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The “je ne sais quoi” of TikTok (daniel.do)
149 points by mooreds on Nov 18, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 192 comments



I think it's a bit weird to compare TikTok to traditional social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Those older platforms were about your social networks (friends and friends of friends) - or at least they were before they started to ape TikTik.

For me, the much closer comparison to TikTok is YouTube, and I feel that TikTok is really just a mobile-optimized YouTube.


Yes, tiktok is not a social platform. It is an entertainment platform where the content is user generated.


It’s social media vs social networks.

Facebook, SnapChat and Instagram are social networks.

YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit are social media.


Tiktok is not social media at all. It's an entertainment platform.


> Tiktok is not social media at all. It's an entertainment platform.

Plenty of social interaction happens in TikTok comments and DMs. If Instagram is social media, so is TikTok.


One of best features of TikTok is how easy it is to create your own content. You don't even have to think about it: just duplicate what another video is doing with exactly the same moves and exactly the same music. In that sense, it's definitely social media, since almost everyone on that platform is also a creator.


I think it's worth re-evaluating the use of the word 'creator' if people are uploading a video that's 90% copy/paste of something else.

At best its grist for the content mill. Cheap animal feed to fatten the livestock and attract the eye of advertisers.


Isn't Instagram also social media? Or why do I keep hearing influencers being there? Isn't that one of the features of social media?


Instagram can be used without seeing any influencers, it allows you to stick to the content your interested in. In my case, I'm able to just see Evangelion memes from accounts I follow and the occasional ad.


That's just the "following" section of TikTok, which only shows content of those you follow.


Potato vs. Potato


I see Instagram as social media, not social network.

I have no IRL links to any of the accounts I'm following on Insta. I'm interested only in seing beautiful pictures (and not awful "reels").


user generated content, like the way youtube used to be


Aren't there TikTok houses, for people who dedicate their career to making tiktocks?

That's the same as the established YouTube creators


It’ll happen to TikTok too, if it hasn’t already.


Youtube content is generated by its users


I listen to my favorite music on youtube all day. None of that is user generated I would say.


For smaller indie bands, it's not uncommon for members to hang out in the comments of their videos.


You miss out so much


I do pause the youtube music from time to time to listen to other videos. But I use youtube mainly as a spotify substitute.


I agree. That’s a great way of putting it.


I think the main similarity between TikTok and traditional social media is the "keeping up with the Joneses" aspect. Once you've bought in, you see how amazing these peoples' lives are and you want your life to be that great too.

IMO it's all an illusion, but it's not much different from seeing a friend, family member, co-worker. or a prominent business-person/celebrity being more successful than you. The interesting (scary?) thing about TikTok is that it hyper-compresses that environment into a few seconds, then constantly bombards you with it via a neverending flow of videos. It's like keeping up with the Joneses on amphetamines.


Weird part about it, it really depends. The last time I checked, my TikTok feed was just full of funny small videos filmed by random people doing stupid trends outside. Nothing about their lives exactly attracts me. However, the fact that a lot of people see these videos, and I reshare it with my friends and laugh at it together is what can make it remarkable.

Obviously, it heavily depends. I’ve looked at my friends’ feeds and it’s exactly what you’ve described.


This is the actual great thing about TikTok. My experience of TikTok seems very different to the majority of the commenters here, it’s like we’re on different platforms.

Obviously we all like different things, and there is enough content to fill everyone’s feeds with it.


Yeah, the one thing people familiar with TikTok seen to agree on and be impressed by is its ability to cater the content it serves to your desires.

That's actually what got me to try it out. There were multiple cases where I heard that, so downloaded it and spent some time on it. After you've used it a few hours, you start really getting mostly the stuff you like.

You just have to be very careful not to engage with stuff you don't want to see. Scroll away as soon as you've determined it's not for you, as they'll notice if you watch things to the end. I made a conscious decision that I didn't want to engage in content where people were complaining about the behavior of other people and scrolled past as soon as I identified things as such, and I stopped getting them within a few days. My TikTok is all fun/funny stuff.


I've took on a shitty job recently (which I've since quit) and there were a lot of 40-50-60 y.o men working the said crap job. Some 75% of them are watching Tiktoks during breaks, which I've never seen with Youtube/Insta. You can think of "keeping up with the Joneseses" as a disease or something negative (which I do personally), but it's what a looot of people want to do and live like.


I'm not entirely sure I believe this argument that Tiktok is a different level of addictiveness than "traditional" social media (which IMO is a fake distinction with no fundamental difference to "$NEW" social media, but that's a separate discussion). I'd like to see if any data or studies actually suggests the endless scroll of twitter, facebook, instagram and reddit, or the autoplay of youtube, is less addictive than tiktok.

I've certainly seen friends and family compulsively scroll and obsessively check instagram and snapchat in a manner no different than what people are criticizing about tiktok. It seems like people witness their "their generation" using instagram/snapchat for hours on end; then they see the younger generation using tiktok for (the same number of) hours on end, and get the idea it's far more damaging.


I can't seem to find a single site (which would presumably mean a consistent methodology) that lists recent data for average|median use per day for both of them, but I've seen numbers saying people spend 33-50 min per day on Facebook, vs 90+ min per day on TikTok.*

I suspect the curated short video format is what really holds people's attention in a way that is different from "traditional social media".

*disclaimer: as reported by different sites, with different methodologies, and different reporting dates.


I don't see any of those. I see cooking recipes, some sports, and some standup clips, perfect for me. I don't see any of those content you mentioned.


Nah. TikTok embraces flaws, problems, doubts, concerns and failures in a way that other social platforms traditonally have not.


TikTok does in some ways seem like the anti-Instagram or Facebook, or at least my feed does. It's all people using their hardships or quirks as humor and a way to connect, or couples examining the annoyances of marriage and relationships in good humor.

