When did culture became TikTok trends?
I'm tired of TikTok trends analysis
“What is a Thought daughter?", "The problem with Trad-wives", "Why you cannot be That girl?", “What is BRAT?”….
It seems that all my favorite culture-focused YouTubers and writers have been analyzing and explaining the latest TikTok trends in thought-pieces titled like this.
I'm sick and tired of it. I know it drives a lot of clicks and views and that's why they keep doing it, but can we not?
TikTok is indeed huge. It has 1 billion users and is especially prevalent in the US where 170 million people use it. That's half the entire population. As with any other social media, it does change perspective and probably even influences people on many topics, especially with its very young user base.
Still, all those articles and analyses make it seem like anything on TikTok is so much more meaningful than it really is. Remember, there are 7 billion people NOT on TikTok. There's probably also people like me, who have an account and post things there but never consume content for more than 10 or 20 min a day, if ever (I get tired of it very easily).
In fact, I have never seen any of the TikTok trends people talk so much about on my “for you page”. What I have seen are the uncountable videos and texts analyzing them. I read and watch them because they get my attention, especially because they are usually framed as "these women are doing this on TikTok, here I'm showing how this is problematic for feminism and women everywhere”. And honestly, that makes me curious. I want to know if there are movements opposing feminism and making girls or women out there more conservative. Why wouldn't I?
There are similar analyses of how some trends make people more conservative, focused on consumerism or narcissistic. These are all interesting topics that will attract people's attention.
The problem is that, first of all as I said, TikTok is a microcosm, not the whole world, and even inside of TikTok, audiences are extremely fragmented. A trend is not a extrapolation of the whole society. Secondly, those analyses are almost never based on real data. I know it's not easy to gather scientific data on things that shift almost daily such as TikTok trends. However, just saying that because #trad-wives has millions of views on TikTok, it definitely means women are getting more conservative doesn't really convince me, sorry. It may just be that people want to see others do outrageous recipes like those ladies do. Probably many people hate-watch. Who knows?
My main concern here is that trend analyses are everywhere and are usually very superficial in nature. They relate a trend to a personal perception and make them sound more problematic or prevalent than they really are.
Most of them don't even take the effort of interviewing one or two people who have been directly influenced by a trend or a influencer. Or to at least connect their analysis to books or other bibliography that better explain the whole cultural phenomenon and give you some sense that there is any substance behind the analysis.
We the public are left with the feeling that there are big issues spreading deeply on TikTok. That's the case even if we are on TikTok and have never seen those trends and they are solely based on a writer or YouTube creator's personal perception about them.
Even worse, we see so many analyses of trends and "vibes" when actual social networks of racism and white supremacy lead to riots and violence in the real world as it just happened in the UK. Maybe we shouldn't focus so much on scrutinizing what women are posting or not posting online?
It got to the point that we even see analysis like “Is Though-daughters just Fem-cells?” comparing two different trends, while you are left wondering what does that even mean? Why does comparing two TikTok trends is necessary?
Sorry if I'm being grumpy-millennial, but this type of cultural analysis adds literally nothing to how we understand the world. It doesn't educate us or leave us with any real useful information.
What is culture?
Culture means many things. As a biologist, I like the following definition from Merriam-Webster because it means that animal species such as sperm whales, dolphins and crows also have a culture. Something behavioral biologists have proved a few times.
Culture is "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations."
I concede that what happens online is definitely part of the culture. We share beliefs and knowledge. We change behaviors. Culture also evolves online. It has been the case for decades, and TikTok is part of online life.
All I want to say is that we need better cultural analysis. We need less fear-mongering. We don't have to make more of a deal of a trend than it really is. At least not do it if it's only based on perception and to get easy clicks by scaring people who are not so active on social media without much data to back it up.
It is OK to be interested or even fascinated by those trends and how people mold themselves to fit them. If there's a well-based analyses with plenty of research, with significant correlations between some silly TikTok trend and real-life events, that will certainly catch my and probably everyone's attention.
Otherwise, maybe there's another interesting topic out there we can talk about?
The Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world by Naomi Klein
I have already recommended The Doppelganger, but I think it fits well with the topic. It mainly talks about our online lives, fake media and the rise of the far-right in the US. If you enjoy non-fiction and political topics this book is certainly for you. I listened to an audio-book version, narrated by Naomi Klein herself. It's pretty good and feels like I long, interesting podcast.
Ingrid goes West (2017)
When Ingrid Thorburn (Audrey Plaza) loses her mother and suffers self-inflicted setbacks, she leaves her mundane existence to meet her Instagram obsession, socialite Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen). After they meet, it's not long before the facade of both women's lives begins to crack. Ingrid goes West explores how endlessly scroll, interact, perceive and connect with people through social media.
The Solar Opposites (Hulu/Disney+)
Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but it is what I binged lately. The Solar Opposites is certainly the most nonsensical adult cartoon out there. It tells the story of an alien family that comes to live on Earth after their country was destroyed by an asteroid. Although the main story is nonexistent and completely episodic, there are crazy side-stories from small people living in a post apocalyptic ant-farm and what seems like a weird 80s cartoon about silver cops in space.
I think so.🙃🙃🙃
Reminds me of that scene from The Big Short where the Steve Carrell character learns that the betting market for synthetic CDOs is monumentally bigger than the one for the CDOs themselves. The content commentary market seems to now dwarf the actual content.