It can be both a playground for expression and a tool for attention hijacking. Those are not at odds. Indeed, in the history of "Rock'n'Roll" it's an old patter

It can be both a playground for expression and a tool for attention hijacking. Those are not at odds. Indeed, in the history of "Rock'n'Roll" it's an old pattern. It's amazing that this great stuff is out on TikTok. Creative diversity and self-determination for artists is something I value enormously. Yet TikTok remains a vector for addictive, manipulative and vacuous content and is an application designed for spying and data harvesting. A more interesting question is; How did this happen? We (our western media industry) created TikTok - by suffocating authentic art for decades with Svengalis running amok in an over-managed, tightly curated winner-takes-all pageant for primadonnas. It started with the assault on peer-to-peer, and the copyright lobby are absolutely to blame. In that sense TikTok is just the latest round of cassette swapping and "illegal" rave parties. It's the latest thing the culture police can't control and want to crack down on. If we hadn't been overbearing "parents" our kids wouldn't have an appetite for this stuff. BUT - The powers behind TikTok are clever. By simply giving kids what they want (easy connection, expression, and novelty) - things we've failed to give them - elements outside our culture are able to leverage subtle control. But a time will come when the fist closes. While TikTok is a product of the mediocrity of our own offerings and is simply exploiting a gapm it's larger aims remain dubious.