People don’t like it because:
- It’s the new thing. If alcohol were introduced today it would be banned in every country on earth. People tolerate Facebook, Twitter, Insta because that’s what’s been around. They all do the same thing, but TikTok is new and scary.
- Short form video is scary! It’s a new form of entertainment, and old people don’t like new forms of entertainment. See: every newly introduced form of entertainment in history, books included.
- They are misinformed about what data a mobile application can and cannot do, and the level of security built into both iOS and Android. Rest “assured”, they are collecting as much data as they can – just like every app creator on the planet. What they aren’t doing is capturing mic data while you’re sleeping (that’s not how microphones in phones work), stealing your passwords from your clipboard (OS’s notify users about clipboard paste)
- China bad. This primes people to consider negative press about it with a less skeptical eye, feeding the above points. (Don’t misconstrue me as being pro-China, I’m not, and that’s not what this post is about.)
Removed by mod
Did you feel the same way about Vine?
I’m a millennial and don’t use tiktok, but things change and they’re supposed to. Your argument started off good, but immediately went sideways. Privacy is an actual problem, your beef with gen z is not. You sound like an old man shaking his cane at the sky. We can all cry over how much we miss AIM and Myspace, but they’re gone. This shit won’t last forever either.
Removed by mod
Have you actually had a conversation with anyone from gen z? Watched any of the content they produce? They’re radically anti-capitalist and are well aware they’re living in a dystopia. Of course they have mental health issues. Look at the world they’re inheriting from us and tell me why they should feel any differently.
But maybe they should just swallow their feelings and beat their girlfriends because that’s what their forefathers did? Feelings are icky.
And they’re bad because they’d rather make money pursuing their passions than grinding for some pedophilic billionaire? Get real. If they were left to their own devices, this world would be closer to a utopia than humanity has ever been before.
Also, they’re funny as fuck, creative, inventive, and wonderfully culturally aware. Love Gen z.
Any issues they have can be attributed to two things:
Edit: Here, let me provide a nice little example for you. I guess just be glad you’ll die before my children? Positivity! :)
Removed by mod
People said the exact same thing about YouTube, and people’s desires for fame. The world still turns.
All to say, like all social platforms, on TikTok there are good and bad, people of all shapes and sizes. Rest assured, people are learning on TikTok, (and YouTube, and Facebook). Yeah there’s misinformation, just like every other corner of the Internet.
Removed by mod
You have to start somewhere. Learning something on tiktok is the start of the process, not the end.
You start with a thread and you pull and you pull and you pull and pretty soon you have enough thread to sew yourself an entire wardrobe.
You can’t start at the end or the middle or a third of the way through. You start at the beginning. You can’t research something if you don’t know it exists. You start with an idea, a question, not the answer.
You are looking at this like an adult looking backwards, not a young person looking forwards. You can not learn in reverse.
Removed by mod
How can you search for something that you are unaware of?
You gather ideas, ask questions, and then you take them somewhere else.
Again, you are thinking in reverse. An adult with a few decades of experience under their belt. Tiktok, in part, appeals to young people because they inherently have a beginner’s mindset. Everything is new and there’s much to learn.
Removed by mod
Yes. You don’t see it because you don’t use it.
You can very much search and follow creators and topics. You can view a feed of just subscribed profiles. I do wish there were ways to make lists of profiles to have more focused feeds at different times, but that’s hardly a scathing indictment.
Have you used TikTok? How long do you think videos can last? Because they can be up to 10 minutes; plenty of time for quality content. Not to mention, many longer videos are broken into multiple smaller parts (similar to tweet threads).
To your specific point, there are some excellent WWII scholars producing TikTok content on topics such as countering Holocaust denialism.
Beyond that, there are many things people can learn more efficiently outside of long-form content. Recipes are a great example: search engine algorithms have made recipe websites a complete disaster. Literally no one wants to read (or write) about my step grand uncles 3rd cousins summer cabin, but SEO demands bloat. In a short form video, there’s not as much time for algorthmically mandated filler.
Removed by mod
The video format is made for the device format where most people consume it. It’s just as annoying when someone clips a widescreen formatted video on TikTok. The ability to learn from something isn’t affected by the video being horizontal or vertical.
Removed by mod
There’s more widescreen content because it’s an older format. A video creator doesn’t innately prefer one format or another; they use the format of their platform. This argument is no different than saying “if someone wants to educate, they’ll never use videos, they’ll only use books”.
So I guess after this whole thread, the thing we land on is: agreeing to disagree that “vertical videos are annoying”.