17 ms·

TikTok Remix Culture

327 points by demail 5y ago

anon_tor_12345 5y ago
i was in the first cohort of FB users in 2004. i remember myspace, friendster, digg, etc. i still use reddit and have fb and ig accounts but i haven't posted on either in over a decade. TikTok is the first truly enjoyable social media app I've experienced. yes it's terribly addictive (hours scrolling sometimes) but it's actually social (as on display here) and therefore successfully connects people. it's probably gonna go to shit soon (lately i see a ton of derivative or spammy content) but at least it reaffirmed (like back in the day when i watched everything on ebaums) that the internet can be delightfully fun.
mrtksn 5y ago
TikTok is the greatest creativity tools I've seen in years and I am fascinated how people are trying to downplay or outright dismiss it because of their nationalistic or political feelings. It's like watching fundamentalist trying to preserve their purity when their kosher brands are racing to imitate the features of the forbidden brand. Hearing the "underage girls dancing and lip syncing, no thanks" line repeated fills me with a similar rage that I get when I hear some racist stereotype.
- Craighead 5y ago
  How dismissive of legitimate issues. A great video remix tool to you is worth: supporting an authoritarian regime implementing African colonialism in 2021 genociding an ethnic and religious minority the app itself supporting the culling of ideas and people artificially to further refine Chinas monolithic homogeneous culture and apply those concepts to all users of the app no thanks, let me know when I can get those features without all those strings.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into flamewar—nationalistic, political, religious, or otherwise (you hit all three here). If you want to say what you think is great about TikTok or creative things people are doing, that's wonderful; please don't pack it with flamebait. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > I got my HN account locked when I was begging people to I don't know what "locked" means but that is not at all an accurate description of how HN accounts get moderated.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    It was rate limited as I was trying to explain why I thought that it was wrong to blok websites and apps. Okay, I am removing the part about the recent political events. I think it is important and relevant but I get that it is off limits so I won't talk about it.
    - dang 5y ago
      It's not so much "off limits", it's about comment quality. Low-information, high-indignation comments are not what we want here. As topics become more divisive, comments trend sharply in that direction, so it's important to be mindful of what sort of thread your comment is likely to lead to. That's why we have this guideline: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
      - mrtksn 5y ago
        Thank you for the follow up. I am not trying to push it but I'm failing to understand how I can express my opinions and experience about governments blocking apps and websites. What would make a comment describing what happened in Turkey and asking people to reconsider their support for app and website blocking in the name of claimed greater good a high quality comment? This is my second time I fail at this. If this is not banned speech or undesired opinion, do you have any tips to improve my comment quality on the issue?
        dang 5y ago
        Ok, I hear you and believe that you're asking in good faith. Let's break it down: > TikTok is the greatest creativity tools I've seen in years and I am fascinated Good, interesting, curious. A great start! > how people are trying to downplay or outright dismiss it Veers from curious to indignant. This is the point where things start to go wrong. > because of their nationalistic or political feelings Flamebait > It's like watching fundamentalist trying to preserve their purity Flamebait escalation > when their kosher brands are racing to imitate Double flamebait escalation > Hearing the "underage girls dancing and lip syncing, no thanks" line Yet more flamebait > fills me with a similar rage Indignation and flamebait > that I get when I hear some racist stereotype Flamebait. By the time we reach the end of a comment like this, anyone who was flammable is on fire.
guram11 5y ago
meme went wrong and escalated quickly sums up TikTok
- demail 5y ago
  That's not what this is
kickscondor 5y ago
A fantastic essay by Eugene Wei on how TikTok’s tool set makes this possible: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2021/2/15/american-idle https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2021/2/15/american-idle
- user982 5y ago
  I was surprised to learn that this is all done in-app: https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1372719985496182786 https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1372719985496182786
- dang 5y ago
  Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26225781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26225781
gdubs 5y ago
I’m pretty blown away by how ... vibrant TikTok is. There’s so many interesting niches. Photography, film making, philosophy, humor. I love seeing random accounts with 300 likes and then they’re million-plus a few weeks later. Like the guy who asks people with fancy cars what they do for a living.
- zerowangtwo 5y ago
  It's crazy how he (Daniel Mac) has gotten all these connections with rich people just by asking some questions for a tiktok
- akkawwakka 5y ago
  It’s definitely a fount of creativity! Maybe it’s all the Gen Zers but it’s also the least toxic social network around. There’s so much joyful content there.
  - rapsey 5y ago
    It is probably the most heavily moderated social network. It is I think also something that must have been created by someone not from the US. Americans belief in free speech also means you get a lot of bad with the good. TikTok surgically removes the bad.
    - akkawwakka 5y ago
      The moderation is a definite net positive. Though those with political viewpoints opposite a given user and anti-vaxxers have abused the stringent moderation to wantonly get videos taken down or users’ live stream disabled. Growing pains.
      - gundmc 5y ago
        > The moderation is a definite net positive. Their moderation was effective at growing the platform, but pretty horrific in its own right. https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21181496/tiktok-ugly-poor-users-no-promotion-guidelines-leak https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21181496/tiktok-ugly-poor...
dimmke 5y ago
TikTok really is incredible. I don't do much in the way of social media, but it's better than any other big app I've ever used. The other really cool use I've seen of this style of stitching is emergent songs. Here's an example: https://www.tiktok.com/@patwhoisnice/video/6915810430053108997 https://www.tiktok.com/@patwhoisnice/video/69158104300531089...
- dimmke 5y ago
  Also, it's the first social platform I've seen that has solved the new user growth problem - every user's first few videos are guaranteed hundreds of views no matter what. So good content naturally rises without having to be spammy/promote itself. Compare that to something like Twitch where growing a stream to even getting 30 regular viewers can take years of grinding and a ton of hustle. The average follower count for even just a regular user who has maybe 1-2 good videos can be in the low thousands.
  - oars 5y ago