The amount of things I want to and do share with my wife and kids in there makes me thing of the items as small emotional payloads I can send which are themselves a message, sort of like sending an emoji or string of them.


Tik Tok is youtube for people with ADD. I listened to some Mr Beast videos and checked out some of his videos on youtube. OMG its like freakin cuts every 10 seconds, feels like my mind going to explode. I finally figured they cut it like a Tik Tok video for the ADD.


YouTubers have been doing gratuitous jump cuts since like 2011, go look at some Fred videos. It's nothing to do with TikTok nor ADD, they use the jump cuts to mask recording mistakes or to cut out pauses.


> they use the jump cuts to mask recording mistakes or to cut out pauses.

Over time, it becomes a culture signifier of sorts. MrBeast is bigger than Pewdiepie (embarrassed that I know these names), he obviously does not need to paper over mistakes with those cuts.

Same way he doesn't need to make exaggerated open-mouth face for the Youtube thumbnail, but they do anyway.


There have been a few people that examined the topic of YouTube thumbnails, even with a/b testing and statistical analysis (since YouTube allows you to change it and gives good stats). It really does matter to getting views.


> they use jump cuts to mask recording mistakes or to cut out pauses

Both of which of course have a lot to do with reduced attention span.


Pauses and mistakes objectively add negative value to videos it's a good thing that it's removed.


Showing a well placed recording mistake shows the youtubers is still human. You see it all the time in videos and of course it's on purpose.


I need to be in a certain mood to care about the video's "humanity", rather typically I just want the information.


Yes, and the scary part is even for people without ADHD, it's completely killing their attention spans, which is then triggering them to go and get themselves diagnosed. Producing ADHD meds is going to be a lucrative business


One of the greatest marketing moves of all time is coming up with the name "Adderall". It's just amphetamine! Well, a slightly different stereoisomer mix, but just amphetamine nonetheless. Sounds a million times better though, especially if your kid is about to take it.


Isn't Youtube for people with ADD? I don't really use Youtube much, but when I do end up on the site its full of cheap videos with people "reacting" to things with yelling/shocked faces and a bunch of chaotic nonsense.

The only good things on youtube are music videos, DIY repair, and lectures / talks that gets uploaded.


This is a matter of degree, short video sets the bar lower and encourages the behavior. After all, the reacting videos are only small part of Youtube the whole platform, but short videos are always like that kind of nonsense.


People are seeing the young YouTube in TikTok. For monetization reasons, YouTube shifted to longer and better produced videos, and the quirky and raw content the OP is praising TikTok for has become less prominent, although it is definitely still there.


There is an interesting argument here against the idea that YouTube, Facebook, etc are monopolies despite their impressive market share. The moment they try to extract value from their users, they have to shrink their own mote - a competitor can copy the older version of the platform that extracted less money.

They don't actually have much choice in how they run their products.


So if a dictator's hold on power is weak, is it not a dictatorship? Imagine there have been 2 coups over 15 years, yet both produced a winner-takes-nearly-all outcome.

Not sure it matters much if you're at the bottom and have to bow to one for a while then the other.


Put it this way; your comment could be a veiled description of US politics. The typical democracy simulates a coup every 2-5 years in a winner-takes-all contest. If if you're at the bottom and have to bow to one party for a while then the other. Indeed, the description is so apt that everyone ritualistically accuses their political opponents of actually fomenting a coup (powered by Russia/China/Israel/Bill Gates/mobilising dead people/gerrymandering/the electoral college being illegitimate/whatever).

So yes, I do actually believe that. If the hold on power is weak enough it doesn't count as a dictatorship.


The difference is an effective balance of power between branches of a government. Dictators have unchecked power (at least in practice) until they're deposed.

Similarly many of today's tech giants are difficult to escape, especially as network effects drive toward centralization of power.


I think it is TV, you turn it on, after a few second, you have your entertainment. YouTube still needs searching and subscribing, TikTok doesn't need any of those. I compare TikTok to MTV.


There was a pretty interesting article about this recently, called "The end of social media". Social Media is becoming more and more like TikTok, where you don't see your friends content so much but rather upvoted content.

https://mignano.medium.com/the-end-of-social-media-a88ffed21...


As someone who's rapidly moving over to Activity Pub platforms, this was still an interesting read. Over there, it's just like social networking used to be: a strictly chronological feed of posts from people you choose to follow and nothing else. Sure, it's not always the most engaging content (my Facebook feed is still more "sticky"), but engagement is decidedly not the point over there.


Exactly TikTok is just Vine with longer videos, no one was calling Vine a social network.


> He has a fanbase for his videos and clearly gets his needs as a human being (attention, validation, connection) met by posting those videos.

This statement scares me a little. That type of attention/validation/connection seems a mile wide and an inch deep. I hope it's not really where the creator gets his needs met, and that he has actual friends and family who provide that for him.

From what I've seen of celebrities, the life that feeds off the attention and adoration of fans is usually not a healthy one. If TikTok (like other Internet media platforms, only more effectively) democratizes that lifestyle as well as its mirror image - parasocial relationships between fans and creators - I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. It's actually the fraying of our social fabric - making us feel loosely connected with a larger set of people, but at the same time, deeply alone.

I guess I'm old now.


>It's actually the fraying of our social fabric

I honestly don't think it's all that different than other technologies, even though I keep hearing people insist "this time it's different" about Tiktok. Over my life I've heard a similar sentiment of the decay of society regarding Instagram/Youtube/Facebook, about text messaging, about the mobile phone itself, emails, the personal computer/internet, video gaming, and probably other technologies. I grew up decades after television became ubiquitous, and I'm sure the same was said about that.

