8 ms·

I'm baffled by the glowing endorsements of TikTok on Hacker News of all places. TikTok content comes across as completely vapid. It's like the worst possible ma

I'm baffled by the glowing endorsements of TikTok on Hacker News of all places. TikTok content comes across as completely vapid. It's like the worst possible mashup of bad television and social media. As a company TikTok seems to have zero goals beyond increasing engagement.

tablespoon 5y ago
> I'm baffled by the glowing endorsements of TikTok on Hacker News of all places. Could it be addicts trying to justify their addiction to the world (and themselves)? It sounds like TikTok is even more successful at being addictive than previous social media drugs, maybe it's strong enough to hook people who weren't hooked by its predecessors.
trynumber9 5y ago
TikTok is the latest social media on its ascent. Perhaps they are impressed by its ability to keep the pigs eating. Or maybe they really like short videos. Hard to say.
spullara 5y ago
You have to use it a bit and interact with it to find the content you like. My guess is that people who like it have done this and people that don't haven't yet found their niche.
- SPBS 5y ago
  I think this might be it. I remember my first interactions with Tik Tok to be full of teens lip-syncing songs while preening on camera. I'm still not a regular user, but now whenever I open the app I actually see people from all walks of life.
tootie 5y ago
Yeah, it isn't really comparable to Facebook or Reddit or Youtube. They really do different things. TikTok seems most optimized for the passive receiver of vapid content use case. You can actually do exactly that with reddit if you browse without logging in and never click a comment thread. The top 1% (and bottom 1%) of interesting TikToks end up on Reddit anyway. Facebook/Insta are explicitly about your life and the lives of your acquaintances. TikTok seems more like competition for Netflix really.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Ericson2314 5y ago
Sure it's vapid and I'm glad I've aged out of feeling I need to participate in any of these things. But it's great to see competition with SV, competition FAANG, competition with the US even. It's not a solution, but it's a breath of fleetingly fresh error for everyone sick of endless monopoly, acquisitions, and "tech nationalism for me, free trade and dependency for thee".
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  Can someone interpret what this means?
m1aw 5y ago
I started using TikTok for a couple of weeks now and started to find it fascinating, the communities that are built around the bubbles the algorithm creates are quite interesting and have discussion between themselves. It's easy to reach out to actual subject mater experts for non-technical stuff, people you wouldn't typically see on HN or Reddit. Now does it bring __value__ to my life? No Will I keep participating and creating content just to engage in these niche communities? Yes
- krapp 5y ago
  >Now does it bring __value__ to my life? No You find it fascinating and interesting, you're discovering niche communities and engaging with them. You (presumably) enjoy creating content. That's value. Fun, entertainment and communication all have value.
JimTheMan 5y ago
I'm deep into exploring farming practices, a funny opthamologist and queer culture. All of which I am not exposed to in my regular life and are not shallow. It's as deep as you want to make it. As vapid as you want to make it.
AussieWog93 5y ago
>TikTok content comes across as completely vapid. I think that's exactly the point. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and (to a lesser extent) YouTube are weapons of psychological warfare that have been optimised to spread political misinformation and outrage. TikTok, on the other hand, is just hot chicks dancing, stupid memes and Shrugging Black Italian Man. It reminds me a lot of old YouTube in that regard.
- B-Con 5y ago
  I see a reasonable amount of political/social content. I think it's there, you just didn't engage with it enough to get it in your FYP. I must have accidentally liked a couple things to trigger it, so now I'm ignoring it going to train the algorithm.
panorama 5y ago
I get the temptation to write it off (I don't personally use TikTok daily), but to me this take feels similar to people who used to assume Twitter is just for people reporting what they ate for lunch. That might have been the case at the start but TikTok has _plenty_ of niche content, some vapid, some productive, which frankly depends on the media you engage with.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Indeed, every time I see a post on HN/reddit assuming TikTok is just people doing dances and other vapid content, it's almost from people who have never actually used TikTok.
- crvdgc 5y ago
  As a non-user, I am genuinely curious about what are some concrete examples of productive contents? From my understanding, the only format of communication on TikTok is videos with a short time limit. I'd imagine it is hard to convey much to be considered productive.
  - antoineMoPa 5y ago
    There are a lot of tech-related accounts. There is also a lot of marketing, ux-design. Some examples : - @therubberduckiee - @loewhaley - @tony.aube - @cassidoo - @systems_analyst There is also urban design tiktok with @mrbarricade. Let's also be clear that the goal of the app is to entertain and I think it does this really well and cheaply. Then sometimes you learn something that you might use in your work or personal life.
    - deckard1 5y ago
      I went through all those accounts you listed and this is all just aspirational meme garbage you see on IG. I feel like you're gaslighting us right now
      - panorama 5y ago
b0afc375b5 5y ago
I'm with you here. I was under the impression that there is a general consensus (backed by scientific studies?) in hackernews that social media consumption is detrimental to mental health. Also I always read negative comments about TikTok on YouTube and Reddit. I've only read praise for TikTok on hackernews.
- xvector 5y ago
  Reddit and YouTube are very hive-mindy. HN users tend to actually try things themselves instead of just consuming the trendy mass opinion (though they do this too to some degree), which is why we might be seeing this distinction.
trophycase 5y ago
Honestly, I don't use it but my gf uses it and it's far and away better than any other social media I've seen. At least half the content I see when we scroll through together is good.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
I just downloaded it and tried the first 100 TikToks after expressing my interests explicitly and putting 'personalised' ads and app sharing on... I know it takes a while to get an algorithm going but, I was thoroughly bored with all of the content. I also saw a lot of content I'd already seen before. A lot of people mentioned they see TikTok content on YT, reddit, FB. I also see it the other way around, including plenty of classic meme content from years ago before TikTok even existed. Can the people who're so glowing about tiktok please post their top 3 interesting accounts? At this point I'm not sure whether I'm looking at other stuff, or that my judgement of the same stuff is just different.
marmshallow 5y ago
It’s only positive cause HN also likes bashing FB. Just give it time and the tides will turn.
- xvector 5y ago
  Alternatively, it's positive because people genuinely like using it!
xvector 5y ago
TikTok content is precisely what you want it to be. Turns out when people are tired and looking for quick entertainment they aren't looking for deep philosophical questions, though you'll have no trouble finding plenty of that on TikTok if that's your thing.
radu_floricica 5y ago
Uh... yes? I'm sorry, but if you go to tiktok for deep content you're in the wrong place. If you want deep content, you read a book. Or use a carefully curated blog list. Or read scientific papers. I go to tik tok purely for enjoyment, and for that it works. Yeah, some of the content looks like it's "teaching" you. But it's doing it in the same way Discovery Channel is (was) teaching you. We find learning certain stuff to be entertaining. If I really wanted to learn about history or biology of physics I'd find other, much better ways. But I still like it when I see a video on how black holes bend light and make it orbit a couple of times before letting it go. It's cool. But it's still entertainment, and that's 100% ok. LE: And I make sure to like 90% of videos with pretty girls, just because I like tik tok to be entertaining and I never want to curate it to blandness. (It's very gender equalitarian btw, I've seen feeds of my women friends and they're full of sexy men).