    As someone who doesn't use Tiktok, how can Tiktok guarantee at least hundreds of views for all videos on their platform? How do they entice users to click on these videos hundreds of times?
    - stevewodil 5y ago
      You don't click on videos. The main screen of TikTok is an algorithmic feed that shows you one fullscreen video, you can choose to watch it or scroll to the next video. Thus, they can derive all sorts of useful info from every interaction on every video and feed it back into the algo
    - karlshea 5y ago
      You don't pick videos to play (unless you're in their search interface or browsing a user's profile), you just swipe for the next video. It's an infinitely scrolling list.
    - markus92 5y ago
greatgoat420 5y ago
That was pretty interesting. Combine that with the neural rendering that was posted earlier for GTA-V and you could actually create high quality new novel content from remixes.
Firebrand 5y ago
What’s really interesting about TikTok is that they’ve seem to have successfully taken making a fool of yourself on the internet (and out in public if you dance outside) mainstream. I have no idea what compels otherwise everyday people to post embarrassing and sometimes way too personal videos for potentially millions of people to laugh at but they do it. Of course, there are a lot of issues with the app itself, but it’s nice to see the world be a little less serious sometimes.
- meristohm 5y ago
  Maybe I share to gain a sense of belonging? And/Or out of a sense that by sharing personal details I might help someone? That sounds and feels like self-importance. I took a multi-year break from contributing online, and HN is a venture back into it, in part thanks to the moderation here and the emphasis on curiosity, which is at odds with my impulse to chime in with my lived experience and perspective-thus-far. What are some other reasons people share so publicly?
  - rapsey 5y ago
    I think they make the community more welcoming with heavy moderation that removes downer videos. Something an american run social network would never do.
- buryat 5y ago
  I noticed that as well, people are just not afraid of posting embarrassing content that you actually relate to. It's awesome to see just normal people doing normal stuff and millions of people cheering and commenting in an encouraging way.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  > making a fool of yourself on the internet That's exactly what early Youtube was. Remember Charlie bit my finger, David after Dentist? This kind of light hearted home videos, it used to be filled with that content, but now it's basically completely gone. TikTok is basically Youtube pre-monetization. Probably won't last but enjoying it while it lasts.
okwubodu 5y ago
That TikTok algorithm is something else. I thought classmates were exaggerating about how much it sucked them in until I checked my Screen Time after a week of using the app.
- abawany 5y ago
  I feel weird because I tried to like TikTok but I ended up hating it with a passion. No matter how many times I skipped/disliked a given video type, they still kept showing up. TikTok is clearly not targeted to me because just writing about my experience here is once again upsetting me.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I also have trouble getting a non-cringy feed Reminds me to give it another shot right now
    - JoshTko 5y ago
      For the videos you really don't like you can indicate you dislike the category
  - johns 5y ago
    I would recommend doing the opposite: interact more with the things you do like. “Like” generously, watch videos all the way through a few times, hit share, comment etc. I think those are the biggest signals that inform the algorithm.
  - InvaderFizz 5y ago
    I had the opposite experience. Within an hour of using the app it had already profiled that I'm interested in woodworking, military, comedy, and anything with a solid story. I very rarely dislike a video unless I don't want to see that specific creator anymore. It profiles me based on likes (not something I do a lot), subscribes (once a creator has shown up 2-3 times with solid content I usually subscribe), and view duration. I am very quick to swipe to the next video if it's some dancing or other thing I'm not interested in. Reels on the other hand, all it shows me is twerking and people getting hurt. Complete turn off compared to how well TikTok tuned in to my preferences.
ngcc_hk 5y ago
All pr for the communist info sucker? Or real users here to praise but not one bad word? Wonder.
sergiotapia 5y ago
Tiktok has replaced tv for me. I can watch some fun content for 20 minutes before bed and go back to my life. No more 45 minute commitments to watch a series.
- contriban 5y ago
  I hate that. I noticed I developed this pattern over years of consuming short content online. Why start a big task (or even watch a movie) when there’s this 5 minute video (repeated over 20 videos). TikTok takes this to the extreme with 5-second videos that keep your mind busy without ever having to make a choice. This is addiction and I had to delete TikTok like I deleted YouTube and Facebook. Now Instagram got reels too and I’m stuck in it.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Yeah, why read books when you can read online articles? Why even read longreads when you can read summaries? Why read a summary when there's a Tweet thread? Why read when you can listen to the audio of a YouTube video you're not even looking at? And so on and on and on. There's an insidiousness to online media that seems even worse than how TV used to be. At least TV, radio, and print were all clearly separate mediums. Now it's all hypertext, equally evanescent.
- pm90 5y ago
  I love Tiktok but I do also enjoy watching well produced long form TV. I've noticed that having a diversity in my information diet is somewhat nice. Lots of [podcasts, twitter], less of [TikTok, news] and more rarely (unfortunately) books.
goodmattg 5y ago
in the vision group at ByteDance (TikTok)... and these kinds of mashups even blow me away. It's amazing to see what flexible tools, tight feedback loops, and global scale produce. reminds me of middle school where we would work together on stick fights in pivot animator, but so much more elaborate
JoshTko 5y ago
Tiktok is a better version of Twitter. Much more high bandwith of information with, sound, video, and text. And much higher interaction data to optimize feed.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Direct link: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1391207264543858689/pu/vid/592x1280/6jg_tbrs_3zN3fQF.mp4 https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1391207264543858689/pu/...
herpderperator 5y ago
I think part of TikTok's success is the fact that they have a public/guest browser platform[0] that doesn't restrict you from seeing content without an account. It means people who wouldn't usually have the mobile app can still be a part of the action, and that may eventually drive them to sign up. It's actually almost unbelievable that you can browse endlessly and never once be prompted to sign up unless you try to engage in some way. Instagram, Reddit, Twitter etc all bother you from the very second you load the page with modals and banners bullying you into signing up or getting their mobile app, if they let you see anything at all. [0] https://www.tiktok.com/foryou https://www.tiktok.com/foryou
- contriban 5y ago
  It’s great to occasionally see success stories from companies that break the mold and can be used as examples a-la-Craigslist. Without them we’re forever stuck with “I know that a signup lightbox on first visit is ugly, but it converts!”
