turns.
All to say, like all social platforms, on TikTok there are good and bad, people of all shapes and sizes. Rest assured, people are learning on TikTok, (and YouTube, and Facebook). Yeah there’s misinformation, just like every other corner of the Internet.
True. The way content was consumed back then was more enriching I guess compared to the short video format now in days.
You can learn lots on YouTube and other simular platforms like LBRY. You can’t learn much on Twitter or Facebook. Tiktok “learning” is short clips oviously like “Did you know” or “Here are 3 thing you can do with your phone” but this is not deep as watching a 20 minute YouTube video on WWII history for example.
You have to start somewhere. Learning something on tiktok is the start of the process, not the end.
You start with a thread and you pull and you pull and you pull and pretty soon you have enough thread to sew yourself an entire wardrobe.
You can’t start at the end or the middle or a third of the way through. You start at the beginning. You can’t research something if you don’t know it exists. You start with an idea, a question, not the answer.
You are looking at this like an adult looking backwards, not a young person looking forwards. You can not learn in reverse.
Tiktok is a feed. You watch a clip under a tag and then swipe to the next one, right? This is not designed to learn. If there is a way to search and interact like YouTube, I sure do not know about it and it is not used often since most people will just scroll though the feed.
On YouTube and LBRY, you search for something and watch it. Yeah you can have a feed too with YouTube and LBRY but this is optional.
Another thing I do not like about TikTok is you cannot browse TikTok in the browser, they force you to install their app, which is one reason I don’t use it.
How can you search for something that you are unaware of?
You gather ideas, ask questions, and then you take them somewhere else.
Again, you are thinking in reverse. An adult with a few decades of experience under their belt. Tiktok, in part, appeals to young people because they inherently have a beginner’s mindset. Everything is new and there’s much to learn.
Are many tiktok users gathering ideas, asking questions and looking into this stuff further? I do not see this at all. I did not see this with Vine users when Vine was around and I do not see this with Instgram users which is simular to Tiktok, being a “scrolling feed platform”.
I do see YouTube users and LBRY users having the most curiosity compared to other platforms.
I get it, many YouTube users watch a few videos they maybe suggested to them by an feed or algorithm, then explore this further. How Tiktok and Instagram are designed, it a feed.
You make a point that it could get an idea planted in your head. However to my understanding the user will need to go to another platform like YouTube to explore an idea further since Tiktok is not designed for this.
Yes. You don’t see it because you don’t use it.
You can very much search and follow creators and topics. You can view a feed of just subscribed profiles. I do wish there were ways to make lists of profiles to have more focused feeds at different times, but that’s hardly a scathing indictment.
Have you used TikTok? How long do you think videos can last? Because they can be up to 10 minutes; plenty of time for quality content. Not to mention, many longer videos are broken into multiple smaller parts (similar to tweet threads).
To your specific point, there are some excellent WWII scholars producing TikTok content on topics such as countering Holocaust denialism.
Beyond that, there are many things people can learn more efficiently outside of long-form content. Recipes are a great example: search engine algorithms have made recipe websites a complete disaster. Literally no one wants to read (or write) about my step grand uncles 3rd cousins summer cabin, but SEO demands bloat. In a short form video, there’s not as much time for algorthmically mandated filler.
No I do not use TikTok but I do know videos can be 10m long. However many TikTok videos do end up outside of TikTok like on YouTube or LBRY and they are usually under 1m.
I am sure there are lots of WWII channels on TikTok, but the tall video format, and the effects are just annoying.
The video format is made for the device format where most people consume it. It’s just as annoying when someone clips a widescreen formatted video on TikTok. The ability to learn from something isn’t affected by the video being horizontal or vertical.
If you look at most videos on the internet. Videos that are tall are not usually educational compared widescreen videos. If a content creator wanted to make a video on WWII, they will likely use video editing tools and whip up a widescreen video. When people want to share how their day is, they do not use a video editor, they open up an app and record themselves.
I find tall videos annoying, even on smartphones.
There’s more widescreen content because it’s an older format. A video creator doesn’t innately prefer one format or another; they use the format of their platform. This argument is no different than saying “if someone wants to educate, they’ll never use videos, they’ll only use books”.
So I guess after this whole thread, the thing we land on is: agreeing to disagree that “vertical videos are annoying”.