tablespoon 5y ago

> I'm baffled by the glowing endorsements of TikTok on Hacker News of all places. Could it be addicts trying to justify their addiction to the world (and themselves)? It sounds like TikTok is even more successful at being addictive than previous social media drugs, maybe it's strong enough to hook people who weren't hooked by its predecessors.

trynumber9 5y ago

TikTok is the latest social media on its ascent. Perhaps they are impressed by its ability to keep the pigs eating. Or maybe they really like short videos. Hard to say.

spullara 5y ago

You have to use it a bit and interact with it to find the content you like. My guess is that people who like it have done this and people that don't haven't yet found their niche.

SPBS 5y ago
I think this might be it. I remember my first interactions with Tik Tok to be full of teens lip-syncing songs while preening on camera. I'm still not a regular user, but now whenever I open the app I actually see people from all walks of life.

tootie 5y ago

Yeah, it isn't really comparable to Facebook or Reddit or Youtube. They really do different things. TikTok seems most optimized for the passive receiver of vapid content use case. You can actually do exactly that with reddit if you browse without logging in and never click a comment thread. The top 1% (and bottom 1%) of interesting TikToks end up on Reddit anyway. Facebook/Insta are explicitly about your life and the lives of your acquaintances. TikTok seems more like competition for Netflix really.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Ericson2314 5y ago

Sure it's vapid and I'm glad I've aged out of feeling I need to participate in any of these things. But it's great to see competition with SV, competition FAANG, competition with the US even. It's not a solution, but it's a breath of fleetingly fresh error for everyone sick of endless monopoly, acquisitions, and "tech nationalism for me, free trade and dependency for thee".

fidesomnes 5y ago
Can someone interpret what this means?

m1aw 5y ago

I started using TikTok for a couple of weeks now and started to find it fascinating, the communities that are built around the bubbles the algorithm creates are quite interesting and have discussion between themselves. It's easy to reach out to actual subject mater experts for non-technical stuff, people you wouldn't typically see on HN or Reddit. Now does it bring __value__ to my life? No Will I keep participating and creating content just to engage in these niche communities? Yes

krapp 5y ago
>Now does it bring __value__ to my life? No You find it fascinating and interesting, you're discovering niche communities and engaging with them. You (presumably) enjoy creating content. That's value. Fun, entertainment and communication all have value.

