#i hate you algorithms i hate you fyp i hate you 'based on likes' i hate you 'your following follows' i hate you suggested content i hate y | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pixiemage · 2 years

Text

I do have one concern in particular about what would happen if a flood of new people switched from Twitter to Tumblr. Most folks here are seeing it as the Twitter users having to brave this terrifying and strange new terrain and either abandoning ship or learning the lay of the land. Adapt or die. 🥳

But being someone who used TikTok before it because overrun with influencers and the general social media populace…the outcome of a platform switch depends on what kind of people decide to join Tumblr and how many there are.

TikTok used to be a nicer place, if memory serves. Like - yes, we were all bitter about random videos getting taken down for no reason, and we all hated the algorithm, but that’s not the point. It wasn’t as hated as it seems to be now. I’m part of the cosplay and fandom community over there. Back when I first joined, those types of creators used to THRIVE. I used to interact with tons of folks who cosplayed from the same fandoms I did, I made friends in that community, I saw their videos all over my FYP, and my own videos did well. It was easy to find people who were like you and most people were fairly friendly.

But then…the general populace found TikTok. It got overloaded with people who were just there for a flash of attention and to make money in scammish ways on livestreams. You just had to look pretty and you’d rake in the views. (Which says something about how the kind of viewers on the app changed too.) I can’t say much for other types of videos because I started to pull away a bit during this, but cosplay videos - my own and those of my friends - suddenly tanked in views and stopped appearing on people’s pages. Even our followers stopped seeing what we were creating. I stopped seeing videos from new cosplayers and those who enjoyed the same things I did. All I’d see suggested to me were people following the latest TikTok trend or folks who gave off major “I’m just here to be eye candy” vibes or people just - duetting a video and staring at the screen and doing nothing, just to put it on their own page.

(I did end up finding a ton of really creative skit-based content in this time and I love that it was part of this new shift in content, but that’s only a small gem cluster of quality creators compared to the greater whole)

TikTok seems to be leaning in a slightly better direction again as I think some of the hype surrounding it lessened slightly in the past year? But still, it’s not the same as it used to be. It’s not the smaller, close-knit community I remember. Some of that can definitely be attributed to the algorithmic changes that were made (which we don’t have to worry about on Tumblr, thank god) but a greater part is due to the kind of people who joined and took over our comfort zone in the first place, overrunning it with new content created by people who didn’t understand what TikTok - or Musical.ly, as it once began - had become for cosplayers and creators who hadn’t been able to find a home anywhere else.

I’m not saying that will happen to Tumblr, but I can’t help but worry…and I’m sure you can understand why.

#Twitter #TikTok #Tumblr

16 notes · View notes

deadindeathvalley · 2 years

Text

One thing I hate is when people act like something is bad just because they don’t like it.

They’ll be all like “This is the worst thing on the entire planet the person who created it is talentless and deserves to die - BUT THATS JUST MY OPINION”

Like, what happened to just saying “eh, not my thing.” ??

It made me think about this tiktok I saw where this person was discussing how the internet has changed, and how there used to be little pockets of it for freaks and weirdos to be freaks and weirdos in their own little safe space, but now because everything is algorithm based, anything can just end up on anyone’s FYP and neurotypical people or people who don’t get fandom will clown on and bully this weird thing they don’t understand, until its NOT a safe space for people anymore.

My takeaway from this is, you want to bully people for being freaks and weirdos, then when they get upset or call you out for being an asshole y’all act like

The ironic part of all of this is I see this pretty heavily with Gen-Z. Not that us Millennials weren’t also pretentious assholes in our time, but you have Gen-Z wanting to call out everyone and everything for being problematic, not seeing the irony in bullying people for liking something they cancelled or decided was “cringe.”