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Though, sadly, things like Facebook Marketplace are eating nice sites like craigslist: https://dealerpromoterpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SimilarWeb-screenshot-of-Craigslist-traffic-as-of-2019.png https://dealerpromoterpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Sim...
    - xmprt 5y ago
      I don't know if I'd call craigslist a nice site. I know it checks all the boxes that HN loves but when I'm trying to buy something simple from the site, I'd rather not have to give the seller my email and/or phone number. Last I checked, there was no way to message on the website itself.
      - tylorr 5y ago
        In my experience craigslist has always used a dummy email address between you and the seller. Neither person would see the real email address of the other. Of course, I'd eventually hand over my phone number to make communication easier.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Perhaps our reality is just the product of this process generated by hyperintelligent beings.
moron4hire 5y ago
I gotta say, to all the people complaining about TikTok being nothing but underaged girls twerking to hiphop music: if that's all you're seeing, it's cuz you went looking for it. My TikTok stream is pretty much nothing but D&D, blacksmithing (that's a new one, not really sure where that came from, but I like it) and some ginger in a bulldozer in Massachussets yelling at his phone.
- contriban 5y ago
  I keep skipping and rejecting male model videos and I keep seeing them. Are you saying TikTok is reading my mind deeper than I can access it?
- joeberon 5y ago
  Agreed, mine is all electric guitar and music production stuff
buryat 5y ago
I have never seen so many to say "average" people on tiktok like on any other social platform, in a sense that I can relate to those people and don't feel like a celebrity is trying to feed me some content down my throat. There's so much of normalization of everything that I'm blown away by how normal Tiktok is, you can see teenagers struggling in a school, you can see people hating their 9-5 jobs, you can see crafts and arts, you can see people with disabilities living life at its fullest, cooking videos, etc. The whole vibe is so wholesome that it's truly the first social network that feels social in a wide sense.
- foolfoolz 5y ago
  i like this too and think it has a lot to do with how the app is based on the for you page more than followers. when you don’t need followers for people to see your content it really opens up the playing field to different types of content
- akkawwakka 5y ago
  It’s definitely a pro-social, social platform. It shows that you don’t have to rely on polarizing or adversarial content to drive engagement (_ cough, like Facebook & Twitter cough)
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Yet. Remember that the platforms we complain about also started off totally fine, but eventually greed caught up with all of them.
  - ehsankia 5y ago
    Eh, it still exists. I have gotten in a few cohorts that were quite toxic, especially near the election. There's still quite a lot of vaccine/mask vs anti-vaccine/mask content, and you general political crap. It's easy to get off of those, the dislike button is definitely your friend, but if you don't have the willpower and self-control I do think you can fall into the same rabbit holes as Youtube or any other platform.
- mseepgood 5y ago
nahbrah123 5y ago
I thought tictok was very unsafe to use. Is that narrative old news and just fear mongering now?
- 3nt3 5y ago
  They can't really gather that much data other than what you're interested in. It pretty much just stores data on what videos you watched and comments etc. imo it doesn't really matter if you use american companies stuff who have to give your data to various three letter agencies or some chinese app that will give it to the chinese government (which can't really do anything with it anyways)
mseepgood 5y ago
Is TikTok just for funniness, or does it have content that conveys information?
- pm90 5y ago
  The thing is ... nobody knows, since what every user sees is a somewhat random and unique collection of videos. My profile is like 50% silly/funny/hot-takes, 30% related to ethnicity-tok for my ethnicity and 20% niche stuff like a Texas Beekeeper who likes to remove bees safely, a pool cleaner who shows videos of his "worst jobs" etc.
- input_sh 5y ago
  It does have content with actual information, it's just difficult to cram it into the format. First the limit was 6 seconds, then upped to 15, and I believe the current limit is a minute. So when it does contain some information, people usually talk far too quickly. Like you're scrolling through fun shit that doesn't require you to think at all and then you're suddenly looking at an equivalent of a YouTube video at 2x the speed.
- carstenhag 5y ago
  I'm seeing about everything. From barely naked girls, to a golf course ball pickup employee, to handymen, to excavator operators, to 2nd hand fashion stuff, disabnled people talking about their diseases, and then just jokes.
mujina93 5y ago
Basically every comment here says positive things about tiktok. Is this a bot invasion on HN or is it really that good? The few times I tried it it gave me loads of crappy content. No thank you, I'm not in for another doom scrolling addiction. The world has already enough addictive dopamine-f**ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias. I don't have the energies to fight against or maniacally curate my feed for yet another one. I'd evaluate the usefulness of a social media or any other app by looking at a couple of metrics: 1) how much time do you spend there daily? 2) after you have used it, do you feel a better/improved person? I'd be curious to see numbers for these metrics. If anybody has links to papers/surveys that study how good or bad is a certain social media, please feel free to share.
- freshhawk 5y ago
  Tiktok is "addictive dopamine-f*ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias" perfected more than anything else, by a pretty good margin. It's a good thing to avoid honestly, you miss out a few rare genuinely funny jokes and avoid the brain damage. Seems like a good trade. Wish I'd made that choice. If you are in the business of inflicting this kind of addiction on other people then I can understand the positive attitude, Tiktok is a work of art on that front.
- valtism 5y ago
  I don’t know. I’ve been hearing from people who actually use the app that it is really good, and the video editor is amazing. I disregarded the platform at first because the content it surfaced didn’t appeal to me, but I can see how with good algorithms it can become a real platform for the future.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  There sure has been a change in attitude towards tiktok here on hn. Just go back a year or so when Trump tried to ban it (or force a cheap sale to oracle) and tiktok was accused of being an extension of ccp - read the comments from back then.
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
Apocryphon 5y ago
More follow-ups: https://twitter.com/GAdam56/status/1391596927058382849 https://twitter.com/GAdam56/status/1391596927058382849 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1391786673470676999 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1391786673470676999 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1392115707610083328 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1392115707610083328 https://twitter.com/_Veskko/status/1391757982522875905 https://twitter.com/_Veskko/status/1391757982522875905
Kiro 5y ago