In fact, take a look at this eloquent essay about digital social media:

>>

>it delivers only... brainless diversions that erode [the] ability to think, inquire, and judge. just another disintegrating toy. Just another medium... for advertisers to use in pestering us

>[They] operate by.. broadcasting so that one... can send his message to millions

>[People just] sit around... if they are feeling particularly loquacious, they may nod to each other. Thus dies the art of conversation. There is now very little danger that [people] will resort to the vice of thinking.

>>

Actually, this isn't an essay about digital social media. It's an excerpt from the essay "Radio - A Blessing Or A Curse?" By Jack Woodford, 1929.


Haha, that's true - human nature hasn't changed much over the millennia, whether it's our desire to invent new ways to communicate and keep ourselves entertained, our fear of new technologies, or love of ragging on the next generation.

Still, I do think it's a bit different each time - these technologies are incrementally more effortless and addictive, feedback loops are incrementally shorter, personalities we "meet" through these technologies incrementally more real and seemingly intimate.

It's a bit analogous to our diets. What our bodies fundamentally need hasn't changed much over the years. And it can be argued that we have constantly experienced changes to our diet throughout human history, and those changes are generally either benign or positive. Yet, it's easy to draw a line between certain "innovations" (trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) to obesity and other health issues. In the same way, we might be able to connect the gradual progress of technology with unprecedented anxiety, depression [1], and loneliness [2].

[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt3... (page 35) [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014019712...


I'm confused. It seems like you are implying that trans fat is benign?

Trans fat is absolutely harmful. The FDA banned adding partially hydrogenated oils (source of most trans fats) to foods back in 2015 and said trans fat is no longer generally recognized as safe.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/trans-fat


He put it next to high-fructose corn syrup, so I guess not?


Yeah,re-reading I think they are implying both are bad. I really shouldn't be replying to people at 2am.


Those quotes are right on the money.

It's why daytime talk radio has greatly contributed to the decline of discourse and civility in America; it has a giant captive audience that made divisive blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and many others enormous fortunes.

Cheap and relentless negativity scales much better than positivity and is more addicting. Nobody is happy-scrolling through social media, and the only people still making money on radio are shock jocks.


Sure, the argument that "other things have been heralded as the end of the world before" is certainly valid and probably true. And, yes, no matter how much we cry, TikTok is here to stay, until it is replaced by something even worse. However, we shouldn't treat this as a binary thing, like "well, if it's not the end of the world then why bother discussing it?" Sure somebody complained that radios would ruin human intelligence, but can we objectively say that radios and TikTok operate the same way, because of that? Objectively, I'd say no. It would be the same as saying that an AR-15 rifle is the same as a knife because both can be used to kill people. Surely if teenagers did not have access to rifles, only knifes, they would kill much less people in schools before they're tackled and immobilized? Crack cocaine and marijuana are both drugs, but surely most reasonable people would not say they are both just as bad? Anyway, for me, TikTok is scary. It is deeply optimized to savagely take advantage of every thing that is wrong with the human mind and use it to keep you inside the Skinner box. Literally, the only thing that it has against it right now is "huh you're not forced to use it, just uninstall it!". Yes, let's just close down every rehab center in the world; after all, you can stop using crack cocaine whenever you want, right.


>Anyway, for me, TikTok is scary. It is deeply optimized to savagely take advantage of every thing that is wrong with the human mind and use it to keep you inside the Skinner box.

Also describes Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I've seen a bunch of slippery slope arguments here but no justification for Tiktok being any worse than the previous generation of social media. I'll agree Tiktok is more addictive than radio, sure.

If the argument is "all modern social media is optimized to take advantage of human psychology" I would agree, but if the argument is "tiktok is worse than the previous generation of social media" then I'd need to see some data/studies/evidence supporting the claim.


I think a lot of people are making the mistake of believing that just because Tik Tok isn't any worse than Facebook or Instagram, then it isn't bad at all. They're all bad for a number of reasons.


I don't think anyone is making the claim any of these platforms don't cause harm - at least I haven't seen that claim being made.

More relevant to the article, is it a net good or net bad? It's easy to make a claim motor vehicles are dangerous and bad, as motor accidents kill over a million people per year. It is much more difficult to justify the counter argument that "the benefits of cars bring much more value to the world than the harm caused by the million deaths per year".

The author of this article states that tiktok brings him and the content creators enjoyment and in some cases livelihood. If the net societal harm of social media outweighs the net good, maybe we should get rid of it entirely.

But if the net good outweighs, perhaps it makes more sense to treat it like cars - enact regulations, restrictions, and safety measures, rather than trying to eliminate it completely.


I was just about to comment on this same sentence. If your validation relies on views and likes on a video, what happens to your ego when you inevitably get haters, trolls, and 1% of people that leave cruel comments for no reason?

I don't think I'm old, but I completely agree with your take. People should base their satisfaction on healthier things than views and likes. Don't ask me what the healthier things are, I don't think I'm old enough to have figured that part out yet.


Reading between the lines, it's simply the author projecting. He has a theory that "attention, validation and connection" and important human needs and he looks at the creator with lots of followers and goes "well he sure is getting his human needs met". There's no evidence that dancing guy is doing so to satisfy his craving for attention. Maybe he just finds it fun.



I am afraid to even install TikTok. For past 6 months, I have spent an average of 4 to 5 hours on Youtube Shorts. I was addicted to them. And it is a much less addictive version of TT (or so I am told).

I forcefully broke the habit by disabling the YT app. Then I started watching them in the browser.

It took enormous will to break out of that addiction (and other addictions as well. I removed Reddit, Twitter, IG, FB and SC)

YET, I still spend an hour, randomly, on YT shorts.

I am worried for the future of my next generation, where their most productive time would be a relaxing break from social media.


I'm in the same boat. I would pay just for the option of disabling shorts. I go to YouTube to enjoy long form content and try to engage my brain a little bit. After watching a pile of Shorts, it feels like the equivalent of eating an entire bag of chips in one sitting. Sure, it was enjoyable while I was doing it but I gained no actual value and now feel kind of sick. But just like a bag of chips, it's so tempting to "eat just one."