#Anyway #that's my rant for the day #just let people enjoy things #i like the new panic album suck my dick

2 notes · View notes

pinkprettycure · 1 year

Text

the only reason so many of y'all who have tiktok accounts keep seeing bad takes on your FOR YOU page is because you and the people you like to follow keep interacting with it. the algorithm doesn't see the difference between hate comments lmao. you can't help but argue and fight and dunk on every bad take you see and now the platform wants to show you it more. but nothing to that platform is unique to tiktok there are morons on every website have y'all seen a youtube comment section?

following tiktok is a vastly different experience for different people like my tiktok FYP is shit like among us memes, the davinky twins, doll videos, and this guy who hatches snake eggs. my cousins are all fucking normie's and they get shit like "haha tfw the wife comes home haha" and "pov we're getting popeyes" and they get way more dancing videos than do. i promise you they aren't seeing fucking ship discourse or 14 year olds arguing about pride flags.

just any other platform you're going to see different content depending on how you interact. whether it be the tiktok algorithm and it basing what it shows you on your own activity. or your tumblr dashboard showing you blogs and content that you told it you choose to follow.

#are you telling me char broiled this burger?

0 notes

ladylingua · 3 years

Text

I’ve been struggling to figure out why I have a really negative time with algorithm based social media, such as tiktok, and I think that one of the problems is that some of what I am drawn to is not good for me and that’s what the algorithm is designed to feed me

I love to hate read/watch things, I’m drawn to arguing with people or just obsessively consuming content made by people I profoundly disagree with and just getting more and more outraged and disgusted, but that is not actually good for me

On a site like tumblr the people in my feed are people I have consciously choose to follow. I may go to other people’s pages to consume that negative content, but they don’t just show up in my feed. I have to decide I’m exposing myself to that, and I can also easily decide to quit when I’ve had enough. The stuff I’m just exposed to without conscious choice is stuff coming from people I have pre-vetted to know I (mostly) want their content. I don’t follow people I dislike because I don’t want to boost their signal.

On tiktok that negative stuff just creeps into my feed, slowly. I start interacting with it, it comes in more. Soon my whole feed is content that actively upsets me. And because I’m not like purposely seeking it out, it’s just coming to me, it starts to feel like “everyone” thinks these things that I find angering and upsetting, I’m the only one who finds it objectionable. It puts me in a really bad place mentally and makes me see the world really negatively.

Is this just a me issue? Has anyone else found their FYP taken over by stuff you are maybe drawn to but is not healthy for you? Do you know how to steer the algorithm towards more positive interactions?

81 notes · View notes

anamatics · 3 years

Note

can you add anything about studying tiktok academically? That sounds v interesting. I just saw you post on a text post about it. apologies if you’ve mentioned it before; I just started following you.

the post in question

To specifically address that post:

Firstly, I think we need to divorce ourselves from the idea that it is just “Zoomers” or “Children” on TikTok. I don’t have specific statistics on the demographics, but there there are certainly as many Millennial, Gen X and Boomer users of the platform as there are Gen Z and younger users.

Secondly, let’s talk a little bit about the mirroring discourse between 2014 Tumblr and 2021 TikTok. The commentary on this particular post does a poor job at framing what the actual problem is on TikTok. So let’s start there.

Tumblr was a website of networks. You follow people and you see what they share on their blogs on your dash and you can share your own content into that stream. It produces what are called information flows, where content flows across various nodes (blogs) through interconnected edges (the person to person connection made by act of you sharing something). Here’s a blog explaining how this works. Here’s a good book that discusses virality and information flows. Tumblr is also a bit complicated, as people can add to posts. This is why there are like 5 versions of every great tumblr meme with different people riffing on the OP. As the post grew, as did the spread of the people who commented below it. But here’s the thing. You, as a user on Tumblr, a conscious choice whether or not to reblog a post and to your blog and therefore your followers. "Discourse"* on Tumblr was curated by social networks of individual users that individual users self-selected into by following various blogs.

TikTok, on the other hand, is curated by an algorithm. You, as a user of TikTok, can shape what you see on your For You Page (FYP). The whole purpose of the FYP is to show you what you want to see, to keep you on the platform. As per TikTok themselves, you are put into a specific space based on what you consciously or unconsciously directed TikTok to believe you fit into. This is done consciously by following people, liking/commenting on/sharing content. It’s done unconsciously too, by watching TikTok content. This is why sometimes you’ll see people complaining that all they’re getting is like, queer discourse. It’s because you watch it. Maybe multiple times to get everything that was said because the app has no built-in captioning feature.

