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Tiktok is the worst of the brain-rotting social media products our world has produced, and that's saying a lot. I spent many years in the early days of social

Tiktok is the worst of the brain-rotting social media products our world has produced, and that's saying a lot. I spent many years in the early days of social media building: starting at StumbleUpon, working on early Facebook apps, building companies in the space. It always felt that social media was an unstoppable train, but it seems like the benefits of connecting everyone together outweighed the negatives: the constant address book spamming, content designed to be viral rather than informative, etc. I suppose that's it's really just the distilled, pure dopamine lever part of all the early stuff we built with everything else stripped out. It was always inevitable that the culture of optimization would strip out the humanity, I suppose. EDIT: The replies to this comment really have an "I'm not addicted, you just don't understand it" vibe.

jmyeet 2y ago
Tiktok is what you consume and IMHO it's far better at this than any other social media. It can be as simple as watching a video that is a "part 1" and if you watch the whole thing, your fyp will almost certainly show you "part 2" without you having to do anything. Your fyp quickly becomes whatever you interact with. I have gone down so many rabbit holes this way like medical residency Tiktok. I'm not a doctor. I won't ever be a doctor. Do I find this fascinating? Absolutely. Same with, say, people rescuing dogs. Every other platform I've seen is "global" in the sense that all they really end up doing is pushing their top creators down your throat. Tiktok it seems is the only one that has successfully "localized" their content such that there are top creators on Tiktok that I have never seen a video from. So I'm not sure where this idea that "Tiktok is extreme brainrot" comes from. If you're seeing garbage on Tiktok, I suspect you either barely or have never used Tiktok.
blfr 2y ago
TikTok shows you exactly what you like. Which seems like the reason it's both heavily watched and reviled. My FYP feed is full of golden retrievers, lifting tips, and popsci with some news and comedy/couples sketches thrown in. They even finally learned not to show dancing chicks. And you can even enable special STEM feed. However, these seem to be largely clips of videos I like more in full on Youtube. And there is a patchset for TikTok on ReVanvced[1] which allows you to filter out ads, live shows, stories, etc. [1] https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.zhiliaoapp.musically https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.zhiliaoapp.musically
- deleted 2y ago
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squidgedcricket 2y ago
TikTok is young enough that it hasn't completed the full enshittification cycle. The worst is yet to come.
- cedws 2y ago
  It’s not in China’s interest to go enshittify it, it’s a perfect cyberweapon working exactly as intended.

jmyeet 2y ago

Tiktok is what you consume and IMHO it's far better at this than any other social media. It can be as simple as watching a video that is a "part 1" and if you watch the whole thing, your fyp will almost certainly show you "part 2" without you having to do anything. Your fyp quickly becomes whatever you interact with. I have gone down so many rabbit holes this way like medical residency Tiktok. I'm not a doctor. I won't ever be a doctor. Do I find this fascinating? Absolutely. Same with, say, people rescuing dogs. Every other platform I've seen is "global" in the sense that all they really end up doing is pushing their top creators down your throat. Tiktok it seems is the only one that has successfully "localized" their content such that there are top creators on Tiktok that I have never seen a video from. So I'm not sure where this idea that "Tiktok is extreme brainrot" comes from. If you're seeing garbage on Tiktok, I suspect you either barely or have never used Tiktok.

blfr 2y ago

TikTok shows you exactly what you like. Which seems like the reason it's both heavily watched and reviled. My FYP feed is full of golden retrievers, lifting tips, and popsci with some news and comedy/couples sketches thrown in. They even finally learned not to show dancing chicks. And you can even enable special STEM feed. However, these seem to be largely clips of videos I like more in full on Youtube. And there is a patchset for TikTok on ReVanvced[1] which allows you to filter out ads, live shows, stories, etc. [1] https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.zhiliaoapp.musically https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.zhiliaoapp.musically

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

squidgedcricket 2y ago

TikTok is young enough that it hasn't completed the full enshittification cycle. The worst is yet to come.

cedws 2y ago
It’s not in China’s interest to go enshittify it, it’s a perfect cyberweapon working exactly as intended.