OT but why is there a comment at the top here with a direct link to the video that I can't reply to? I wanted to reply that you should check the thread and not just that video since there are many different videos in it.
- walterbell 5y ago
  HN bug? The only comments I've seen without a reply button have been freshly posted (seconds/minutes), but this one is hours old and has no reply button.
  - Kiro 5y ago
    Exactly. I've seen it on comments just posted but never like this. Would love to hear an explanation from @dang.
drloser 5y ago
Protip: If you don't like what you see on TikTok, you need to press your screen a couple of seconds, then select "I'm not interested". It takes a couple of hours before the algorithm filters all the content you dislike. And when you see a lot of similar vidéos (a "trend"), use the "hide the videos with this song". Most of the time, all the videos from a trend use the same music. (I only have videos of dogs and DIY...)
- joewrong 5y ago
  Been doing this in addition to blocking any users sharing cable news clips. Really enjoying my silly feed.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  My feed is programming jokes, math/science videos, Hamilton, lots of cats and sometimes very strange combinations of the above. One impressive moment was, around when the new Animal Crossing came out, I immediately started getting a ton of AC content, almost half of my feed, and when I stopped playing, less than a week later I was basically not getting any at all.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Really reminds me of this great TED talk from Lawrence Lessig. I bet he’d be happy to see this! https://youtu.be/7Q25-S7jzgs https://youtu.be/7Q25-S7jzgs
codeulike 5y ago
My favourite tiktok remix culture thing is the Candy Shop/Broom sequence from a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKHDY-ZK3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKHDY-ZK3o There's a subtle aesthetic in this one of joining in but not trying too hard and that really makes it accessible.
emptyfile 5y ago
Fascinating. A year ago you people we're *screaming* that this app is nothing more then the cold red hand of the Chinese Communist Party, a mole designed to steal information of innocent american children and leak it to the dirty chinese bastards so they can rule the world (in some unspecified way). What changed? Trump left so the insanity of your country is magically exorcised? Is the New Cold war over, done while I was looking at vaccination news? Did Hong Kong became free? Or do you not care about that anymore? No more walkouts for Hong Kong? I really don't understand this world at all.
freebuju 5y ago
Now only if tiktok would stop treating me like a bot and allow me to follow accounts on a new account I created recently
graphtrader 5y ago
Any time I have tried to watch videos on it I feel like I am getting a headache and having a few IQ points shaved off. Mostly it makes me sympathize with people back in the day when cocaine was consider a tonic and medicine. "This stuff is so entertaining and I can't believe I just want more and more. You just have to try this cocaine stuff, you will love it".
- bonoboTP 5y ago
  Agreed, this thread looks astroturfed. I can't believe the readers of usual HN articles would be so all over Tiktok. All I see on Tiktok is brain damage. Pretty people doing "slipping in banana peels" level humor, weird childish stuff like how to use scissors, "mindblow" recipes that make no sense. Various junk "lifehacks" etc. Its all garbage after scrolling for like 30 minutes. But I'm also not the target demographic, as a programmer in my 30s with still a bit of attention span left. I really don't envy the kids who grow up with this garbage.
  - DanBC 5y ago
    You can control your tiktok feed. If you make no attempt to control it you get an eclectic mix. If you use the tools that tiktok gives you you'll end up with a curated feed. TikTok is very good at giving you the content you're interested in, if you take a small amount of time to train it.
    - bonoboTP 5y ago
      How much time does it need? How do I even tell the algorithm what to show if nothing comes up that I'd want? All I see is lame pranks, ass, tits, dancing with nipples showing through the clothes, a banana being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, fishing with weird bait, a guy jumping on the conveyor belt to do push-ups at the supermarket checkout, it's all lowest common denominator garbage. Maybe I could train it better though, because I realize YouTube is also cancer in incognito mode. But honestly I can't imagine 5-10 second snippet videos being worth watching however "good" they may be.
hoseja 5y ago
Should I give the backdoor to Xi? Is it really that great?
eumoria 5y ago
The endless praise for TikTok here is very confusing. I don't think it's in bad faith the account age of the commenters all seem normal and the like. I don't have any strong hatred of TikTok myself but usually HN are a privacy concerned skeptical bunch and this is very weird.
- defaultname 5y ago
  It's Vine 2.0 with great content creation tools and a surprisingly advanced set of filters. What's there to hate? There is another comment somewhere down that claims that any positive opinion is "paid or smoking crack" and that is too common when people feel threatened by something. Many of the things we do in life are simply a Waste Of Time (if we discount being entertained as a worthwhile pursuit). Commenting on HN is a waste of time. Reddit, Facebook, Chess, Gaming, Crosswords, Reading -- total waste of time. It's a bit strange when something comes along that people choose to entertain themselves with occasionally and invariably the "iT's AdDiCtInG!" arguments appear. Bizarre.
  - eumoria 5y ago
    Thank you new account praising TikTok and saying HN is a waste of time and proving my point. I didn't ask "what's there to hate" but rather almost NO posts on HN get critical praise for an invasive social media app. Wow.
    - defaultname 5y ago
      While trite and below HN, the best reply is ROFL. You first announce that you've done your extensive audit of accounts and can't yet find the fishiness -- though you're sure it's there given that people have opinions different from you -- and now my account is too young for your suspicion filter and therefore "proves your point"? I literally laughed out loud. This whole discussion reminds me when everyone was fearmongering that Snapchat was for kids to send nudes to each other and arrange rainbow parties. When people aren't in on something, it can only possibly have negative value. My "What's there to hate" query was in response to you claiming that you don't have a strong hatred for it. That's like saying you don't have a strong hatred for deer, or Asians, or trees. It's a weird thing to announce that you don't have a strong hatred for.
hansor 5y ago
I must say that I dislike TikTok with passion - but this one was actually very creative and funny.
bofh23 5y ago
Here’s an amazing TikTok duet chain that went viral last fall: Living Morganism (@ok_girlfriend) Tweeted: « the trolls of tiktok are on another level » https://twitter.com/ok_girlfriend/status/1329850124936286213 https://twitter.com/ok_girlfriend/status/1329850124936286213 1:12 PM · Nov 20, 2020 More info about the chain: Spectacular "Can We Stop Dueting Videos" TikTok Chain Brings Out The Best Of Dueting | Know Your Meme https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/spectacular-can-we-stop-dueting-videos-tiktok-chain-brings-out-the-best-of-dueting https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/spectacular-...