What this means, in essence, is that unlike Tumblr, the user has no real and/or direct control over where, potentially, their content could flow to. In interview studies that I've done with TikTok users, I've found that many TikTok users are careful about the content they produce because they're afraid of it attracting "the wrong kind of attention" - this could be say, a BLM activist getting harassed by white supremacists, or a Native American creator getting harassed by WitchTok for discussing how using certain kinds of sage is appropriative**. The pile on can be aggressive, as that post says, but what that post is missing is that you, as user on TikTok have no control over where that information goes or flows to. This gets more complicated with stitching and dueting.

So, if Tumblr has a more linear flow of information from node to node, TikTok takes information apart, splices it together, and all of it is made more complicated by peoples' faces being attached to it. Then it essentially pingpongs around an essentially closed network determined by algorithmic identity derived from measurable types. This is the part that concerns me. That post is right, people's faces make it more complicated. It complicates privacy. It complicates repercussions for people because it doesn't allow people to learn and grow and change. With video evidence, however, these things get harder. Which the internet writ large needs to get fucking better about.

However. I was on Tumblr in 2014. I essentially content moderated a fandom for three years as a side gig to my day job. The conversations that are being had on TikTok are the exact same ones that were being had on Tumblr half a decade ago because -- get this -- a whole new generation of young, emergent thinkers, are trying on theory. They're trying on identities, they're experimenting with who they are and they're trying to talk it out***. It is as mean and as nasty and as unpleasant and we should sit with the fact that Tumblr was fucking toxic because we made it that way. The problem is that the kids have picked the world's shittiest platform to do it on. Like Twitter, TikTok is limited in what you can do/say. So nuance is lost. What this means is that pile-ons can spin out of control, because these are kids who've just discovered debate and theory and ugh, "discourse" and therefore wield it with gusto when they could be more humane, more gentle, and more understanding of the fact that no one's perfect.

(*sidebar that I high-key hate how discourse has gained a negative connotation because of this hellsite.

**And it is appropriative so stop doing it if you are.

***Baby leftists plz stop being Tankies do you have any idea how many People Stalin/Lenin had killed.)

#posting about the day job on main #disciplineandpunnish

29 notes · View notes

dgrif · 4 years

Text

I just straight don’t vibe with people who act like they’re too good for tiktok skhbgskhgb cause like it’s literally for 1 of 2 reasons. either they’re judgmental towards gen z kids in a weird gen x era “I’m a millennial and kids these days are cringey and stupid” thing, or they are being xenophobic and hate it for being a “chinese app” and spread either conspiracy theories about it or hold it to higher standards than american apps that do the literal same thing

people complain about their censorship but we’ve run into the exact same things on other apps and STILL minority creators and communities are thriving in ways that frankly I think is stronger and better than any other app. (I’ve not seen youtube torn down a FRACTION as much for hiding lgbt content as much as tiktok has, and twitter was hiding blm stuff the same way at the same time and still only tiktok was blasted for it.)

letftist youth are getting together and pulling off some really incredible things on this app! unlike with text based conversations, I’m seeing more actual conversations being had by people doing educating, and frankly I’ve witnessed more kids being educated than pointless discourse and it’s SO refreshing. the same conversations on other social media returns fruitless discourse meanwhile I’ve watched ignorant kids learn and burn maga hats and trump flags they once had.

the way the left and specifically leftist youth are functioning and spreading info is the most informational and impacting I’ve ever seen! the first weeks of blm I saw more firsthand footage and proof of what was going on on just my fyp than I could find by tag searching on other sites.

