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I found the opposite. People kept telling me how good the algorithm is, etc. I believe all that is a complete myth now, potentially spread by TikTok itself.

I found the opposite. People kept telling me how good the algorithm is, etc. I believe all that is a complete myth now, potentially spread by TikTok itself. I installed TikTok as a test and found that it's garbage. If I watched it for 30 minutes a day for a couple months, I would encounter maybe one video per day where I might think "huh, that's neat". Even following/interacting with my interests (which are only covered in the most broad sense) didn't really fix that. I'm sure it works better if your hobbies are really popular like rock climbing or craft beer or Harry Potter. I think there are some really funny creators and that's where it shines the best - comedy. Everything else is treated in a cursory manner that never really delivers. The vast majority of videos were a complete waste of time and I'm blown away that people can spend more than a few minutes per day watching it. It took at least a couple months to find interesting creators, but they are so few and far between that it wasn't worth it. For me, Livejournal was addictive, forums were addictive, Twitter used to be addictive. Especially when you stumbled on niche communities. I've never tried Instagram, so I'm not sure about that.

fouronnes3 5y ago
Not quite sure how you can call 30min a day for months not a success. The algorithm success is measured by how much time you spend on the app, not whether you enjoyed it.
- trh0awayman 5y ago
  In that regard, I guess you're right that it was a success. In the 2 - 3 months I used it, it was probably for around 10 - 20 hours total. I was probably shown plenty of ads in that time and now they have a vector of my interests sitting somewhere, selling it to other ad companies. But I really just kept using it because I wanted to see what people were talking about - which was not about how successful it was, but about how good or addictive it was. I never felt addicted - I felt like I was forcing myself to open the app. I just kept walking away from it thinking "I didn't get anything out of that and now my eyes are strained". I felt like I wasn't using the app correctly, or that I had to give the "algorithm" enough time to learn. I was actively testing it to see what the phenomenon was all about so I as trying to get the same results that other people were talking about. That's why I kept coming back to it. And then I uninstalled it once I realized that what people were talking about didn't seem to exist, or at least not in the way I imagined.
  - mchusma 5y ago
    I don't understand why there isn't a downvote in TikTok. I tried for maybe 3 hours total just to try and get it to show me a feed I like. To no avail.
    - krallja 5y ago
      Long press > Not Interested.
- ratww 5y ago
  If they spent 30 min a day to experiment it but was able to stop cold turkey, I wouldn't call it "addictive" like crack at all. You don't "experiment with crack everyday for a month". I have the same view as them, to be honest. The algorithm isn't really special at all, but the app is where young people live, so there is a shit ton of content. The point of the algorithm itself however isn't to offer relevant content, it's to offer an infinite amount, with a pittance of actual relevant stuff. You can call this "a success" for TikTok, but the algorithm itself doesn't have any quality at all, IMO, it's hot garbage. People keep coming because they want to find that 1% content that is gold, but the algorithm doesn't give that. It's as good as a toin coss.
aembleton 5y ago
> I'm blown away that people can spend more than a few minutes per day watching it But you did just that.
- trh0awayman 5y ago
  That's true, but I wasn't really addicted. It felt like I was forcing myself to use the app, which I was. I was trying to see what people were talking about (like Karpathy in this post). I wanted to test the app. I uninstalled it and never thought about it again. On the otherhand, it would be extremely difficult for me to quit reading Hackernews. I load it up multiple times a day, even if there are no posts worth reading. I do feel drawn to Hackernews/message boards/Reddit, even if I don't get enjoyment from reading them all the time. Even on vacations, I still actively read HN and I'm unable to stop myself sometimes.
- tnel77 5y ago
  It seems like they were forcing themselves for the sake of science, but idk.
xenocratus 5y ago
> if your hobbies are really popular like rock climbing or craft beer or Harry Potter What would you say your hobbies are? There are obviously some who wouldn't find much of value in TikTok because the nature of the content (3 minute videos) cannot deliver in-depth technical material about a complex topic, for example. The medium is clearly very different from those that you found addictive, so blaming the algorithm for not delivering good content might be a case of blaming apples for not being oranges. I've had two separate experiences with TikTok - in the first one I ended up as you describe, seeing mostly content that I found boring or useless. The second time I made a mental note to not interact in any way with content that seemed in the same category - I would move on to another video as fast as I could. That helped a lot, and now I enjoy at least every other video I see. But then again, I don't use TikTok for hobbies, it's mostly for generic interesting stuff.
- trh0awayman 5y ago
  I think some hobbies work really well for the format. At one point in my life, I was interested in chicken breeding. I could see that being really easy to capture in TikTok format. I'm also a long distance runner - so that's a pretty popular hobby, but I don't know that I'd ever watch a video about it. But I'm primarily interested in early Christian history and treasure hunting/specific antiquities. I'm interested in virtual worlds like Ultima Online. There are some accounts that deal with those topics, but I'd mostly get general history videos and gem/mineral hunting videos, which I'm not really interested in - at all. Like you said, I would occassionally see a video that was outside of my hobbies that I found interesting. But maybe TikTok is telling me something else: maybe I'm just a very dry boring person these days.