327 points by demail 5y ago

i was in the first cohort of FB users in 2004. i remember myspace, friendster, digg, etc. i still use reddit and have fb and ig accounts but i haven't posted on either in over a decade. TikTok is the first truly enjoyable social media app I've experienced. yes it's terribly addictive (hours scrolling sometimes) but it's actually social (as on display here) and therefore successfully connects people. it's probably gonna go to shit soon (lately i see a ton of derivative or spammy content) but at least it reaffirmed (like back in the day when i watched everything on ebaums) that the internet can be delightfully fun.

mrtksn 5y ago

TikTok is the greatest creativity tools I've seen in years and I am fascinated how people are trying to downplay or outright dismiss it because of their nationalistic or political feelings. It's like watching fundamentalist trying to preserve their purity when their kosher brands are racing to imitate the features of the forbidden brand. Hearing the "underage girls dancing and lip syncing, no thanks" line repeated fills me with a similar rage that I get when I hear some racist stereotype.

Craighead 5y ago
How dismissive of legitimate issues. A great video remix tool to you is worth: supporting an authoritarian regime implementing African colonialism in 2021 genociding an ethnic and religious minority the app itself supporting the culling of ideas and people artificially to further refine Chinas monolithic homogeneous culture and apply those concepts to all users of the app no thanks, let me know when I can get those features without all those strings.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar—nationalistic, political, religious, or otherwise (you hit all three here). If you want to say what you think is great about TikTok or creative things people are doing, that's wonderful; please don't pack it with flamebait. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > I got my HN account locked when I was begging people to I don't know what "locked" means but that is not at all an accurate description of how HN accounts get moderated.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  It was rate limited as I was trying to explain why I thought that it was wrong to blok websites and apps. Okay, I am removing the part about the recent political events. I think it is important and relevant but I get that it is off limits so I won't talk about it.
  - dang 5y ago
    It's not so much "off limits", it's about comment quality. Low-information, high-indignation comments are not what we want here. As topics become more divisive, comments trend sharply in that direction, so it's important to be mindful of what sort of thread your comment is likely to lead to. That's why we have this guideline: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      Thank you for the follow up. I am not trying to push it but I'm failing to understand how I can express my opinions and experience about governments blocking apps and websites. What would make a comment describing what happened in Turkey and asking people to reconsider their support for app and website blocking in the name of claimed greater good a high quality comment? This is my second time I fail at this. If this is not banned speech or undesired opinion, do you have any tips to improve my comment quality on the issue?
      - dang 5y ago
        Ok, I hear you and believe that you're asking in good faith. Let's break it down: > TikTok is the greatest creativity tools I've seen in years and I am fascinated Good, interesting, curious. A great start! > how people are trying to downplay or outright dismiss it Veers from curious to indignant. This is the point where things start to go wrong. > because of their nationalistic or political feelings Flamebait > It's like watching fundamentalist trying to preserve their purity Flamebait escalation > when their kosher brands are racing to imitate Double flamebait escalation > Hearing the "underage girls dancing and lip syncing, no thanks" line Yet more flamebait > fills me with a similar rage Indignation and flamebait > that I get when I hear some racist stereotype Flamebait. By the time we reach the end of a comment like this, anyone who was flammable is on fire.

guram11 5y ago

meme went wrong and escalated quickly sums up TikTok

demail 5y ago
That's not what this is

kickscondor 5y ago

A fantastic essay by Eugene Wei on how TikTok’s tool set makes this possible: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2021/2/15/american-idle https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2021/2/15/american-idle

user982 5y ago
I was surprised to learn that this is all done in-app: https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1372719985496182786 https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1372719985496182786
dang 5y ago
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26225781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26225781

gdubs 5y ago

I’m pretty blown away by how ... vibrant TikTok is. There’s so many interesting niches. Photography, film making, philosophy, humor. I love seeing random accounts with 300 likes and then they’re million-plus a few weeks later. Like the guy who asks people with fancy cars what they do for a living.

zerowangtwo 5y ago
It's crazy how he (Daniel Mac) has gotten all these connections with rich people just by asking some questions for a tiktok
akkawwakka 5y ago
It’s definitely a fount of creativity! Maybe it’s all the Gen Zers but it’s also the least toxic social network around. There’s so much joyful content there.
- rapsey 5y ago
  It is probably the most heavily moderated social network. It is I think also something that must have been created by someone not from the US. Americans belief in free speech also means you get a lot of bad with the good. TikTok surgically removes the bad.
  - akkawwakka 5y ago
    The moderation is a definite net positive. Though those with political viewpoints opposite a given user and anti-vaxxers have abused the stringent moderation to wantonly get videos taken down or users’ live stream disabled. Growing pains.
    - gundmc 5y ago
      > The moderation is a definite net positive. Their moderation was effective at growing the platform, but pretty horrific in its own right. https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21181496/tiktok-ugly-poor-users-no-promotion-guidelines-leak https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21181496/tiktok-ugly-poor...

dimmke 5y ago

TikTok really is incredible. I don't do much in the way of social media, but it's better than any other big app I've ever used. The other really cool use I've seen of this style of stitching is emergent songs. Here's an example: https://www.tiktok.com/@patwhoisnice/video/6915810430053108997 https://www.tiktok.com/@patwhoisnice/video/69158104300531089...

dimmke 5y ago
Also, it's the first social platform I've seen that has solved the new user growth problem - every user's first few videos are guaranteed hundreds of views no matter what. So good content naturally rises without having to be spammy/promote itself. Compare that to something like Twitch where growing a stream to even getting 30 regular viewers can take years of grinding and a ton of hustle. The average follower count for even just a regular user who has maybe 1-2 good videos can be in the low thousands.
- oars 5y ago
  As someone who doesn't use Tiktok, how can Tiktok guarantee at least hundreds of views for all videos on their platform? How do they entice users to click on these videos hundreds of times?
  - stevewodil 5y ago
    You don't click on videos. The main screen of TikTok is an algorithmic feed that shows you one fullscreen video, you can choose to watch it or scroll to the next video. Thus, they can derive all sorts of useful info from every interaction on every video and feed it back into the algo
  - karlshea 5y ago
    You don't pick videos to play (unless you're in their search interface or browsing a user's profile), you just swipe for the next video. It's an infinitely scrolling list.
  - markus92 5y ago

greatgoat420 5y ago

That was pretty interesting. Combine that with the neural rendering that was posted earlier for GTA-V and you could actually create high quality new novel content from remixes.