and basic functionality is so good! the algorithm is good at figuring out what you like and can fill your feed with very specific things. like I’m not just on gay tiktok myself, it managed to put me specifically on goth/witch lesbian tiktok. and if you’re seeing a bunch of videos that don’t appeal to you, stick with it for a few days, find a creator or two you like and follow them, and your feed will literally change to suit you. to me there really is no replacing the ability to see specific content that’s tailored to me rather than relying solely on individual creators and hoping they don’t change their content, even though you can do specifically that too!. niche stuff becomes way more easily accessed, and community instantly came to me instead of the having to search it out.

like I have literally just never seen someone who genuinely used the app and then hated it for a reason that wasn’t either shitty or easily dealt with. my biggest support for using it was also the observation of my mental health as I switched between apps - I like to think I’m in good communities on every social media app I use; and yet the weeks I used twitter and tumblr much more often, my mental health took a spectacular dive. the weeks I used tiktok more dominanatly I was consistently more happy. the average gay experience on tiktok was seeing content generated by other gay users - meanwhile the gay experience on twitter and tumblr no matter how hard I try seems to be constant discourse and homophobic takes, even if it’s just exposure through arguments and callouts.

the way the app is set up, the time limitation on videos, the way that seeing people talk rather than a random icon and username type things, I think it all adds up to better, more concise experience where a lot of it is educational in an accessible way and not overrun with adds or clickbait bc videos aren’t monetized like youtube, it limits discourse and shitty behavior towards others because it’s reminding people that the people on the other side of the screen are PEOPLE, and it’s the most in touch with current events and real life bc a lot of it is videoing or talking about actual real life shit rather than focusing on cultivating an online exclusive experience.

like blanket statement? I think it’s shaping up to be healthier and more positive and impacting than other social media sites as a whole and I’m sick of hearing either generational boohooing or xenophobia as the excuse to hate it. if you don’t do either of those things and stilll hate it? tbh I think you just don’t know how to use it.

edit: someone pointed out sensitivity issues which is TRUE and VALID and i honestly can't believe i forgot, but also the reason i think i did: ppl with sensitivity issues are usually not complaining about tiktok or acting like they're too good for it, they just can't use it. not really the same thing

11 notes · View notes

aahsoka · 4 years

Text

So having been on tiktok for a bit I wanna talk a little about it.

What I like

It’s actually rather entertaining to scroll through up to 30 second videos one after the other. Sometimes the humor falls flat or it’s not your taste, but the algorithim is quite good at recommending the kind of content you will like.

I joined right when there was a big trend going around about sharing your culture, and soon after a Blackout trend where non-Black creators stopped posting for a day & spread/supported videos by Black creators. So I ended up with a fairly diverse fyp or “for you page”. It also quickly gathered that I am bisexual, so I get plenty of lgbt+ content. There’s some art mixed in there, some cosplay, some historical costuming/seamstresses, lots of avatar jokes lately, musical theatre content, fashion, girls in bikinis on rollerskates (in outer space), commentary on political issues, body positivity, all the kinds of stuff I like. To get a feed that caters to your interests you just have to watch & like videos you’re interested in & eventually it gets a feel for what you’ll watch and what you won’t.

Theres a trend where people say which ‘side’ of tiktok they’re on and I get ‘science side of tumblr’ flashbacks but I’ve mostly avoided the “straight” and conservative sides of tiktok. I would be considered a part of “woke”, “alt” (as in alternative) and lgbt+ tiktok (there are separate ones for each letter of the acronym). Possibly also “theatre” and “cosplay” tiktok. These categories are nebulous and you’re usually part of multiple communities; its just as arbitray as ‘science side of tumblr’ was.

The format reminds me of snapchat a little, and I love to talk to myself on video & post dumb thirst traps for my friends (none of which I’m attracted to so idk what my goal is there) and make stupid jokes. So this app is kinda perfect for my attention seeking side & hyperactive tendencies. Its very easy to consume on a short attention span, though not as easy as vine was.

Being in quarantine, its a way for a lot of people to engage in hobbies that involve community. Cosplay is pretty popular, as its a fun way to show off a costume & dress up & have fun without having to attend a convention. I enjoy the way lip synced audios can be used to emulate the character someone is dressed as; that’s something you couldn’t really do unless you were really good at impressions. Its a nice succinct way to show the process of creating a cosplay as well.