I had the same Issue. I can very much recommend the Browser Extension "Distraction free youtube". It has the option to remove shorts, the recommended page and sidebar etc. from the Page completely. Enables you to watch the stuff you are subscribed to without getting sucked into some random shit on the side.


I have successfully stopped this habit using YoutubeVanced. There is an option to hide shorts from the main screen, which was enough for me to stop watching them.


I have two questions - 1) is it still possible to get vanced these days, or do I need to back up whatever apks I may or may not have. and 2) where is this main screen option? I can't find it from a cursory look in the youtube vanced or vanced manager apps


I've been getting ads on vanced recently and I don't have an option to disable shorts


Me too, after Vanced's official discontinuation, more and more ads have slipped into the app. I am now seeing a giant ad thumbnail that shows up as the first "search result". It's portrait-sized too, so it takes up almost the whole screen.

I'm using Newpipe more and more these days.


You just saved my brain so much pain. Thank you


I disabled everything I could on youtube in 2015 or so, they haven't recommended me new content since then, I still haven't seen these "shorts"

I only go there when I know what I want to watch


How can I reach this youtube shorts? I think I've seen 2 shorts in my life when someone linked them somewhere but I don't have a button for youtube shorts?


From the whole blaring section of them under the heading "Shorts" on the front page of youtube.com.


I use Enhancer for Youtube to disable shorts.


What exactly is it that makes YT shorts so compelling?

Genuine question - because I tried watching them several times over, but they never really clicked with me?

Maybe I'm just old - but I honestly don't "get it".


Have you ever felt really tired, so tired that your brain has only room for primal emotion, and not really any rational thought? When you are running on automatic pilot, your reptilian brain is in control and it only cares about the most basic form of stimulation?

That is the spot YT shorts (and TikTok, I guess) are hitting. It's the uncompromising equivalent of the nineties "Fishing with John" or "Beavis and Butt-head".


I have experienced burn-out, yes.

My brain would then make me listen do soft music in a darkened room. Watching videos so short that the entire context completely changes every few seconds would have been way too much.


Similar experience here. I can watch it for 5 minutes and then it starts showing me slight variations of the same stuff. Plus a lot of plain bad content in the mix.

The only thing I enjoy about it is that I can see clips from longer format YouTube videos that if I like I can go watch later. Kind of like a movie trailer would do. I wish YouTube would capitalize on that and make it easy to access the full video from the clip.


It peters off. I use to be a bit worried by my time on TT, but it's gotten a lot less - now I mostly watch it before bed, and don't even lose sleep because of it. I stopped stressing when I realized I was really enjoying it - so why the hell feel guilty?


It's probably affecting your sleep, even if you don't realise it. Various studies have been done on the negative impacts of this kind of engagement right before sleep


You know what else is affecting my sleep? Having a couple of beers in the evening. Having sex. Doing absolutely anything exciting at all, including exercise in the second part of the day.

Yeah. Not tempted to give all of it up.


That's fine, but you're contradicting yourself.


There's a difference between riding a motorcycle without a helmet and eating red meat.

I'm saying TT is closer to the second, when it comes to losing sleep. It may have some effect, if you dig deep enough, but it's a lifestyle choice that's legitimate to make either way.

Drinking coffee in the evenings and complaining that I can't sleep would be the alternative.


Affecting sleep != Losing sleep


>For past 6 months, I have spent an average of 4 to 5 hours on Youtube Shorts.

Per day?


No, an average of 4 to 5 hours on YouTube shorts, per hour. /srs /j


Can you speed up shorts? I know regular YouTube videos can be played at 2x speed.


Yup. Its not at a stretch, but it became my filler activity.

And before sleeping at night.


That’s also how much teens spend on TikTok a day


This article says the global average is 91 minutes/day for kids and teens. 99 minutes/day in the US.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/13/kids-and-teens-watch-more-...


I don't know if it would help, but I have this filter for uBlockOrigin to remove shorts from the website, not because I'm additect but because I don't like them https://pastebin.com/kHejdCqC


I installed TikTok on an iPhone, provided no personal info, and used Apple Login as the ID (which conceals my email, right?). So I assume I’m relatively safe from surveillance… but am I?


24 hours a day, 8 of which is sleeping, 8 of which is work, 8 of which is relaxation. Why not have 4-5 hours of those 8 relaxation hours be YT Shorts? What's the problem, exactly? If it rejuvenates you why not?


Probably because it leaves you feeling empty more so then rejuvenated. Notwithstanding the anxiety and guilt that comes with spending hours on a behavior you actually wish you were not doing.


The hilarious thing about people who defend TikTok with personal anecdotes is that for every person whose timeline is “educational and insightful short clips of woodworking and the migration of sea cows in Norway” there are hundreds of thousands of other people who are sucked into…whatever it is that the author of this article is fascinated by and much more. These types of viewers are essentially no different from each other..it’s already been described better than I can put it; the passive consumption of information that is interesting to us (and algorithmically tailored) and mimics the feeling of joyfulness or whatever emotion used to justify the action.

In truth, I bargain that no one on the internet is exempt from this, except for people who use computers like they are DARPA interns (which I think is the best way to go about it these days).

TikTok is appealing to people because it appeals directly to their desire for mindless consumption (mindless as in engagement, not necessarily always in content, for the “I learned how to book bind on TikTok!” crowd), whether they are aware of it or not. People have been using social media for some decades now, you think the average person can tell that’s what they’re after these days? “I want to simulate the feeling of enlightenment but I don’t want to it in any effort”.

The people who say, “But they said bad things about TV and radio and…” are missing the point. Because those suck too and were precursors to the shenanigans that resulted in TikTok…TikTok…TikTok…we’re wasting our time.