Firebrand 5y ago

What’s really interesting about TikTok is that they’ve seem to have successfully taken making a fool of yourself on the internet (and out in public if you dance outside) mainstream. I have no idea what compels otherwise everyday people to post embarrassing and sometimes way too personal videos for potentially millions of people to laugh at but they do it. Of course, there are a lot of issues with the app itself, but it’s nice to see the world be a little less serious sometimes.

meristohm 5y ago
Maybe I share to gain a sense of belonging? And/Or out of a sense that by sharing personal details I might help someone? That sounds and feels like self-importance. I took a multi-year break from contributing online, and HN is a venture back into it, in part thanks to the moderation here and the emphasis on curiosity, which is at odds with my impulse to chime in with my lived experience and perspective-thus-far. What are some other reasons people share so publicly?
- rapsey 5y ago
  I think they make the community more welcoming with heavy moderation that removes downer videos. Something an american run social network would never do.
buryat 5y ago
I noticed that as well, people are just not afraid of posting embarrassing content that you actually relate to. It's awesome to see just normal people doing normal stuff and millions of people cheering and commenting in an encouraging way.
ehsankia 5y ago
> making a fool of yourself on the internet That's exactly what early Youtube was. Remember Charlie bit my finger, David after Dentist? This kind of light hearted home videos, it used to be filled with that content, but now it's basically completely gone. TikTok is basically Youtube pre-monetization. Probably won't last but enjoying it while it lasts.

okwubodu 5y ago

That TikTok algorithm is something else. I thought classmates were exaggerating about how much it sucked them in until I checked my Screen Time after a week of using the app.

abawany 5y ago
I feel weird because I tried to like TikTok but I ended up hating it with a passion. No matter how many times I skipped/disliked a given video type, they still kept showing up. TikTok is clearly not targeted to me because just writing about my experience here is once again upsetting me.
- vmception 5y ago
  I also have trouble getting a non-cringy feed Reminds me to give it another shot right now
  - JoshTko 5y ago
    For the videos you really don't like you can indicate you dislike the category
- johns 5y ago
  I would recommend doing the opposite: interact more with the things you do like. “Like” generously, watch videos all the way through a few times, hit share, comment etc. I think those are the biggest signals that inform the algorithm.
- InvaderFizz 5y ago
  I had the opposite experience. Within an hour of using the app it had already profiled that I'm interested in woodworking, military, comedy, and anything with a solid story. I very rarely dislike a video unless I don't want to see that specific creator anymore. It profiles me based on likes (not something I do a lot), subscribes (once a creator has shown up 2-3 times with solid content I usually subscribe), and view duration. I am very quick to swipe to the next video if it's some dancing or other thing I'm not interested in. Reels on the other hand, all it shows me is twerking and people getting hurt. Complete turn off compared to how well TikTok tuned in to my preferences.

ngcc_hk 5y ago

All pr for the communist info sucker? Or real users here to praise but not one bad word? Wonder.

sergiotapia 5y ago

Tiktok has replaced tv for me. I can watch some fun content for 20 minutes before bed and go back to my life. No more 45 minute commitments to watch a series.

contriban 5y ago
I hate that. I noticed I developed this pattern over years of consuming short content online. Why start a big task (or even watch a movie) when there’s this 5 minute video (repeated over 20 videos). TikTok takes this to the extreme with 5-second videos that keep your mind busy without ever having to make a choice. This is addiction and I had to delete TikTok like I deleted YouTube and Facebook. Now Instagram got reels too and I’m stuck in it.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Yeah, why read books when you can read online articles? Why even read longreads when you can read summaries? Why read a summary when there's a Tweet thread? Why read when you can listen to the audio of a YouTube video you're not even looking at? And so on and on and on. There's an insidiousness to online media that seems even worse than how TV used to be. At least TV, radio, and print were all clearly separate mediums. Now it's all hypertext, equally evanescent.
pm90 5y ago
I love Tiktok but I do also enjoy watching well produced long form TV. I've noticed that having a diversity in my information diet is somewhat nice. Lots of [podcasts, twitter], less of [TikTok, news] and more rarely (unfortunately) books.

goodmattg 5y ago

in the vision group at ByteDance (TikTok)... and these kinds of mashups even blow me away. It's amazing to see what flexible tools, tight feedback loops, and global scale produce. reminds me of middle school where we would work together on stick fights in pivot animator, but so much more elaborate

JoshTko 5y ago

Tiktok is a better version of Twitter. Much more high bandwith of information with, sound, video, and text. And much higher interaction data to optimize feed.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Direct link: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1391207264543858689/pu/vid/592x1280/6jg_tbrs_3zN3fQF.mp4 https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1391207264543858689/pu/...

herpderperator 5y ago

I think part of TikTok's success is the fact that they have a public/guest browser platform[0] that doesn't restrict you from seeing content without an account. It means people who wouldn't usually have the mobile app can still be a part of the action, and that may eventually drive them to sign up. It's actually almost unbelievable that you can browse endlessly and never once be prompted to sign up unless you try to engage in some way. Instagram, Reddit, Twitter etc all bother you from the very second you load the page with modals and banners bullying you into signing up or getting their mobile app, if they let you see anything at all. [0] https://www.tiktok.com/foryou https://www.tiktok.com/foryou

contriban 5y ago
It’s great to occasionally see success stories from companies that break the mold and can be used as examples a-la-Craigslist. Without them we’re forever stuck with “I know that a signup lightbox on first visit is ugly, but it converts!”
- tyingq 5y ago
  Though, sadly, things like Facebook Marketplace are eating nice sites like craigslist: https://dealerpromoterpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SimilarWeb-screenshot-of-Craigslist-traffic-as-of-2019.png https://dealerpromoterpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Sim...
  - xmprt 5y ago
    I don't know if I'd call craigslist a nice site. I know it checks all the boxes that HN loves but when I'm trying to buy something simple from the site, I'd rather not have to give the seller my email and/or phone number. Last I checked, there was no way to message on the website itself.
    - tylorr 5y ago
      In my experience craigslist has always used a dummy email address between you and the seller. Neither person would see the real email address of the other. Of course, I'd eventually hand over my phone number to make communication easier.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Perhaps our reality is just the product of this process generated by hyperintelligent beings.