Those who enjoy theatre, but cannot perform in shows at this time, are able to create mini-monologues & sketches as well as sing parts of their favorite songs. Its an avenue through which to perform without putting anyone at risk of the virus. It’s also an easy way to show off your talents without having to go through the audition process & actually get cast in a show as a prominent enough role that someone will notice it.

It’s a convenient format for discourse and educational videos. Nice, short, easily digestible tidbits that stay in your mind. This extremely catchy song, for example: “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime, and white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime. And all of those stupid stats you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up”.

As well as other videos where people take the time to explain historical events, satirize racist arguments to demonstrate why they are wrong, talk about prevalent tropes in movies, teach a few signs in ASL, share facts about their culture, etc, etc. I have found there are quite a lot of people there from unique and fairly unknown cultures and backgrounds- and this is a place where they’re able to share their culture & existence with people all over the world. There are a thousand different viewpoints. Their videos are doing far more for diverse representation than any other platform, I’d argue, as everyone is extremely visible on the app. (‘Their’ as in the creators, not the app itself).

I also have enjoyed coming across new artists on the app. It’s really fun to watch the process they go through, as most art videos deal with the whole creation of a piece. It’s inspiring. I have also come across a painter who’s work I’m in love with, and a woman who makes and sells the CUTEST ceramic mugs, and I need to purchase some stuff from them both.

Now onto the bad:

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have much in the way of a filtering or warning system. I talked about that tiktok of the kids coming across human remains? That was just on people’s fyp. Just popped up. No warning. No reason for it to still be up. Traumatizing.

You can click on a video and say ‘not interested’ (I do this to literally every video I get where some girl is thirsting after kylo ren 🤮..... like I want the star wars videos just not THOSE videos). However, it doesn’t seem to know exactly why you weren’t interested, because I still get those videos from time to time. There’s no content filter where I can blacklist the kylo ren or any other hashtag.

There’s some very shitty content. There are racist conservatives. Misogynistic teen white boys. Really weird thirst traps. Videos where people lip sync to something with a straight face and tag it with #acting. Harmful body image trends. I thankfully stay very clear of this, but this kind of content makes me worry for the minors on the app. The one’s who don’t have enough of a concept of self yet to realize they don’t need to be able to do the newest pointless beauty trend to be beautiful, to realize it’s ok for them to be gay, to realize how predatory some adults can be, etc etc.

It is extremely easy to come across minors on the app who don’t look like teens. One time I went to a girl’s page and it said she was FIFTEEN. I’m usually good at guessing ages but something about this app messes that up. I wish there was a way to separate people under 18 and adults. Where I don’t have minor’s thirst traps popping up on my fyp. Where pedophiles don’t get a chance to curate that fyp intentionally. If anyone reading this has kids, I highly recommend they make their tiktok private or only viewable to friends.

Just like any site, there are plenty of bigots. Lots of racist comments. Plenty of transphobia. Any hatred you’ve seen elsewhere, of course it exists on tiktok. I have actually zero clue if you can report people & if it works. Most people seem to send a video commentary to their haters or duet a video of a racist pointing out their racism. I’ve heard of creators blocking people, however. I remember a tiktok of a Black woman who’s video somehow went fairly viral in Poland and now she gets a lot of racist comments from this large group of random racisf Polish followers she has and its extremely time consuming to block them all, as there’s no mass block feature.

The rumors about what works with the algorithm and doesn’t abound. I’ve heard well lit videos get more views. Many people suspect they have been shadowbanned for speaking out about current events. TikTok will remove the audio from videos sometimes if they deem it controversial enough. Most of us know they were criticized recently for intentionally keeping Black creator’s videos from being seen (a catalyst for the Blackout, actually). Or you may also recall when it was criticized for widely removing lgbt+ content. Those creators are fighting to be seen the same amount as straight cis white creators are allowed to be seen with no effort.

