askchapo

because it's literally a fucking skinner box

I don't hate it but I think the extreme short format combined with aggressive algorithm baiting leads to the most boring, brainless content imaginable. I've seen some fantastic content on Tiktok too - but I'm not sifting through the rubble looking for it.

I hate anything that has advertising I can't skip and refuse to ever make use of it

i am old and afraid of change

i hate algorithm based social media
and tiktok is currently the best in the business

the people on this site are old is the biggest reason. i say this with love.

Official reason: Because it's nonfree software that connects to an unfederared server. It also is a user-generated content factory with no goal but to grow. It's also really unmoderated if we are talking outside of Douyin (China's server).

Actual Reason: the people there are too hot.

THEY BURNED OUR CROPS, CAUSED OUR WOMEN TO MISCARRY, AND BROUGHT PLAGUE TO OUR LANDS

Well I got addicted to it so it's a bit personal. Don't worry, I am doing a bit better now.

Do people talk about Tiktok here often?

Their webpage is pretty easy to navigate on desktop. That's based on, maybe, six whole minutes of browsing. Like all ~~social media~~ blogs, the best way to interact with it is to let someone else sift through and find the gems.

Also, China has better captchas, but i don't get to poison some tech dork's data pool with malicious answers.

Anyone who is hating on tiktok will most likely be hating on social media in general. Ppl who stan a particular slop platform are not real.

bc people typing like this make me feel older than i actually am. i dislike the self-censorship of terms such as killing, fuck, etc, and I don't mean that in a chuddy anti-censorship way it just comes off as insincere when people say shit like unalive or whatever. to actually unpack why i hate it when people type like shown in the screenshot - nothing of substance is actually being said, it's just a bunch of canned phrases being used in their context. i understand this isn't representative of tiktok as a whole but it sure as hell is what i associate with tiktok.

I prefer long-form video content. Also y'know the whole thing where the algorithm is optimized to exploit every vulnerability in the human psyche to keep people glued to their screens is a bit sus.

the app is a fucking nightmare straight out of black mirror. there is something about people surrendering to an algorithm-generated never-ending barrage of "content" beamed right into their cabeza that makes my fucking skin crawl. whathavetheydonetous

I don't have one but the amount of times I've heard people saying straight up bullshit while my gf watches them or my gf tells me something that doesn't sound right, I ask her where she heard it and she says ticktok and then I check and it is in fact bulkshit is also bad.

That and not being able to choose what to watch having it selected for you and randomly put in front of you is weird.

I'm terrified of what it would do to me if i ever create an account/download it. I already struggle with being sorta addicted to content on youtube and IG, don't need another timesink.

Also, i'm hopelessly boomer, in the sense that I really prefer long-form content than extremely short-form ways of presenting it.

That being said, i don't think i hate it. It's just not my vibe.

I agree with what everyone's saying here. I don't think I qualify as old. I was a teenager when it first blew up. It's designed to be addictive, extremely short form content has produced an absolute gutter of content. The success of it's brain-mining operation is now being mimicked by every other form of entertainment on the planet. Everything's got 15 cuts per second, 50 things flying around on screen at once, and so on. It feels like tiktok woke companies up to the fact that you don't need good content, you just need hyperstimulation.

As well as all of that, I think tiktok tracks with the rise of onlyfans. In itself, the whole debate of self-prostitution is difficult. I understand that onlyfans is a preferable alternative to every other form of pornography production. However, the way it's advertised on tiktok to kids doesn't sit right with me, especially when it's wrapped up as part of the brain goo. As in, you get the visual hyperstimulation of colours and noises, but you also get stimulation that appeals to a sexual desire which is so innate to being human. It gives you those brain chemicals to keep you on the app. Then these onlyfans models get a huge following of teenagers, and as a result you see a worsening of the already bad porn addiction situation that came about with the ease of access the internet provides. I'm not blaming the onlyfans models for it - it's a symptom of a much larger problem of capitalism induced isolation and commodification of our very minds.

I'm a boomer and seeing happy dancey makes me feel angry

it sucks ass and it's stupid.

open the app. some stupid person lies to me. next video. a cute animal with a stupid person explaining what the animal is doing. next video. a stupid person lies to me while a bad song plays. next video. a stupid fascist explains why i should die. next video. a stupid person pointing at another video. next video. a child. next video. a stupid person explains something they taught us in elementary school. next video. a stupid person accosts strangers with an inane question. close the app.

the dances are probably the best part tbh.