JimTheMan 5y ago

I'm deep into exploring farming practices, a funny opthamologist and queer culture. All of which I am not exposed to in my regular life and are not shallow. It's as deep as you want to make it. As vapid as you want to make it.

AussieWog93 5y ago

>TikTok content comes across as completely vapid. I think that's exactly the point. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and (to a lesser extent) YouTube are weapons of psychological warfare that have been optimised to spread political misinformation and outrage. TikTok, on the other hand, is just hot chicks dancing, stupid memes and Shrugging Black Italian Man. It reminds me a lot of old YouTube in that regard.

B-Con 5y ago
I see a reasonable amount of political/social content. I think it's there, you just didn't engage with it enough to get it in your FYP. I must have accidentally liked a couple things to trigger it, so now I'm ignoring it going to train the algorithm.

panorama 5y ago

I get the temptation to write it off (I don't personally use TikTok daily), but to me this take feels similar to people who used to assume Twitter is just for people reporting what they ate for lunch. That might have been the case at the start but TikTok has _plenty_ of niche content, some vapid, some productive, which frankly depends on the media you engage with.

ehsankia 5y ago
Indeed, every time I see a post on HN/reddit assuming TikTok is just people doing dances and other vapid content, it's almost from people who have never actually used TikTok.
crvdgc 5y ago
As a non-user, I am genuinely curious about what are some concrete examples of productive contents? From my understanding, the only format of communication on TikTok is videos with a short time limit. I'd imagine it is hard to convey much to be considered productive.
- antoineMoPa 5y ago
  There are a lot of tech-related accounts. There is also a lot of marketing, ux-design. Some examples : - @therubberduckiee - @loewhaley - @tony.aube - @cassidoo - @systems_analyst There is also urban design tiktok with @mrbarricade. Let's also be clear that the goal of the app is to entertain and I think it does this really well and cheaply. Then sometimes you learn something that you might use in your work or personal life.
  - deckard1 5y ago
    I went through all those accounts you listed and this is all just aspirational meme garbage you see on IG. I feel like you're gaslighting us right now
    - panorama 5y ago

b0afc375b5 5y ago

I'm with you here. I was under the impression that there is a general consensus (backed by scientific studies?) in hackernews that social media consumption is detrimental to mental health. Also I always read negative comments about TikTok on YouTube and Reddit. I've only read praise for TikTok on hackernews.

xvector 5y ago
Reddit and YouTube are very hive-mindy. HN users tend to actually try things themselves instead of just consuming the trendy mass opinion (though they do this too to some degree), which is why we might be seeing this distinction.

trophycase 5y ago

Honestly, I don't use it but my gf uses it and it's far and away better than any other social media I've seen. At least half the content I see when we scroll through together is good.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

I just downloaded it and tried the first 100 TikToks after expressing my interests explicitly and putting 'personalised' ads and app sharing on... I know it takes a while to get an algorithm going but, I was thoroughly bored with all of the content. I also saw a lot of content I'd already seen before. A lot of people mentioned they see TikTok content on YT, reddit, FB. I also see it the other way around, including plenty of classic meme content from years ago before TikTok even existed. Can the people who're so glowing about tiktok please post their top 3 interesting accounts? At this point I'm not sure whether I'm looking at other stuff, or that my judgement of the same stuff is just different.

marmshallow 5y ago

It’s only positive cause HN also likes bashing FB. Just give it time and the tides will turn.

xvector 5y ago
Alternatively, it's positive because people genuinely like using it!

xvector 5y ago

TikTok content is precisely what you want it to be. Turns out when people are tired and looking for quick entertainment they aren't looking for deep philosophical questions, though you'll have no trouble finding plenty of that on TikTok if that's your thing.

radu_floricica 5y ago

Uh... yes? I'm sorry, but if you go to tiktok for deep content you're in the wrong place. If you want deep content, you read a book. Or use a carefully curated blog list. Or read scientific papers. I go to tik tok purely for enjoyment, and for that it works. Yeah, some of the content looks like it's "teaching" you. But it's doing it in the same way Discovery Channel is (was) teaching you. We find learning certain stuff to be entertaining. If I really wanted to learn about history or biology of physics I'd find other, much better ways. But I still like it when I see a video on how black holes bend light and make it orbit a couple of times before letting it go. It's cool. But it's still entertainment, and that's 100% ok. LE: And I make sure to like 90% of videos with pretty girls, just because I like tik tok to be entertaining and I never want to curate it to blandness. (It's very gender equalitarian btw, I've seen feeds of my women friends and they're full of sexy men).