Oof, this is obviously a very sad man trying to rationalize his depepency on TikTok


It’s a classic “27 year old male with no responsibilities” kind of blog post. I’m not knocking it, it’s a relatable phase, but I think you’re right.


If it brings him joy, and he uses it in moderation, why does it matter? It's okay to spend an entire sunday afternoon watching a dozen men throw an eggball at each other but it's an addition to watch videos that bring you joy?


> to watch videos that bring you joy

Does it bring "joy" though ? or does it bring a quick feel good response in your brain that pushes you away from activities that actually bring joy ?

> All men of this stamp, I maintain, are pressing on in pursuit of joy, but they do not know where they may obtain a joy that is both great and enduring. One person seeks it in feasting and self-indulgence; another, in canvassing for honours and in being surrounded by a throng of clients; another, in his mistress; another, in idle display of culture and in literature that has no power to heal; all these men are led astray by delights which are deceptive and short-lived – like drunkenness for example, which pays for a single hour of hilarious madness by a sickness of many days, or like applause and the popularity of enthusiastic approval which are gained, and atoned for, at the cost of great mental disquietude.

Seneca


> Does it bring "joy" though ? or does it bring a quick feel good response in your brain that pushes you away from activities that actually bring joy ?

We’re talking about an app you watch on the toilet or while waiting in line somewhere.


The average use time I find are anywhere between 45 and 90 min per day per user.

I doubt I spend 45 minute per week in my bathroom, let alone on the toilet. We're talking 20 to 45 hours per month, that's enough time to read two to four 400 pages long books instead of absolutely brain dead content


90 is definitely on the high / addictionary side. 30-45m is very much in range of the time we spend in the day doing worthless things to relax.

Are you saying watching, let's say, cat videos for 30m a day is toxic?


> Does it bring "joy" though ? or does it bring a quick feel good response in your brain that pushes you away from activities that actually bring joy ?

It sounds like you're just describing joy. It doesn't bring long-term contentment and fulfillment if that's what you mean, but that's a different thing.


The problem with these things is almost no one can moderate themselves. They need to go cold turkey to really stop. Ask ANYONE how long they think they social media or do anything on their digital device. Most will say an hour at most. If you look at their phone tallys it will be closer to 5-7 hours that they not feel or notice.

If you swap that out with drugs you will not be saying the same thing.


I don’t think anyone’s arguing he shouldn’t be allowed to spend his life on TikTok, they’re just observing it’s not a choice they’d be making. Usually when people gather on a Sunday to watch sports, the ritual is more about the coming together of friends than it is about the egg.

I personally think there’s something profoundly sad about a wealthy, privileged, able-bodied young person with nothing to do but lie in bed and watch video after video of nothingness. I’d call it sad if they spent every afternoon with a bag of heroin too, but in neither case is it my position to tell them they can’t.


Hello,

I am the author of this blog post. I found it while scrolling Hacker News.

I think this thread is really interesting. I actually spend a good amount of my leisure time reading. But I don't think that one of those activities is more virtuous than the other.

Here's screen caps of my phone usage for the last 2 weeks: https://imgur.com/a/XUaIxaF

Does this fit the dystopian picture you painted of how I live my life? What if instead of TikTok, the app was Netflix? would that be better? Should my overall screen time just be less in general? How should it change to make it less profoundly sad?


Every machine learning project I worked on that failed failed because people (sometimes me) didn't figure out a way to get good training data.

Classification on a binary basis ("that person will like that video or not") is on a much better ontological basis than multiple class classification ("out of 50 links, that person picked will pick the 39th") For one thing it is possible to calibrate a yes/no decision, TikTok knows that there is an 80% chance that you're going to like this video and a 30% chance that you are going to like that video and make a rational decision about what to show you. Multi-class classification is a shot in the dark in comparison.

Google and everyone else in social media wants to look like the image in

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Funny/Idiocracy

They give you 50 things to click on and make a big deal about having a privacy policy and how "data is the new oil" but the clickthrough data is absolutely worthless because out of 50 things there were 5 things you might have clicked on and you could only pick one. In particular, they can't come to any conclusion that you didn't like any of the other 49 things.

The HR office hires one black woman for their DEI initiative to work in "AI Ethics" to claim this technology is so powerful that it's actually dangerous and when they get into some spat with management and get fired they are doing their job because it legitimizes the idea that this "artificial intelligence" is so powerful it's dangerous but the web brought to you by Google, Facebook, Twitter and such is artificial stupidity inspired by Idiocracy just as Facebook's metaverse is inspired by Sword Art Online.

TikTok on the other hand really is dangerous, not because it's algorithms are better (they are, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit) but because their whole approach gives them meaningful data that can be put to work. It vindicates the idea of looking at one piece of content a time or a "Tinder for documents" that I talked about here https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/

If you thought this comment was insightful, remember to vote it up because it helps the Hacker News algorithm.


Why does the multi-armed bandit problem imply Tiktok's algorithms are better?


It's a disciplined approach to explore vs exploit.

Just like the Kelley criterion tells you how to turn predictions into bets, the multi-armed bandit tells you how to keep a user engaged in the short term by showing them things you know they'll like but also keep them engaged in the long term by showing them things they might like occasionally which, if they pass the test, will expand the range of things that you know they like.


Multi-armed bandits are used all over the industry. They were in use before TikTok existed.


I never really understood the "dangers" of big corporations knowing you. What are they going to do, serve you better ads? I've thought the same for 20 years, and so far I've been vindicated - there's no widespread personal harm in having an "open" internet persona vs using incognito all the time.


Your personal data is of no value (unless you are of high-profile 0.01% of people).

However, the data of your city, state, country, gender, race is very valuable because then, for example, companies/government/foreign actors can know exactly what is this town, state, country, gender, race is thinking about any given topic. This is enormous value and this is why companies like Cambridge Analytica are so profitable.


