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aahsoka · 4 years

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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 /

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hi i’m starting late again. it’s already 12. i’ll try to write fast.

after i do the pokemon stuff.

today i got up late because i had so much trouble falling asleep last night. i had to get up to go to the bathroom THREE TIMES. and then i could not get comfortable. my knees and back always feel real stiff when i curl up, but i can’t fall asleep on my back or stomach. and i feel off balance when i lay with my legs straight out on my side. and i don’t know what to do with my arms so i usually pin them under my pillow. then sometimes they get pins and needles and that keeps me up too.

my restless legs syndrome hasn’t been so bad any more. it’s weird how depression meds affect so many other things in your body. like prozac can make you lactose intolerant, and you can’t eat grapefruit when you’re taking ssri’s. i think it was ssri’s.

anyway i whined and got out of bed not too long after 10. then i wasted time on the computer. then i went downstairs just a little bit before lunch to start making something to eat. i made some buffalo “chicken” “wings.” i usually love them, but today i started feeling ill about halfway in. so i took the dogs outside for a bit, and when i came in they were kinda cold, so i just cleaned up.

after that i looked at the florida apartments web site and took a virtual tour of a one-person studio. it looks like a cozy hole to hide away in. and they take pets, so i can adopt an old cat when i get settled in. i do not have the energy for taking care of and raising a sick kitten again. ping is really cute and playful and i love him, but he is a handful. i need a pet that’s going to have about eve’s current energy level.

she really is sleeping a lot...

i coordinated with my mother to settle on one of the available layouts. we’re going to fill out the paperwork tomorrow. then i hung out with oz on discord for a while. we played battleship and tanx and talked about random stuff. it was relaxing.

at 4:45 dad and i took off for my brother’s track meet. he qualified for the regional competition, which is the level before statewide and then nationwide. he ran the relay race and a 200m dash. when he was done with the relay he came up to the bleachers where i was sitting with mom and dad. i made a joke, i don’t remember what it was, but i was pretty satisfied with my idea. he totally ignored me. like, didn’t even acknowledge i was talking by looking in my general direction.

oh! i commented on the face he made at mom when she insisted on taking a picture of him with his medal. i said it again and he ignored me again, so i gave up.

i had fun watching the kids run around the racetrack. there were two competitors in wheelchairs and they were ripped!!! the poor guy lost every kind of race to the girl though. she was just plain faster than him. and they were going at about the speed i run at. dad commented that they needed more racers so he didn’t have to lose to the same person every time. i actually agreed with him for once? it would be cool if more wheelchair-bound people were encouraged to participate in track. and accommodated for.

i had a good time, except for the shrieking soccer moms. jesus christ! jared can’t hear you from across the field!!! screaming louder won’t fix that!!!!! and you’re telling him to sprint at the worst possible time!!!!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh yeah. on the way to the track meet, dad turned on the radio, so i put in my headphones. then he started talking about stupid idiots who work minimum wage jobs and expect to be able to live off that. because you have such good prospects for the future when you have a dead end job?? we talked about some potential business models to cut off the gap between the ceos and the minimum wage employees. i thought it was interesting and possibly a good idea, but i was doing some research. then dad turned up the radio again, so i put back in my headphones. then dad started talking again, without turning down the radio, and i was just like... (knife emoji). i wanted to rip the radio out of the dashboard and throw it at him.

i don’t like loud noises!!! or piercing ones!!!!!!!!

then we came home and i fed the dogs and had a dumb conversation with mom about her opinion on my favorite apartment layout. then she asked me to do stuff while she peed and i was like... i have had to go so bad for the last 40 minutes and not had a single opportunity.

i also talked a little bit with asher. he is doing well, his stitches look healthy, not in too much pain. that was a relief. and i talked to one of my newer mutuals! that was nice. and one of my villanova classmates messaged me on facebook to catch up. and i talked to will about mailing his fire emblem game back... i still have a conversation i haven’t attended to with another tumblr person. i’ll try to follow up tomorrow.

tumblr’s messaging system is so wonky. it’s impossible to keep track of the conversation if you’re communicating through asks. so it’s always a big thing when i reply because i have to break out the word document of all the asks in the conversation so far, and add the message and my new reply to it. it’s not a big deal, but, it is noticeable.

now it is 12:20. not too late! good. i have one more post to make before i go to bed. it’s short though. just gotta get the image from my phone to my computer.

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