moron4hire 5y ago

I gotta say, to all the people complaining about TikTok being nothing but underaged girls twerking to hiphop music: if that's all you're seeing, it's cuz you went looking for it. My TikTok stream is pretty much nothing but D&D, blacksmithing (that's a new one, not really sure where that came from, but I like it) and some ginger in a bulldozer in Massachussets yelling at his phone.

contriban 5y ago
I keep skipping and rejecting male model videos and I keep seeing them. Are you saying TikTok is reading my mind deeper than I can access it?
joeberon 5y ago
Agreed, mine is all electric guitar and music production stuff

buryat 5y ago

I have never seen so many to say "average" people on tiktok like on any other social platform, in a sense that I can relate to those people and don't feel like a celebrity is trying to feed me some content down my throat. There's so much of normalization of everything that I'm blown away by how normal Tiktok is, you can see teenagers struggling in a school, you can see people hating their 9-5 jobs, you can see crafts and arts, you can see people with disabilities living life at its fullest, cooking videos, etc. The whole vibe is so wholesome that it's truly the first social network that feels social in a wide sense.

foolfoolz 5y ago
i like this too and think it has a lot to do with how the app is based on the for you page more than followers. when you don’t need followers for people to see your content it really opens up the playing field to different types of content
akkawwakka 5y ago
It’s definitely a pro-social, social platform. It shows that you don’t have to rely on polarizing or adversarial content to drive engagement (_ cough, like Facebook & Twitter cough)
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Yet. Remember that the platforms we complain about also started off totally fine, but eventually greed caught up with all of them.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Eh, it still exists. I have gotten in a few cohorts that were quite toxic, especially near the election. There's still quite a lot of vaccine/mask vs anti-vaccine/mask content, and you general political crap. It's easy to get off of those, the dislike button is definitely your friend, but if you don't have the willpower and self-control I do think you can fall into the same rabbit holes as Youtube or any other platform.
mseepgood 5y ago

nahbrah123 5y ago

I thought tictok was very unsafe to use. Is that narrative old news and just fear mongering now?

3nt3 5y ago
They can't really gather that much data other than what you're interested in. It pretty much just stores data on what videos you watched and comments etc. imo it doesn't really matter if you use american companies stuff who have to give your data to various three letter agencies or some chinese app that will give it to the chinese government (which can't really do anything with it anyways)

mseepgood 5y ago

Is TikTok just for funniness, or does it have content that conveys information?

pm90 5y ago
The thing is ... nobody knows, since what every user sees is a somewhat random and unique collection of videos. My profile is like 50% silly/funny/hot-takes, 30% related to ethnicity-tok for my ethnicity and 20% niche stuff like a Texas Beekeeper who likes to remove bees safely, a pool cleaner who shows videos of his "worst jobs" etc.
input_sh 5y ago
It does have content with actual information, it's just difficult to cram it into the format. First the limit was 6 seconds, then upped to 15, and I believe the current limit is a minute. So when it does contain some information, people usually talk far too quickly. Like you're scrolling through fun shit that doesn't require you to think at all and then you're suddenly looking at an equivalent of a YouTube video at 2x the speed.
carstenhag 5y ago
I'm seeing about everything. From barely naked girls, to a golf course ball pickup employee, to handymen, to excavator operators, to 2nd hand fashion stuff, disabnled people talking about their diseases, and then just jokes.

mujina93 5y ago

Basically every comment here says positive things about tiktok. Is this a bot invasion on HN or is it really that good? The few times I tried it it gave me loads of crappy content. No thank you, I'm not in for another doom scrolling addiction. The world has already enough addictive dopamine-f**ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias. I don't have the energies to fight against or maniacally curate my feed for yet another one. I'd evaluate the usefulness of a social media or any other app by looking at a couple of metrics: 1) how much time do you spend there daily? 2) after you have used it, do you feel a better/improved person? I'd be curious to see numbers for these metrics. If anybody has links to papers/surveys that study how good or bad is a certain social media, please feel free to share.

freshhawk 5y ago
Tiktok is "addictive dopamine-f*ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias" perfected more than anything else, by a pretty good margin. It's a good thing to avoid honestly, you miss out a few rare genuinely funny jokes and avoid the brain damage. Seems like a good trade. Wish I'd made that choice. If you are in the business of inflicting this kind of addiction on other people then I can understand the positive attitude, Tiktok is a work of art on that front.
valtism 5y ago
I don’t know. I’ve been hearing from people who actually use the app that it is really good, and the video editor is amazing. I disregarded the platform at first because the content it surfaced didn’t appeal to me, but I can see how with good algorithms it can become a real platform for the future.
throwaway4good 5y ago
There sure has been a change in attitude towards tiktok here on hn. Just go back a year or so when Trump tried to ban it (or force a cheap sale to oracle) and tiktok was accused of being an extension of ccp - read the comments from back then.
- throwaway4good 5y ago

Apocryphon 5y ago

More follow-ups: https://twitter.com/GAdam56/status/1391596927058382849 https://twitter.com/GAdam56/status/1391596927058382849 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1391786673470676999 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1391786673470676999 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1392115707610083328 https://twitter.com/Its_AleAndra/status/1392115707610083328 https://twitter.com/_Veskko/status/1391757982522875905 https://twitter.com/_Veskko/status/1391757982522875905

Kiro 5y ago

OT but why is there a comment at the top here with a direct link to the video that I can't reply to? I wanted to reply that you should check the thread and not just that video since there are many different videos in it.