I agree, but how is this different from polls, fidelity programs at department stores, statistics on various topics, etc - all of which have existed for decades?


It's different because department store fidelity programs weren't generating terabytes of raw data per day, feeding it into ML systems, correlating output against millions of other data points available for purchase, and then using the resulting insights to manipulate political affairs on a large scale.


I still see no problem with it. They're getting value, I'm getting value.


Mass scale political manipulation? See Brexit, for instance.


It appears democracy has changed fundamentally in the past few years. These days, whenever votes against your personal favourite, they have been manipulated. Its basically the same story on the left and on the right. Both claim the voting result could only have happened because the other side was tampering with poor voters.


Main problem with brexit was bubble. Even now, after so many years, you're saying that it's manipulation, simply because you don't personally know people who wanted it to happen. Who exist, I assure you.

> What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country. > And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.

source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

-------

This being said, guarding my gps history like it's treasure does absolutely zilch to stop political manipulation, when you have stuff like corporate control over mainstream media and PR firms. See NYT's coverage of FTX, for a contemporary example.

Or, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI


No one doubts Brexiteers exist; they won the referendum.

How they came to that opinion is where the manipulation comes in.


You're really saying that after reading the second half of my comment? Mainstream media is overwhelmingly progressive and not shy in being unsubtle, but somehow brexit did it all by being so freaking brilliant that it manipulated even more... somehow.


We can pretend “mainstream media” in the UK doesn’t have things like The Sun in it if you like; no one asserts The Guardian was part of the Brexit full-court press.

You do these things with social media bots, trolls, misinformation, etc.

Brexit wasn’t brilliant. It was an empty slate people could project their worries on. That’s why actual implementation, where details mattered more than slogans, is where the difficulty lay.


You know, the attitude of "plebes are plebes, they should be protected and carefully told what to think so they don't to stupid things like Brexit" is very un-democratic.

They had access to both sides' discourse. They voted. They made a choice.

Instead of taking this information and learning from it, you're just blaming the very progressive-leaning social media.

Oh, why am I even trying. It's ok, it was Big Corp, they're the ones to blame.


You make me feel like a weirdo for hating ads and not wanting to see any of them. And if they're specifically aimed at me and make me more likely to spend money, even worse. I get tempted and then I feel like an idiot for spending the money I worked for on balls shaving machines and flexible pants that look like jeans on the outside.


No, I totally get that. Well, not balls shaving machines, that's between you and the algorithm, I get that ads are a fight for your attention. But that's just a regular tradeoff, nothing huge.


To me, people stating that they don't care about corporation having their data because they're just one person are equally as valid as those who think voting is useless because they're just one ballot.

Those people then typically complain about election results or corporation bending them over, without ever questioning their own responsibility in the outcome.


Are Facebook/Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts then equally dangerous?


I have almost no idea what is compelling about these. I feel like I am reading another language.

A man dancing poorly. A woman riding a train? What's so compelling?

I guess i am finally middle aged.


It makes you feel better I don’t get short form videos either. The content is, well, mostly devoid of content. But I at least conceptually understand how it might be entertaining in the same way I somewhat understand how people find Marvel movies entertaining.


For me the biggest breakthrough was understanding that this is not primarily a visual or audio medium, but an idea medium. This is why objectively poor video or scrappy / copied audio makes no difference to success, instead something deeper is being created and propagated.


Yes! You are the only person in this whole comment thread who gets it. That makes me so sad. It makes me feel like I didn't do a good job communicating in this post.


Ha, thanks, but you did a great job so I sent it to many folk who have been sceptical or nonplussed on the topic.


Yeah, I don't see the appeal either, but I didn't like social media when live journal and myspace were big in my college days.


There's probably going to me a meme about this sometimes: showing your TikTok feed to others and getting blank stares. It's just too personal to also be shareable.

But it's definitely not just fluff. More than once my feed got overly intellectual and long form, and I had to keep liking every not-very-dressed female video just to get back to "funtok".

It's also moderately good to keep up to date with news, at least in the areas you're interested about. At least for the James Web telescope I basically got the front seat, with every little detail explained from several PoVs.


Depends on your interests and what videos you get. Although I don't use tiktok I do use youtube and with its movement towards shorts I recently started seeing some excel tip videos. And some of the tips are helpful and have made my use of excel more efficient so I think like all media platforms how useful something is depends on the user and how they use it rather than the platform.


Not really, I sat with my dad a couple weeks ago as he loves that thing and I wanted to understand what's so cool about it. To me, it's yet another brilliant platform for marketers but can not see the point of using it as a regular user


Don't worry, it just means your brain is still functioning. I was in high school when Vine came out and even back then I thought it was a waste of time.


When someone says "I’m a big fan of TikTok", I just cringe and don't even bother raising my eyebrows. It is cringy people thinking they are cool and screaming all day long. How can anyone watch these for hours?


Talk about missing the point. TT is tailoring content _for you_. Of course if you're not into that sort of thing, you're not going to see that sort of thing.

It's uncanny how specialized it is - every time I try showing my feed to friends, they're at most lukewarm. Sure, there are videos we share and all like, but the overall content is very very personalized.

Just for fun: for a long while a good 10% of the videos TT was showing to me were... backhoes.


The creators of the videos are 12-15 years old kids. What are you talking about.


While, yeah, the demographic skews younger, TikTok is enormous. There are plenty of adults there.


I sincerely feel sorry for those adults.


It is just fast food for emotions. You're a passive receiver of mild pleasure that requires nothing from you.


I noticed popular accounts on tiktok are repeatedly doing one specific thing memeticly in their videos because a previous video of it had gained traction. There are probably healthy examples like dancing, but I imagine there's a lot of negative psychological impacts from having your identity being so singular and directly rooted in providing entertainment for others


"Having your identity be singular and directly rooted in providing entertainment for others" is true of professional athletes. Comedians. Magicians. Writers.

s/entertainment/value/ , it's true of software engineers. Plumbers. Construction workers. Homemakers. Traders.