The effects some trends could have on teen girls. So many of them are already so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of societal standards, but the absolutely meaningless challenges people come up with on tiktok make it so much worse. One trend was based around whether your finger touched your lips when you put it in your nose. Or if you could get your clasped hands around the back of your legs and over your butt (if they get passed, you have a flat ass, if they get stuck, its big). These completely arbitrary signifiers of the things you need to have in order to be pretty, are far more ridiculous that anything I have seen yet in my life. I worry about little girls taking these ideas to heart. There is a very kind body positive community on the app & I hope more people can find that.

There’s also that thing where they steal your data. Like most apps. But apparently they got a lot more invasive than usual, so I would look into it before making an account; if you want to do that.

I think the apps users can be great & its a pretty intuitive set up. It certainly deserves its popularity solely as a creative form of social media. That being said, its owners are so so insidious & do the worst things. Just like all other social media, its controlled by the worst kind of people. Who can never figure out how to effectively get rid of nazis or keep kids safe from adult content.

These are my less serious gripes with the app:

1) Lip syncing

When people lip sync and don’t do any kind of skit, joke, etc, just look as if they’re saying what someone else said; I hate that. I have to go back and find the original tiktok so I can like it instead. You literally did nothing interesting by ripping off someones audio and moving your lips along to it. So many people on this app are creative and so many others lack any semblance of creativity.

Also people are too easily impressed by lip syncing to kinda-fast songs. I lip synced to like....10 seconds of the devil went down to georgia and two people praised my lip syncing abilities. Like, I can also sing and talk fast, out loud, isn’t that more impressive? more skillful? The fiddle playing in that song is impressive, not the fact I can lip sync ‘the devil went down to georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, cause he was way behind.’ Have you ever seen someone play Johnny’s fiddle solo????? It’s insane!!!

Rather than see someone lip sync to the verse in Stressed Out 2x faster than normal (which is, extremely simple and the song was overplayed and ingrained into our collective consciousness) and go WOW what about someone.....doing the verse out loud. You can litterally just mouth random words and look like you’re saying the right ones. It’s driving me crazy lmao. I’m set to become a God of tiktok because I have a repertoire of fast songs and rap verses memorized. It’s not even an uncommon skill to speak or sing quickly, people literally make rap music for a living! Listen to it maybe.

2) “Acting”

I am begging you to stop making me sit through those horrible POVs. I cannot take another girl not quite fake crying towards the camera as she lip syncs the words from a song that apply to the random situation she decided she was in. I cannot take another boy who thinks its sexy to stare into a camera and smirk in every single situation he creates.

Back to lip syncing, making facial expressions along to words isn’t really acting. Try saying the words out loud perhaps? The inflection you use with your lines is a pretty big part of acting. Like you can lip sync all you want, just stop tagging it with #acting.

3) Comedic timing, or lack thereof

You don’t need the entire intro to sit there looking at the camera waiting until the first line starts and you can lip sync to the part that’s the joke. You could cut off at least 15 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit.

When your joke involves both reading text on screen and listening to the song for the punchline, if it isn’t done prefectly, its so difficult to follow. I can’t read a paragraph in 5 seconds. Paraphrase.

4) self deprecating artist audio

the audio thats like ‘this wont get views’ ‘I suck’ ‘you probably won’t see this anyway’ LOVE YOURSELF

It sucks when people dont enagage with your art but it sucks worse when your value in yourself and you art is based solely on receiving that validation. Please find a healthy medium.

Also you’re asking for pity, and you don’t want that. You want people who genuinely love your art for what it is.

5) editing videos is really hard how do you make such cool & smooth transitions????

please help me I don’t understand

Finally

here’s my account if you’re interested

#this long ass opinion article no one asked for #tiktok #social media #jordan talks #long post /

7 notes · View notes

johnboothus · 3 years

Text

Willett Pot Still: The Liquid #BourbonTok Loves to Hate

For more stories on TikTok, check out our whole series here.

“What’s up Bourbon TikTok? … Today I want to tell you about my least favorite bottle in my collection,” says Chad Watson, a Lexington, Ky.-based bourbon enthusiast who goes by @mydailybourbon. Wearing a black tie with a zippered gray jacket, over the next 40 seconds Watson discusses how much he dislikes Willett Pot Still Reserve — “too malty, too earthy, too grassy” — which has become the bourbon that TikTokers most love to hate.