I like it specifically for the sound at the end of videos, zero other reason.

It is the most precisely crafted, most horrifying sound in existence. There is nothing which could ever precede it that could be powerful enough not to be flattened by it into 'content' and subsumed utterly into a morass of (post-)^N^irony. The moment that sound plays, it smooths over anything: jokes, thirst traps, fascist propaganda, activewear ads, speeches that defined eras or concentration camp footage; it simply does not matter any longer and becomes nothing more than the last thing you watched, as your mind is reset to its receptive state to receive the next stimulus. It is the essence of 'scrolling' distilled so perfectly that even the vestigial act of scrolling is stripped away.

It is the sound of the human mind as it performs reification at the level of pure aesthetic, the thing than fills the screaming void where an Eldritch horror has not been perceived.

It is actually cool and good people just need to chill. Everyone acts like it is a fall from grace but the grace we had before this was zoning out watching TV. That was worse in multiple significant ways. I just watched two tiktoks about comunist theory, engineering theory, a cool activity, and then a person of type I like introducing new techniques I might try. In that time I could have watched one segment of the scripted TV show friends. I know which had been a better use of my time.

i don't like things where i am pressured to download and install an app instead of using a browser window. i'm old. my sister is even older than me. she loves the tiktok. all the time with the tiktok. this is not an age thing. i didn't really see the upfront appeal as i've been trying to be more intentional about my social media use. and my media use in general. i don't like "auto-play" features on streamers. i will look up the thing i want to watch and play it. unless i have created a playlist, i don't want something else to happen when it's done. i don't want some algo to just begin flashing the lights and making noise. it's way too much like old broadcast tv and channel surfing where people used to just tap the button until something on the screen was intriguing enough to slow down the tapping. the tiktok experience is not really that novel for media consumption, except now everyone has their own little screen/remote and the remote promises to learn from their channel surfing habits and show them only the good channels.

back to social media, i want to use social media to point me in the direction of new things to research and i want to be subjected to less advertising or the gamified avoidance of advertising

"stop thinking [ARBY'S MEATS--] and tap here to continue your train of thought..."

"what was i talking about... oh right..."

but she kept sending me the links and finally one of the content creators was really amusing. the web interface is such a disaster i downloaded the app so i could follow that one person and look at all their content. after going through their back catalog and checking what i could about where else to find their content, i would check it once a day to see if they had anything new. of course, that entire process is constantly being interrupted by tiktok trying to show me some other b.s. i didn't ask for. this lasted for maybe a month before i realized none of this was worth it to me. i was spending a minute or more every day following an unpleasant process experience just to look and see if there was a funny new 30 second video.

then i also admitted to myself that the "funny" tiktok links people would send me pretty much blow 90% of the time. it's very clear that they sat and scrolled through so much literal garbage that the very first "not garbage" clip that came up amused them and tricked them into thinking it was good.

anyway, it's just not the sort of thing i am trying to use my phone for. the format doesn't align with what i'm after.

It preys on my very addictive personality. I won't touch it because I know it will consume my life

Because it's the most refined form of current social media trends which I find to be morally repugnant and practically worthless

I like it because it's the leftest of the major social media platforms by far. I started making short videos on youtube and my friend told me to cross-post them all on tiktok just for the hell of it, and only the tiktok ever really took off. I can't seem to get youtube to reliably get my videos in front of people who want to see them, but it's pretty easy to do so on tiktok.

Like on tiktok I'll get 20k, 100k, or even a million views and the comments are like trans zoomers saying lmao and go off,

Same video on youtube and it gets 10, 100, 1000 views and 2 comments, one comment is trying to argue with the video and the other is like "asdfgjgkj"

because it's bad

Death to America

Shit destroyed my attention span even further and is far too addictive

I just don't like video content. I get annoyed when I click a link here and it takes me to YouTube. I just want articles and other text based slop because I am old.

I don't like short form content and like a lot of social media it appears to be a data harvesting nightmare.

i didn't like vine and i don't like youtube shorts either.

Videos too loud, fast, and obnoxious. I'd rather watch Crime Pays, But Botany doesn't.

what is there to like?

what is there not to like?

write out these two categories and you will come to the same conclusion as us

Tiktok is a fun, creative outlet. But it's also full of homicidal grifters, so I'm net neutral I guess.