walterbell 5y ago
HN bug? The only comments I've seen without a reply button have been freshly posted (seconds/minutes), but this one is hours old and has no reply button.
- Kiro 5y ago
  Exactly. I've seen it on comments just posted but never like this. Would love to hear an explanation from @dang.

drloser 5y ago

Protip: If you don't like what you see on TikTok, you need to press your screen a couple of seconds, then select "I'm not interested". It takes a couple of hours before the algorithm filters all the content you dislike. And when you see a lot of similar vidéos (a "trend"), use the "hide the videos with this song". Most of the time, all the videos from a trend use the same music. (I only have videos of dogs and DIY...)

joewrong 5y ago
Been doing this in addition to blocking any users sharing cable news clips. Really enjoying my silly feed.
ehsankia 5y ago
My feed is programming jokes, math/science videos, Hamilton, lots of cats and sometimes very strange combinations of the above. One impressive moment was, around when the new Animal Crossing came out, I immediately started getting a ton of AC content, almost half of my feed, and when I stopped playing, less than a week later I was basically not getting any at all.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Really reminds me of this great TED talk from Lawrence Lessig. I bet he’d be happy to see this! https://youtu.be/7Q25-S7jzgs https://youtu.be/7Q25-S7jzgs

codeulike 5y ago

My favourite tiktok remix culture thing is the Candy Shop/Broom sequence from a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKHDY-ZK3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKHDY-ZK3o There's a subtle aesthetic in this one of joining in but not trying too hard and that really makes it accessible.

emptyfile 5y ago

Fascinating. A year ago you people we're *screaming* that this app is nothing more then the cold red hand of the Chinese Communist Party, a mole designed to steal information of innocent american children and leak it to the dirty chinese bastards so they can rule the world (in some unspecified way). What changed? Trump left so the insanity of your country is magically exorcised? Is the New Cold war over, done while I was looking at vaccination news? Did Hong Kong became free? Or do you not care about that anymore? No more walkouts for Hong Kong? I really don't understand this world at all.

freebuju 5y ago

Now only if tiktok would stop treating me like a bot and allow me to follow accounts on a new account I created recently

graphtrader 5y ago

Any time I have tried to watch videos on it I feel like I am getting a headache and having a few IQ points shaved off. Mostly it makes me sympathize with people back in the day when cocaine was consider a tonic and medicine. "This stuff is so entertaining and I can't believe I just want more and more. You just have to try this cocaine stuff, you will love it".

bonoboTP 5y ago
Agreed, this thread looks astroturfed. I can't believe the readers of usual HN articles would be so all over Tiktok. All I see on Tiktok is brain damage. Pretty people doing "slipping in banana peels" level humor, weird childish stuff like how to use scissors, "mindblow" recipes that make no sense. Various junk "lifehacks" etc. Its all garbage after scrolling for like 30 minutes. But I'm also not the target demographic, as a programmer in my 30s with still a bit of attention span left. I really don't envy the kids who grow up with this garbage.
- DanBC 5y ago
  You can control your tiktok feed. If you make no attempt to control it you get an eclectic mix. If you use the tools that tiktok gives you you'll end up with a curated feed. TikTok is very good at giving you the content you're interested in, if you take a small amount of time to train it.
  - bonoboTP 5y ago
    How much time does it need? How do I even tell the algorithm what to show if nothing comes up that I'd want? All I see is lame pranks, ass, tits, dancing with nipples showing through the clothes, a banana being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, fishing with weird bait, a guy jumping on the conveyor belt to do push-ups at the supermarket checkout, it's all lowest common denominator garbage. Maybe I could train it better though, because I realize YouTube is also cancer in incognito mode. But honestly I can't imagine 5-10 second snippet videos being worth watching however "good" they may be.

hoseja 5y ago

Should I give the backdoor to Xi? Is it really that great?

eumoria 5y ago

The endless praise for TikTok here is very confusing. I don't think it's in bad faith the account age of the commenters all seem normal and the like. I don't have any strong hatred of TikTok myself but usually HN are a privacy concerned skeptical bunch and this is very weird.

defaultname 5y ago
It's Vine 2.0 with great content creation tools and a surprisingly advanced set of filters. What's there to hate? There is another comment somewhere down that claims that any positive opinion is "paid or smoking crack" and that is too common when people feel threatened by something. Many of the things we do in life are simply a Waste Of Time (if we discount being entertained as a worthwhile pursuit). Commenting on HN is a waste of time. Reddit, Facebook, Chess, Gaming, Crosswords, Reading -- total waste of time. It's a bit strange when something comes along that people choose to entertain themselves with occasionally and invariably the "iT's AdDiCtInG!" arguments appear. Bizarre.
- eumoria 5y ago
  Thank you new account praising TikTok and saying HN is a waste of time and proving my point. I didn't ask "what's there to hate" but rather almost NO posts on HN get critical praise for an invasive social media app. Wow.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    While trite and below HN, the best reply is ROFL. You first announce that you've done your extensive audit of accounts and can't yet find the fishiness -- though you're sure it's there given that people have opinions different from you -- and now my account is too young for your suspicion filter and therefore "proves your point"? I literally laughed out loud. This whole discussion reminds me when everyone was fearmongering that Snapchat was for kids to send nudes to each other and arrange rainbow parties. When people aren't in on something, it can only possibly have negative value. My "What's there to hate" query was in response to you claiming that you don't have a strong hatred for it. That's like saying you don't have a strong hatred for deer, or Asians, or trees. It's a weird thing to announce that you don't have a strong hatred for.

hansor 5y ago

I must say that I dislike TikTok with passion - but this one was actually very creative and funny.

bofh23 5y ago

Here’s an amazing TikTok duet chain that went viral last fall: Living Morganism (@ok_girlfriend) Tweeted: « the trolls of tiktok are on another level » https://twitter.com/ok_girlfriend/status/1329850124936286213 https://twitter.com/ok_girlfriend/status/1329850124936286213 1:12 PM · Nov 20, 2020 More info about the chain: Spectacular "Can We Stop Dueting Videos" TikTok Chain Brings Out The Best Of Dueting | Know Your Meme https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/spectacular-can-we-stop-dueting-videos-tiktok-chain-brings-out-the-best-of-dueting https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/collections/spectacular-...