TikTok feels so incredibly fake. I know that a lot of that same fake content is available on YouTube, but on YouTube, I can subscribe to creators that do real things or offer substantial and interesting critiques. TikTok and Facebook video feel like broadcast TV - highly over-dramatized and over-hyped. Again, I know the same is available on YT, but I can also use it my way.
It really isn't. I get only normal people on my tiktok, but I also only follow normal people and tend to "not interested" all checkmarked accounts when they show up.
TikTok "ForYou" algorithm is very very impressive in its recommendations. 2 people might have very different experiences with TikTok.
So if you start using with some regularity, even if you don't press like in anything it will figure out what you like and what you don't. I am very curious about how it measures content engagement.
View length. If I watch a whole video then that's positive signal between me and that video (no matter if I actually like the content or not). Netflix gets that as well. I can say I like history documentaries, but Netflix knows I really use their service to watch trashy reality TV shows in the middle of the night - and then they use that information to choose what sort of shows to produce.
I gave it a shot, and once I got the algorithm to recognize me... it was addictive, but fake as fuck. Nothing really felt like it had love in it. And as much as I tried to push the algorithm towards educational content that actually taught me something new, it could only really show me silly "life hacks" that were clever, but I'll probably never use.
Fake, refined, optimized, or over-produced.. it's all the same thing really.
With television, there are[were] a limited number of channels. Airtime was a scarce resource, and making a TV show cost money so the companies funding it wanted to make sure they got the best bang for their buck. So they had lots of experts tweaking every show to make sure it was juuust right. Little if anything was truly off-the-cusp. Seemingly impromptu conversations on talk shows are scripted and rehearsed. Too much money on the line for anything more casual. When less money is on the line, fewer people are involved and everything can be a lot more casual. Public access television is cruder but feels more authentic. Low budget art films can experiment more than big budget movies. The production of MST3K was casual and crude when it was on public access, but became serious business when they moved to Comedy Central.
A similar dynamic is in play on youtube. When a channel is just some rando uploading videos with little investment and little expectation of financial return, the content is generally cruder and quirkier. When a channel is run by a major corporation with lots of money on the line, lots of people involved in it, and high expectations for the reception, then everything is taken more seriously. Professional cameras, professional lighting, professional editing. It feels more like television because it is more like television.
This same overproduced aesthetic doesn't only come from corporations though; I think the dynamic is in play whenever the content producer has high expectations or aspirations. An individual creator working alone who has aspirations of becoming an "influencer" will put more effort into their content than somebody who has no expectations or aspirations for their content. Their content will become overproduced as a consequence of their lofty aspirations. Maybe tiktok inspires or nurtures these lofty aspirations more than youtube did in the early years.
This is why Im actually disappointed by the headline. Affirms people would rather watch a mostly degenerate freak show and blatant materialism than maybe learn something or view something reasonable. And its mostly kids ingesting this. Can you tweak your account to view normal content on tiktok...sure maybe? But thats not what its known for or why its popular. Its to feed you the most extreme content possible and keep your eyes there.