Spend any amount of time on so-called Bourbon TikTok and you can’t help but run across hundreds of reviews for Willett Pot Still Reserve. Some are professional, most are amateur, a few are earnest, many more are comical, bordering on cruel. And they’re nearly all negative, as though slamming this particular whiskey is a rite of passage in becoming a bourbon reviewer on the exceedingly popular platform.

So how did Willett Pot Still Reserve become the most dunked-on bourbon in all of TikTok?

“TikTokers are doing a service that others in the blogging, YouTube, Instagram, and even the podcast space can’t,” believes Kenny Coleman, host of the Bourbon Pursuit podcast. He says that once something like these Willett Pot Still slams take off via TikTok’s algorithm, more are certain to follow. “So now bourbon reviewers on TikTok are getting a message out to people who didn’t necessarily know there even are bourbon reviews,” he says.

@whiskeydizz

Honest and Unbiased Review #willett #potstill #bourbon #fyp #bourbontiktok #whiskey

♬ Blade Runner 2049 – Synthwave Goose

Zero Point Zero

For connoisseurs, Willett holds a hallowed position in the American whiskey pantheon. The company humbly began in 1984 when Even Kulsveen purchased it from his father-in-law, Thompson Willett, and renamed it Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. But Kulsveen wasn’t actually distilling anything, instead sourcing unwanted stock from nearby distilleries like Bernheim, Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, and the vaunted Stitzel-Weller.

As the modern American whiskey boom began to take shape in the early aughts, Kulsveen’s son Drew began releasing their most primo stock as cask-strength, non-chill-filtered single barrels under the umbrella Willett Family Estate. Some of these, with names like Red Hook Rye, Doug’s Green Ink, and Rathskeller Rye, became some of the most acclaimed releases in American whiskey history. Pretty much all Willett Family Estate bottlings released since 2006 now sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars — and, if you lack knowledge and connections, you really have no chance to ever score any.

“Purple tops, green tops, that’s fun stuff, but when it comes to [Pot Still] … it’s just not for me,” says Watson.

Unfortunately, almost all Willett looks identical — Cognac-style bottles topped with, as Watson mentions, purple foil tops, green foil tops, or white wax. All are slapped with stark white labels featuring the Willett family crest, with the only identifying differences being tiny, handwritten details indicating each bottle’s age, proof, and sometimes an esoteric barrel number. (For a while, the whiskey internet circulated a Google spreadsheet to keep track of these barrel numbers.) All this is what makes the Willett portfolio, if you will, completely inscrutable to newcomers.

“Willett is a very notable brand and people love to chase their limited releases,” says Watson. “So Willett does what most brands would do in that case: creates a product that draws people with their eyes, is priced decently, and is pretty much always available.”

That product, of course, being Willett Pot Still Reserve, the only Willett whiskey ever released into the mainstream. And that’s where I suspect the cognitive dissonance sets in.

Newcomers to the bourbon hobby see the reverent tones Willett is spoken with online, then assume that all Willett is the great Willett that whiskey geeks have been stockpiling for years. The fact that Willett Pot Still Reserve comes in an eye-catching glass decanter — meant to look like a literal copper pot still — solidifies the fact they’ve stumbled upon a good score, which makes the ensuing disappointment once they finally taste it all the worse.

“What’s up guys and gals, this is Kent Davis, wanting to give you an honest bourbon review,” says @kentedavis33, speaking over a still image of the Pot Still bottle. His following nine-second TikTok is a succinct slam:

“Nice bottle, but zero point zero.”

@mattybourbon

Willett Pot Still Reserve Review#bourbon #bourbonreview #whiskey #whiskeyreview

♬ original sound – MATTYBOURBON

Nicest Looking Bottle in My Collection

That “nice” bottle is exactly what leads to so much animus, claims Watson.

