TikTok

To those who use TikTok: why do you use it?

For those who, don't, why?

Here's why I don't: I hate TikTok. People there will do anything to get popular, even if it makes a particular group look bad. Ie: people acting like mental illnesses make you "cute and quirky" and spread misinformation about them.

In a similar vein to Twitter, hearing such negative stories surrounding TikTok makes me uninterested in even checking it out.

Also I remember when it was called musically. I thought the advertisements were obnoxious so that killed any intrigue immediately.

I used to love TikTok but then I started to seriously hate it. I first downloaded TikTok when it wasn't a really popular thing yet in 2018. It was a cool app: there was some cringe stuff but you could see people were having fun and trends were funny: people dancing, lip-sync and so on. I didn't even have an account, I just had much fun by watching the short videos. Back to those days it didn't really seem that people were looking for clout. With the passing of time it got worse and it's now a more main stream social with all its consequences: there are diverse contents in the app, which isn't bad, but most of them are cringe and it also got very political. It basically lost that feeling of simple and random fun people had before and now it's an app where there are things that I personally don't find funny and even if some profiles have interesting content, I am really aware that you can't do much in that limited time given.
Other than that, there's ton of people doing everything to become famous, children that shouldn't be using the app (parents' fault tbh) and I would have a lot to say on the risks of children being on TikTok, and also some semi-sexual content that for some reason seems to be quite promoted by TikTok itself.

I deleted it back in early 2020 and I tried to re-use the app in the beginning of 2022, but after a month I just deleted again. I am just very sad for the fact that because of how TikTok manages its content, now more creators do very short things which are immediate and easy to follow for the public, but in my opinion they aren't exhaustive enough, especially if you're looking to learn something from them.

I've used it for long enough that the algorithm just caters to my dumb sense of humour but there's definite downsides to it. I think like any social media platform it depends largely on how you use it

I feel like it's because of the pandemic Tiktok became the way it is now. But, I remember hearing early on people were doing outright dangerous and deadly challenges on there. Ie: tide pod challenge. Which is why I've always not liked it and refused to be apart of it.

I'll see some funny videos here & there posted to Twitter but the majority of people on Tiktok are definitely young teenagers who are impressionable.

Also, recently, I heard of an even worse app called Likee that's similar to tiktok but has a private message function. I never liked Vine either, by the way.

Maybe I've always been iffy of it because of the stories I hear about it. (tiktok) which who knows if are actually true.

boy if I was told I'd be defending tiktok in 2018 I would not have believed it

I think 2018 was the height of TikTok cringe compilations and that was when it was really popular to hate on it because adults love to dunk on things kids like, so I'd definitely joined in on the 'ha ha look how cringey and stupid these kids are' trend. Funny enough that this is the era _confused_piplup_ misses the most, but I think this actually highlights something important - I think every social media platform has gone through all the stages described here in this thread. YouTube way back when was also just full of unpolished content of bored kids with blurry webcams doing random and silly things and just having fun, which is reminiscent of the content piplup said they missed on TikTok now. Back then, adults would also shit on YouTube and call that kind of content cringey and stupid, but it's since grown into a lot more than that and is a staple to old and young people alike.

I think TikTok is going through the same transitionary period or already has, since it's not growing as a platform during the same ancient wild west of the internet like YouTube grew in. It's grown exponentially in a much shorter time, because we are familiar with this already. People are learning they can make money on this platform much quicker than they realized this with YouTube, they know they can find fame and clout here already, because we've seen this kind of explosive growth already on all the similar platforms that came before it.

Yeah, people do dumb things on it but it's like any social media platform that exists to be used by millions and have a lot of kids on it. Faking mental illnesses or doing anything for attention is not unique to TikTok. The Tide pod challenge actually originated on YouTube, which I think is a good example that shows the problem isn't necessarily TikTok itself, it's dumb, impressionable kids and dangerous trends, and those unfortunately exist on every platform. I think what it does have is a uniquely powerful algorithm and an insanely wide reach that makes it really good at spreading the best and the worst of it.

On top of that, I think it has a really bad rap from still being known as/associated with musical.ly and stuff like kids lip syncing to Justin Bieber next to their dying grandpa (this is a real video) but it's grown into a lot more than that, which, yes, includes people faking disorders for attention, but also good content of every genre, comedy, memes, tutorials, educational posts, cat videos, political content, giving new artists an opportunity to get out their original music (good and bad) and pretty much anything else you can think of. The algorithm is scary good at learning what you like, so if you just consistently don't watch the content you don't like, it will pretty quickly learn to just mostly show you the stuff you want to see.

Two words: God, no.

I quit Twitter during the early pandemic precisely because of the mass amount of cross-postings from TikTok and the two communities becoming exactly as toxic as you described. Even watching cat videos that come from there gives me a pang of anxiety.

