Wake Up TikTok!

Seriously man, TikTok just sucks sometimes. 

As many of you may know, there were rumors flying around about TikTok being canceled by the American government because it was being used as some kind of "Chinese propaganda" and whatnot. To be honest, when I first heard about it I was ecstatic. Imagine how disappointed I was when I realized that it wasn't actually being shut down, thanks to an American company called Oracle purchased TikTok on a 7.5% stake. 

Unlike a lot of my other teenagers out there, I am not an avid TikTok user, nor do I plan on becoming one any time soon. To me, TikTok...seems like what I can only describe as a huge, chaotic social experiment. I mean, to be fair, isn't that every social media? And just because I don't have the app myself doesn't mean that I haven't seen the videos. Thanks to Instagram and Youtube flooding my recommendations with TikTok suggestions, I'm at the very least aware of all the popular trends as they come and go.

Honestly, I don't have that much of a problem with TikTok. I think it's a relatively smart idea, and a great source of revenue. TikTok allows people to be creative and show off their special talents within a couple seconds, and it can even help boost confidence in people. The concept is fine...the part that I have trouble understanding would be the people on it. Let me give you an example.

Anyone who isn't living under a rock would immediately recognize the name, Charli D'Amelio. A sixteen-year-old dancer on TikTok, Charli quickly rose to fame with the help of her 7.15 million fans. 7.15 MILLION?! At her age, I was still trying to figure out how to do my laundry without screwing over the washing machine. Hell, I'm still sixteen right now. One of the biggest questions that everyone holds is this: How did Charli get famous? The short answer is sheer luck. Other than her dancing skills (which I must admit - quite impressive), she's somewhat of an average girl, just another rich white kid trying to make it in the raging sea that is TikTok. Many tie her success to the upload of her dancing to "Lottery (Renegade)," a popular dance that has been recreated by a countless amount of people. But in my opinion, even the fact that she got noticed for that happened to be lucky. Sure, she has some privilege that aided her to her success - for instance, good looks, big room, no distractions, nice clothes. Other than that, she couldn't credit her success to anything else. I remember in one talk show even she didn't understand how she found herself becoming famous. 

This is all fine and dandy until you realize who the viewers watching her are. I'm not talking about the pervy pedos stalking minors on TikTok (which is another problem I have with the app, by the way - you have no idea who your viewers are). Rather, I'm talking about the young girls that look up to influencers like Charli, Addison Rae, Loren Gray, and Lil Huddy, to name a few. There are millions of girls and guys who see content made by rich privileged kids with jaw-dropping features, and then criticize themselves for not looking like them. One part of this group may branch off and start making their own TikToks, in hopes that one of them would be enough to strike the winning lottery ticket for them as well, just like the way it did for Charli. This is what I usually see. There have been countless times where I would walk into the choir room and see a gaggle of girls performing various TikToks right as the bell would ring. It can be distracting at times, and not just that it just seems plain unnecessary. To be honest, I pity the people who feel like they need to seek validation from randos on a phone app. It's not like your "fame" is about to help you be successful in life unless you are the 1% who can actually afford to waste your money on luxury mansions and go on Beverly Hills shop hauls every other day (Hype House I'm looking at you). 

That's just one part of the group - what about the other? I think the other part of the people who view such content get sucked into this world of "perfectionism," where everyone's expected to know how to dance, look pretty, be hot, and be happy. And honestly, this can cripple someone's mental self-esteem. I'll admit, even I've fallen for it before. There have been countless times in the past where I would return from scrolling through TikToks and then look at my own face in the mirror, and then suddenly sense a surge of self-loathing for the way I looked. I think TikTokers can set unrealistic expectations for what everyone is supposed to look like, and it's just straight-up toxic. It also makes people more attention-hungry. It's insane how many posts I see where it's obvious that people are shamelessly telling the world "hey look at me I'm hot." No joke, that's what a lot of TikTok is becoming - just search up TikTok POVs anywhere and you'll see what I mean. 

Oh, but that's not even the worst part. What annoys me the most is probably the blatant sexualization taking place on TikTok. Ever since songs like WAP by Cardi B was released (I won't advise you to watch it, it's nowhere near appropriate - and if you do, please use incognito, seriously), new TikTok dance trends have arisen, each one lewder than the next - I would almost label some of it softcore porn. See, it's one thing to have adults do it on TikTok (and I shiver when I think this is the content that twelve-year-olds are probably watching. Fricking. Middle schoolers.) It becomes a bigger issue when minors start doing it. I was reading an article through Snapchat about this. Did you know that people take some of this content and upload it onto sites like Pornhub now? Imagine knowing that your "innocent" recreation of the WAP dance is now something people can find on Pornhub and jack off to. I'm sorry, but I highly doubt anyone would want to find themselves in that position any time soon. Luckily, authorities are taking control of this and are ensuring that anything from TikTok that involves minors isn't uploaded to sites without permission from the owner, but only so much can be stopped. You have got to remember that TikTok is a public site, and anything you say or upload can and will be used against you. 

Look, I'm not saying that you have to follow the rule "It's only appropriate if you can show it to your grandma," because frankly, that's ridiculous. But I also don't want to live in a world knowing that there are eleven-year-old girls twerking in front of her camera "for her TikTok followers" (true story). So can you blame me for being excited about the ban of TikTok?

Anyways, it doesn't look like TikTok is going away any time soon. Kind of sucks, but I get why people are relieved too. TikTok does have some great content in it, and it's a great way to mindlessly pass time. I've even learned a couple things from TikTok, and it keeps me up to date with the world. I just hope the content gets better instead of worse over time - I know that I'm asking for a lot, but it would be nice to find one POV that didn't radiate major "HEY LOOK I'M HOT YOU'RE NOT" vibes or one dance video that didn't involve an unnecessary amount of back arching and twerking. Not all of TikTok may be like that, but there is definitely more of it than there should be. 

So yeah, rant over. Thanks for sticking with me through another post, and I hope you have a good one. Enjoy the rest of your week. 

Peace.

-Ganga Prasanth