fouronnes3 5y ago

Not quite sure how you can call 30min a day for months not a success. The algorithm success is measured by how much time you spend on the app, not whether you enjoyed it.

trh0awayman 5y ago
In that regard, I guess you're right that it was a success. In the 2 - 3 months I used it, it was probably for around 10 - 20 hours total. I was probably shown plenty of ads in that time and now they have a vector of my interests sitting somewhere, selling it to other ad companies. But I really just kept using it because I wanted to see what people were talking about - which was not about how successful it was, but about how good or addictive it was. I never felt addicted - I felt like I was forcing myself to open the app. I just kept walking away from it thinking "I didn't get anything out of that and now my eyes are strained". I felt like I wasn't using the app correctly, or that I had to give the "algorithm" enough time to learn. I was actively testing it to see what the phenomenon was all about so I as trying to get the same results that other people were talking about. That's why I kept coming back to it. And then I uninstalled it once I realized that what people were talking about didn't seem to exist, or at least not in the way I imagined.
- mchusma 5y ago
  I don't understand why there isn't a downvote in TikTok. I tried for maybe 3 hours total just to try and get it to show me a feed I like. To no avail.
  - krallja 5y ago
    Long press > Not Interested.
ratww 5y ago
If they spent 30 min a day to experiment it but was able to stop cold turkey, I wouldn't call it "addictive" like crack at all. You don't "experiment with crack everyday for a month". I have the same view as them, to be honest. The algorithm isn't really special at all, but the app is where young people live, so there is a shit ton of content. The point of the algorithm itself however isn't to offer relevant content, it's to offer an infinite amount, with a pittance of actual relevant stuff. You can call this "a success" for TikTok, but the algorithm itself doesn't have any quality at all, IMO, it's hot garbage. People keep coming because they want to find that 1% content that is gold, but the algorithm doesn't give that. It's as good as a toin coss.

aembleton 5y ago

> I'm blown away that people can spend more than a few minutes per day watching it But you did just that.

trh0awayman 5y ago
That's true, but I wasn't really addicted. It felt like I was forcing myself to use the app, which I was. I was trying to see what people were talking about (like Karpathy in this post). I wanted to test the app. I uninstalled it and never thought about it again. On the otherhand, it would be extremely difficult for me to quit reading Hackernews. I load it up multiple times a day, even if there are no posts worth reading. I do feel drawn to Hackernews/message boards/Reddit, even if I don't get enjoyment from reading them all the time. Even on vacations, I still actively read HN and I'm unable to stop myself sometimes.
tnel77 5y ago
It seems like they were forcing themselves for the sake of science, but idk.

xenocratus 5y ago

> if your hobbies are really popular like rock climbing or craft beer or Harry Potter What would you say your hobbies are? There are obviously some who wouldn't find much of value in TikTok because the nature of the content (3 minute videos) cannot deliver in-depth technical material about a complex topic, for example. The medium is clearly very different from those that you found addictive, so blaming the algorithm for not delivering good content might be a case of blaming apples for not being oranges. I've had two separate experiences with TikTok - in the first one I ended up as you describe, seeing mostly content that I found boring or useless. The second time I made a mental note to not interact in any way with content that seemed in the same category - I would move on to another video as fast as I could. That helped a lot, and now I enjoy at least every other video I see. But then again, I don't use TikTok for hobbies, it's mostly for generic interesting stuff.

trh0awayman 5y ago
I think some hobbies work really well for the format. At one point in my life, I was interested in chicken breeding. I could see that being really easy to capture in TikTok format. I'm also a long distance runner - so that's a pretty popular hobby, but I don't know that I'd ever watch a video about it. But I'm primarily interested in early Christian history and treasure hunting/specific antiquities. I'm interested in virtual worlds like Ultima Online. There are some accounts that deal with those topics, but I'd mostly get general history videos and gem/mineral hunting videos, which I'm not really interested in - at all. Like you said, I would occassionally see a video that was outside of my hobbies that I found interesting. But maybe TikTok is telling me something else: maybe I'm just a very dry boring person these days.