Find what you love and let it kill you.


This is what humans in groups do, have always done, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's like a group sitting around a campfire each taking their turn to make joke, sing a song, do a dance, be profound and have others try out the same thing and take it further until the next new idea pops up.

It's lovely.



What is a human but an idea.


It's a limit of the platform. If a creator has found 'product market fit' it's obvious that they want to produce more. The problem is that they have to limit themselves to the same content unless they want their account to be deranked by videos that are not equally desired by their audience.

The platforms should offer a granular way to influence the algorithm, e.g. creators could mark their videos 'onbrand' and 'offbrand'.


> There are probably healthy examples like dancing

(almost) None are healthy since their motivation isn't healthy in the first place. It's just triggering our monkey brain part which seeks attention, the problem is that it was never designed to be world wide scale, you end up with an army of mimics doing the most random shit ever for internet points, 99% of it being either useless or borderline pornography


> There’s no grand value proposition like you might see on a short form Instagram video about how to make cute popsicles for summer. At the end he didn’t approach the camera and say “Hey if you liked that, be sure to like and subscribe and hit that notification bell.” It’s just someone dancing their heart out and enjoying themselves.

To be fair, TikTok has a lot of videos that do end with "hit the + or heart on the right" or "what do you think? leave a comment" or "if you want part 2" etc.


I find those short videos very uninteresting. I tried it, all fake content, uninstalled.

IMHO those videos are just trash. I have better things to do than watch fake videos.

I only wish for Google+ to make a comeback in the way it was in the beginning, not the redesign version.

I'm also tired of YouTube. 99% of the time I use it, it's for music. And then it prompts me if I'm still watching...

Twitch was interesting for a while but it's also becoming stale, always the same "give me money" begging. This one guy yesterday seriously did a 6 hour begging stream so his viewers purchase sonic toothbrushes. Disgusting. Compared to a shopping channel at least the shopping channel presents the product. He was just like pleaaaaaseee buy this toothbrush, I need at least 15 sales. And some people actually did it. I couldn't watch it. Every now and then I switched back and he was still at it, begging for sales.

Facebook is dead to me. Censorship. Fake News. Walled garden. It has destroyed so many friendships. Should I ever meet that red haired bastard I'll punch him.

Twitter is the same. Even more censorship. And only outraged people there. The home of cancel culture.

It's all shit. Gimme my G+ back.


This is like what FB was back when it started. A joyous place to share irrelevant snippets of your day with your friends.

Then it all got serious and messed up by The Algorithm and the need for FB to make money off our irrelevances.

I believe TikTok will succumb to the same forces, and end up in the same place.

Until we learn that we have to pay for our social media, we're going to repeat this cycle over and over again.


This is a fantastic article that makes a sterling attempt to get to the bottom of why TikTok feels different to other platforms.

If you're someone who doesn't get it yet, consider it a sign that it's worth your investment in time and energy to really try and get it, if you want to stay on top of how younger people think, work, act and play.

From the article and some comments here a few suggestions:

- TikTok is 'showing' while other platforms are 'telling'. - You don't 'hunt' videos you 'gather' them. - Flaws are truth, so they are typically welcomed rather than scrubbed.


There's a difference between "not getting" something and deliberately avoiding it because of huge negative effects


This comment thread is so disappointing. The goal of the post wasn't to convince people to use TikTok. It was to try to explain it as a product and why it works so well.

So many comments on here saying "It's just short form YouTube" - did you read my blog post? It's literally the opposite. That's why the clones of TikTok don't work

The audience of this post wasn't potential users of TikTok, it was for people who make software in various capacities.


There's little difference between this comment and what people said about every single media advance of the 20th century.


Yeah, and most of those media advances, when consumed for as many hours per day as tik tok is, will have a huge negative impact on a person.

I would say the same about someone watching that much TV, and do think the same of myself when I used to play video games that much. It's pleasurable and feels good, but for long term mental health (not to mention physical) it's catastrophic.

I'm not talking about hopping on and watching 15 mins of tik tok in the evening, but that's not how it's usually consumed


I don't know. I have listened to a lot of unholy radio, watched a lot of trash TV, played enormous amounts of the devil's rock and roll music and consume unfathomable hours of social media and in summary I feel I'm a better, more educated person as a result.


Isn’t this just ‘don’t knock heroin if you haven’t tried it’?


Probably related to my adhd but the tiktok algorithm works horrible for me. On a fresh account i was surprised how good some content was, but i am unable to get my eyes off videos i really hate or i am curious about an aspect of a video but would never want to see content like that again, after just 2 weeks the feed consisted only of content that i furiously hated and then deleted the app. I think its important to consciously do actions that train algorithms and i am quite sure there will be law that mandate this.


> In French this concept is called 'je ne sais quoi'.

Is that accurate? I would have said in English that French phrase names a concept - we say 'it has a certain je ne sais quois' etc. - but in French it's just words right? Sure a phrase, but isn't this like saying 'in English this concept is called "this is a hill I will die on"'?

Anyway, if you're addicted to using something and do not know why you should probably make a conscious effort to cease.


So... basically all other social media platforms before "intense" monetization.


Lol, people might not remember but Facebook was also a lot of fun at the beginning.


It was fun before my mom could join.


Pretty much this. It always starts out fun, and then the investors step in/the company goes public.


Probably, so let's enjoy it while it lasts!


This is probably one of the better-written efforts to describe TikTok's appeal, and yet I still don't 'get' it. Remove the app-specific bells and whistles and it's not fundamentally different from 12 years ago when the idea of putting your life online in video form became a thing.

The author says it's not about the algorithm, but rather the content, but the examples seem to provide evidence for the reverse. People are uploading millions of videos daily, the algorithm is why he's seeing something that's of interest to him.