I think it's the musical selection and the tendency for videos to have overlaid text that turn me off - basically, the format itself. I have the same problem with most social media nowadays, though, which is why I'm not in any of them (not even Discord!).

tiktok is an unparalleled rube goldberg brain damage machine and i admire some of the unique minds that exist as a result of it

It pretty much flew past me. The only things I've seen are videos on Youtube talking about TikTok videos. I don't see the need to join it, either. I'm just more into long form content which doesn't seem compatible with TikTok's low attention span type of content.

i'll watch tiktok links if they are sent to me but i will likely never register on the website or go out of my way to watch them

I get my TikTok content curated by others :)

I don't like TikTok as an entity or phenomenon and there are some deep, deep issues with its algorithms and the way things are advertised and the rise of the individual as a commodity and even famous being forced to use TikTok by demands of their marketing teams... but a lot of that is just, y'know, coming to a head now in this time and space and TikTok is certainly not the creator of so many problems- just a platform that perpetuates and contributes to them.

But! I watch TikToks. I like video content, I like short-form video content in particular for comedy. Surprisingly, my account doesn't actually reflect that much (I rely on my friend to filter through the crap and find actually funny videos). I use TikTok much the same way as I use my tumblr- I exclusively follow people whose content I want to see and never look through tags or "for you" stuff. Most of the people I follow are semi-educational creators or like, dancers/singers/artists, and I usually find them through their content being reposted. If I don't like the majority of their content I stop following them. I don't spend much time using the app, either- I'll open it once a week or less, catch up with two or three creators I'm particularly interested in, and give a cursory scroll through my Following page. Ultra-curated, you know? It makes anything a much better time.

It's Youtube for people with lower attention spans. Like everyone's said, the algorithm can cater to your specific wants so nowadays you could go a long long time without seeing any of those offensive Tiktoks. Personally I don't even care to install it because There's Youtube Shorts & Facebook Reels to fill me in on that style of video anyway. Being able to save the extra space on my phone does wonders for me.

I use TikTok more than any other app to be quite honest. It's just so easy to relax and scroll through Tiktok and watch silly videos. I consume a variety of different content via the app, everything from fashion and beauty to comedy.

i don't care for it, and i don't have it.

I'm not going to blame Tiktok (the company) for this, but people have died doing Tiktok "challenges".
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-tiktok-blackout-challenge-why-parents-suing/
https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/buffalo-car-crash-teen-deaths-may-be-linked-to-tiktok-challenge/

It's not the shortform content, it's just the people and the atmosphere on the app. It's incredibly toxic, and I honestly have no clue why. That being said, no, I don't use Tiktok.

And that's not even getting into how it's a sketchy Chinese company with potentially less than amazing data storage practices

I've never used TikTok. I'm a lot more concerned about how it seems to be encouraging toxic mindsets which have spread to other parts of the internet, like fakeclaiming, insulting people, focus on labeling, etc, and how it's only boosted issues we've always had on the internet like recording people without their consent and the way the internet treats popularity and followers. I can only speculate because I don't use it personally but I think it's because TikTok's aren't built for longer discussion and meaningful connections with people, just short videos and commenting, and on the internet in general forums and other spaces that encourage actual discussion have been being pushed aside in favor of Discord or Twitter.

I do want to address what Palamon said about people treating mental illnesses as cute and quirky. I only know from what I see outside of TikTok, but there's been a massive problem with people singling out traits that aren't too uncommon with mental illnesses or neurotypes (like speaking as a system: it gets weird), targeting people who mask or don't look autistic/depressed/etc or even those who outwardly act like such, or even targeting people who don't claim to have any mental illnesses. This mindset has spread to the point where we've seen harassment and a lot of misinformation occur. While I don't know if it's actually a problem on TikTok like people are claiming, the way people are handling it is very wrong and having a lot of consequences.

I also don't personally use it because I have ADHD and can risk getting addicted to things like this. It's the same reason I uninstalled most social media from my phone at least.

I had tiktok for a while this year. I think I signed up in January or February and very quickly got quite addicted. I didn't post anything, but that algorithm is waaaay too good at figuring out what you find interesting and just serving you hours of pointless videos. A lot of them were great, don't get me wrong, but a month or so ago I sort of realized just how much time I was spending on the site. I'd finish work, lie on my bed for what I intended to be maybe 10 minutes before going to start a hobby or something, and two hours later I'd be called for dinner having done nothing but scroll my FYP the whole time.

I did add a limit to the app and that worked for a while, but even the hour I gave myself with the app started to feel like too much. The final straw that caused me to uninstall, weird as it is, is that I was kind of sick one day and I tried to lie down/take a nap and I couldn't rest because my head was just filled with all the annoying songs that people use as the backing to their vids LOL. I had like 6 songs stuck in my head at the same time and I didn't even like any of them, so I uninstalled the app then and there.

I'm back to only getting my tiktoks from curated compilation threads posted on twitter or checking one of the subreddits where people repost tiktoks. It's not as perfectly curated for me as the algorithmic fyp but I've definitely been a lot more productive and generally happier for ditching the app. (Although some days I still just feel like doing that mindless scroll and try to get Youtube with YT Shorts to do the trick and… man, its algorithm is garbage. I can barely go 3 vids without getting something terrible that I would never be interested in lol. But I suppose that's for the best.)

i am born way too long ago to understand tiktok

like Erica says, it's probably most of all an enormous timesink. i already have imgur and youtube for that so there is no need to add an extra trap into my already easily distracted life 🙃

I'm too old for it. I have long since passed the time when I was hip and with it. Now that I think about it, I was never hip or with it.

I don't care for the app at all. I find it to be super boring IMO. I can totally see how it can be an addiction to teenagers and even young adults though. I just never got into the app.