> those kids would have had to push carts up mine shafts in the previous era No, most kids of the previous era never came within a million miles of pushing a m

> those kids would have had to push carts up mine shafts in the previous era No, most kids of the previous era never came within a million miles of pushing a mine cart up a shaft. We have very well documented historical records of what type of work young people were most commonly doing circa 1850-1950, mining was not one of the top activities (nor was any other type of very dangerous hard labor). I don't much care about kids cloning lame faux dance routines on TikTok, I think it's mostly benign and unimportant. And it's definitely a temporary fad (these kids won't be spending lots of time learning and cloning lame dance routines in 10 second videos ten years from now). It's also exceptionally vapid. I grew up with MTV when it was becoming a thing, and it too was largely vapid garbage (although not entirely, as is true of TikTok), and it culturally melted away just as TikTok will recede with time, as the kids move on to something newer and cooler, as always happens. The biggest shot against TikTok is that most of the young people on there aren't even producing their own content, they're directly copying other content and repeating it like brainless zombies. Maybe it's no worse than mediocre cultural cloning was in past decades, it's just considerably accelerated and pumped up in terms of projection / audience. It's nothing great to celebrate though, it's a high-fructose soda for the brain (which is why it's so addictive), an intravenous line of cheap validation for nacissists and young people with low self-esteem, not high quality sustenance. MTV didn't lead to an improved outcome for the generation reared on it, and TikTok won't either, there isn't actually much value being created with it. These types of platforms don't matter very much ultimately, in terms of consumption they're mostly just another way to pass the time for bored brains.