Maybe what's gone unmentioned here is that people originally used Youtube like a search engine. You typed something in, and clicked a video on the topic. TikTok is like cable TV, it autoplays as soon as you turn it on, and you can "channel surf". Maybe that's the appeal; finding something by perceived "serendipity" releases more dopamine than clicking on a search result.


TikTok is just timeline scrolling taken to the extreme. Constant dopamine hits. I’m not too sure this is healthy but then again not my business what people do with their bodies.


I've started categorizing social media based on what part of the brain they activate / appeal to. Twitter is clearly the cerebral one. Facebook more like the limbic system. TikTok… the brain stem? :)


maybe I don't get it. I search "climbing". i assume there must be a lot of this kind of content being produced by 15-25yos but there's basically none. i've searched this term every couple of months for a year now and the same exact results are always on the first page

maybe this is too niche of a sport?


You don't "hunt" for videos on tiktok, you "gather" them. Just relax and browse.


>Just relax and browse

our social media platform brings the soma to you!


We will tell you where to go today.


Great metaphor


tiktok's search sucks and doesn't seem to interact with their algorithm much. it's kind of silly but to bootstrap it you need to flip through the feed until you happen upon something you like, then like that video. you can also follow the person and scroll through their profile to like other of their videos. it takes a little while (couple days) but once it starts spinning up it gets really good at showing you what you want. i ended up uninstalling it since it was too tempting to waste time on (now i waste time on twitter, eh)


I think this is a strategic decision on TikTok’s part. It doesn’t want to be the place you go to view climbing content or whatever. It wants to be the place that keeps you up to date on everything, from your hobbies to random things that make you laugh, to your aspirations. Obviously some people will quit before it can figure them out like this, but eventually it gets pretty accurate


Yes, I've noticed this too. your best bet is to search for something, like the few videos that come up, and then hope that the algorithm catches on. I'm still new to TikTok, but I wish there were easier ways to "collaborate" with the algorithm to try to get it to feed you topics you know you're interested in instead of being limited to the for you page.


As someone who has zero experience of using TikTok - how does it monetize?

And how does it deal with companies? Facebook and Twitter seem quite focused on providing marketing departments (i.e. advertisers) with a way to connect to their customers and doing promotions.

The self-promotion of regular users this article decries is enabled by those same tools that those companies need for marketing promotions...


TikTok is the spiritual successor to Vine, but with YouTube scale.


It would seem to me that the author is saying that this platform unlike others brings him joy, without having to make public his personal information.

I don't use any of these social media products, but I applaud his joy.


How can you say TikTok is not full of divisive content when kids and teens are quoting Andrew Tate cos they see him there


TikTok is the short form of YouTube.

Twitter is the short form of blogs.

They're only 'social networks' in the sense that you can follow people. But not really your social circle, more like your circle of interests.

Facebook is where the family and friends hang out.


Chatroulette had a real je ne sais quoi serendipity about it 15 years ago. I made the mistake of trying it again out of boredom recently. Really.


>[He] clearly gets his needs as a human being (attention, validation, connection) met by posting those videos.

Somehow I strongly doubt that.


Thanks for sharing your referral links


I tried TikTok in 2020 to understand why young people were so much into it. What is so appealing? I've been using the platform, even publishing some videos and commenting a lot, and I still cannot answer why it is so nice. Let me try to verbalise my feelings.

As others remarked here, TikTok has this aspect of freshness. Companies still have to learn how to monetise on it. People just share their lives quite randomly. They are just people. They are not trying to look their best, they are not "Instagram" kind of influencers. All new platforms are like that. Every revolution lowers the entrance barrier and allows new people to become popular or get their message across.

People really miss the times when YouTube just started. There was nothing there, just boring people doing nothing in front of the camera. No makeup, no script, no light, no production value. It was the time before mobile phones, so these were videos made with webcams. Someone opened a box with a new purchase. There wasn't a concept of unboxing. It became a format and made many people rich. There was no concept of daily routine or makeup, or yoga. There were people living their lives and sharing it online. That was very appealing, but these formats were discovered, and companies saw business opportunity because there were so many people watching YouTube. And then the commercialisation killed this early democratic and "flat" YouTube.

YouTube has become professional - it's no longer "You" TV, it's large studios, production companies, big money is involved. If the quality is not good enough, if you don't have backgrounds, good cameras, microphones etc., you won't make it on YT. The barrier of entry has become increasingly high.

TikTok on the other hand has a very very low barrier of entry and it is sort of expected to be consisting of short single hand-held shots, unpolished etc. This will definitely change, and marketing companies will be willing to pay big bucks to make a video look like an amateur youngster's video but at the same time it will be totally controlled and crafted production. It won't last long.

TT as a YT optimisation for mobile is an understatement. The interface and tools for editing videos on the phone are done exceedingly well. Some things could be improved, but the editor is advanced enough to enable creativity and restrictive enough to have a distinct "rough" TikTok style. And frankly... I like it a lot.

And finally - the social aspect. I have reached out to some Tiktokers and met them in person in real live. Some of them I follow and I really like them as human beings. I can imagine we could be friends if we lived in the same place. There is also a lot of interesting people that maybe are not someone you would like to hang out with, but you can learn from them in a light and interesting way. There is a Vietnamese guy who makes sculptures in clay. There are Chinese potters and carpenters that show really brilliant pieces. There are lawyers, statisticians, biologists. They are all really interesting - to me - and without TikTok I wouldn't be able to know about their existence. There is crap there too, but I can just skip the dancing teens and I soon get to the content I like. It works well for me.

No matter how terrible it may sound, I really feel my life has been enriched.


YouTube has Shorts, which is quite similar I suppose.


FTA: "It feels authentic"

Lol this article is a bunch of woo.




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