“Once people try the juice inside, they realize they have been duped,” says Watson. “For what seems like an amazing art piece, the liquid inside just doesn’t match the standard. It tastes young, earthy, and very green.”

Almost all Pot Still appearances on TikTok begin with the reviewer mentioning how much they like the bottle. In his review, Watson notes that the “bottle shape … is really cool.” “Pretty neat bottle…” says @glennflashwells. “Nicest looking bottle in my collection hands down,” says @mattybourbon. In many cases that will be the last wholly positive thing uttered by the reviewer.

Florida-based Andy Mauldin (@ronbourbondy) chose Willett Pot Still for his first-ever TikTok review earlier this year, claiming he’s never tried it before. Though even that doesn’t stop him from comically coughing after his first sip.

“Whahoooooaa, that is hot!” he exclaims as he struggles to clear his throat. He eventually calls Willett Pot Still Reserve “trash,” noting that the bottle is its “only redeeming quality.” Josh Grundemann (@bassinandbourbon) also coughs, nearly choking after sipping his first-ever Pot Still pour.

“That might be the worst bourbon I’ve ever tasted,” states the Louisiana man.

@bassinandbourbon

Is Willet Pot Still worth it? @60secondbourbonreview and @caseywarr do! Here’s my thoughts! #BourbonTikTok #Bourbon #fyp

♬ original sound – Josh Grundmann

In a way, you could say a TikToker’s first sip of Willett Pot Still is the baptism by firewater that catapults them to the next level of connoisseurship. Maybe they’ll now be ready to get more serious with their bourbon reviewing. Or, maybe they’ll just want to milk the “Pot Still sucks” joke even further — by now it’s started to become a sort of TikTok meme.

Maudlin, for his part, did a follow-up TikTok where he dumps his remaining Pot Still into a fancy crystal decanter, jokingly hoping his wife will now assume it’s the “good stuff,” and thus drink it after running out of her preferred rosé.

If many Pot Still bashers go for the laughs regarding how awful it is compared to the luxe accommodations of the bottle it is housed in, there are a scant few TikTokers who are more earnest in their reviews. Steve Higdon (@60secondbourbonreview) finds Pot Still “pretty mellow” and “easy to drink.” Casey Warr thinks it’s “okay stuff.” While @mattybourbon calls it “not a great bourbon,” though admits it has a nice nose with notes of buttered popcorn, scoring it a decent 5 out of 10.

Those reviews might not elicit laughs or a viral view count, but they’re more accurate in their assessments. Pot Still Reserve is certainly not good — and I would never keep a bottle of it in my house — but it’s not as bad as TikTok would have you believe. Distiller rates it an 88 (out of 100), while Drink Hacker scores it a B+. That feels about right to me. Rumors abound that the spirit has gotten worse over the years, changing from a rye-flavored single-barrel bourbon to a wheated “small batch” blend of undisclosed origins. Whatever the case, it is almost certainly not 100 percent distilled via pot still, which makes the name and bottle design even more amusing.

That’s why the online anger continues to flow, with neophytes thinking they scored the world-famous Willett, seeing the fancy bottle suitable for displaying on the back bar, resting their iPhones facing them in selfie mode, firing up TikTok, taking a big sip, and then realizing (on video) that they just threw 50 bucks down the drain.

And, comical though these may be, maybe Willett should start paying more attention to them.

“Whiskey appeals differently to everyone. So there will be camps that like or dislike a certain whiskey,” says Coleman. “But when a majority of people are consistently giving the same message, the brand should take note and adjust.”

Or maybe not, as there continues to be a seemingly endless stream of fresh-faced TikTokers very excited about their recent Pot Still scores. Like @whiskeymorning, who enters his house clutching two bottles of Pot Still by their necks as he dances to Saweetie’s “My Time.”

We’ll wait for his TikTok review once he finally cracks it. My guess is that it will almost certainly involve coughing.

The article Willett Pot Still: The Liquid #BourbonTok Loves to Hate appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/86ed-proof-willett-pot-still/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/willett-pot-still-the-liquid-bourbontok-loves-to-hate

0 notes