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In a lot of TikTok songs, the 15-30 seconds of the song that you've heard dozens of times is the best part of the song, with the rest of the piece being rather

In a lot of TikTok songs, the 15-30 seconds of the song that you've heard dozens of times is the best part of the song, with the rest of the piece being rather dry and bland. "Hit or miss, I guess you never miss huh" and "I'm already Tracer" are my quintessential examples of this.

kjakm 6y ago
Is this the natural progression from 'albums are full of filler I just want the singles'? Now it's 'the single is full of filler I just want the chorus'? It kind of hints that people nowadays only want the highest quality content which is ironic given the same content is used to soundtrack some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content (e.g. 10 second clips of people doing the same dance to the same music).
- toyg 6y ago
  > some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content The point of meme content (which is basically what these "same dance" videos are) is not originality; the point is taking part, belonging to the hivemind. Human beings fundamentally want to belong, not to be original.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    I understand your point about taking part but what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? It's not just the dance videos too. There's very little interesting content on TikTok in my opinion. It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day but I think it's possible to do that and still be considered low quality and unoriginal.
    - toyg 6y ago
      > what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? I'd argue that the percentage has actually gone up pretty dramatically, when compared to the previous media (TV/cinema/theatre/music). In reality, I would argue, more people than ever now make or take part in "something". Because 90% of everything is crap, though, the firehose is inevitably returning more crap than ever. Do we need better consumption filters and better ways to emerge talent? Sure. Is this worse than before? I don't know, but it's definitely more democratic. > It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day Not at all like TV, then. Oh wait
- rob74 6y ago
  Well, the music is also the most unoriginal one, otherwise it wouldn't have enough mass appeal - so I would hesitate to call it "highest quality content"...
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Songs are constructed that way nowadays; iirc Old Town Road or one of those were crafted in such a way that it's missing a hook at the end, and the hook is just over 30 seconds (or 1 minute) long, making people more likely to replay it for the hook and for the song to reach the threshold to be considered "played" on services like Spotify, artificially boosting their statistics / popularity. Can't find a source right away though, so take my claim with a grain of salt.

kjakm 6y ago

Is this the natural progression from 'albums are full of filler I just want the singles'? Now it's 'the single is full of filler I just want the chorus'? It kind of hints that people nowadays only want the highest quality content which is ironic given the same content is used to soundtrack some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content (e.g. 10 second clips of people doing the same dance to the same music).

toyg 6y ago
> some of the lowest quality/most unoriginal content The point of meme content (which is basically what these "same dance" videos are) is not originality; the point is taking part, belonging to the hivemind. Human beings fundamentally want to belong, not to be original.
- kjakm 6y ago
  I understand your point about taking part but what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? It's not just the dance videos too. There's very little interesting content on TikTok in my opinion. It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day but I think it's possible to do that and still be considered low quality and unoriginal.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > what percentage of people take part vs. people who simply watch? I'd argue that the percentage has actually gone up pretty dramatically, when compared to the previous media (TV/cinema/theatre/music). In reality, I would argue, more people than ever now make or take part in "something". Because 90% of everything is crap, though, the firehose is inevitably returning more crap than ever. Do we need better consumption filters and better ways to emerge talent? Sure. Is this worse than before? I don't know, but it's definitely more democratic. > It will certainly suck you in and have you watching mindlessly for hours a day Not at all like TV, then. Oh wait
rob74 6y ago
Well, the music is also the most unoriginal one, otherwise it wouldn't have enough mass appeal - so I would hesitate to call it "highest quality content"...

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Songs are constructed that way nowadays; iirc Old Town Road or one of those were crafted in such a way that it's missing a hook at the end, and the hook is just over 30 seconds (or 1 minute) long, making people more likely to replay it for the hook and for the song to reach the threshold to be considered "played" on services like Spotify, artificially boosting their statistics / popularity. Can't find a source right away though, so take my claim with a grain of salt.