It’s too easy to lose track of time swiping up and down TikTok, where minutes become hours and even the eye strain doesn’t make you want to do something else. I feel like I’m living someone’s doomsday prophecy of what the internet and smartphones would do to young minds. I lay in bed in the dark, and only the backlight illuminates my facial expressions – blank, smirk, and gut-busting laugh.
But in my defense, TikTok is fun. It’s really fun. Life-ruiningly fun.
It’s almost a perfect outlet for the next generation of internet users, Gen Z, as many navigate high school and college and take the reins from Millennials – who thus far have evolved internet culture and humor.
The videos aren’t longer than 60 seconds – perfect for an internet-induced attention span. The app’s algorithm is simple – as you like the videos, ones that are tailored for you will show up on your feed – which is constantly updated and seemingly never-ending.
What struck me first is how young the users seem to be. The usual trend with social media since Facebook is that the youth will gravitate to a platform, the older generations catch up, and the young promptly leave that platform.
Sound familiar?
Almost all of the videos I see are from those in high school and college – which provides a space for young people to vent about their insecurities, anxieties and observations to one another.
There is no need for the high production value that YouTubers would need to gain a following. Everything someone needs for their videos is already on the app. Ideas, instead, are the commodity on TikTok. It creates a feeling that anyone’s video could be viral.
What exactly are the videos? That’s a whole other layer. Let me just describe the last video I liked and you can see how difficult the app can be to explain.
One features a man labeled as “America,” with an overlay of the Star Wars: The Last Jedi scene where Kylo Ren orders his troops to fire on Luke Skywalker. The man mouths, “Do it,” as we hear Ren say, “Do it.” He pulls the “Manifest Destiny Lever” (made of Legos), and he mouths, “More! More! More!” while Ren says it in the scene – as Wikipedia screenshots of the Louisiana Purchase, the Adams-Onis Treaty, Oregon Treaty, Alaska Purchase, and USS Maine overlay.
Do you know who gets that joke? Students taking U.S. history.
A video made by a 16-year-old in his living room that uses a clip from a Netflix show to make a joke about forgetting to defrost the meat before their mom gets home will get more views and laughs than anything that night’s Late Show could do.
With most of the users being the same age, it’s easy to make jokes about shared experiences. Specific videos about high school life, youth culture, and college dating are geared far more toward me, a 21-year-old sophomore, than traditional entertainment demographics.
TikTok also serves as the next step of the exceedingly random memes that have popped up on social media platforms, like Instagram and Twitter, as Generation Z has approached internet maturity.
Will the app be able to sustain popularity with young people, as Snapchat and Instagram have, or will it take the route of Facebook and cause a mass migration once Baby Boomers, GenXers, and maybe even Millennials carve out a presence? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I, and others my age, will be content to just keep scrolling.
