TikTok Remix Culture

The whole vibe is so wholesome that it's truly the first social network that feels social in a wide sense.

Youtube was like that before ads and monetization were introduced.

We're in a Golden Age of Tik Tok, and it won't last. We get to enjoy the chaos and caucophony of lots of people getting 15 mins of fame.

It's not gonna last :(

Remember that the platforms we complain about also started off totally fine, but eventually greed caught up with all of them.

On top of that it is designed to be addicting for the sake of addiction. It doesnt matter what the video is about once it will keep the user on the app. The algorithm will work out the perfect way for each person to be sucked in. We all know that these addicting videos won't be educational or even worthwhile. This type of stuff trends towards really useless content.

Of all the social media out there I would not let my kids use tiktok.

I had someone the other day say they didn't think the tool was "sponsored" because the company lent it to them to try, in order to see if they'd use it enough to justify keeping it. Uh, yeah, that's totally sponsored, even if it's only lent.

Some of my usual Youtube channels now have 1 or 2 big stop-the-show ads that are unrelated to their content, and then multiple product placement moments that are incredibly obvious.

It's really taking away from the content of the shows.

I know they have to eat, and producing a lot of content is expensive, but I already pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads. And now the ads are infesting the shows anyhow.

Edit: I also support my favorite content producers on Patreon as well.

Gotta hand it to the algorithm, it is always funny to me.

I think YouTube is slowly becoming a major platform for original content, which of course was the original promise before it rose to fame as a copyright violator's safe haven. I love seeing people like Mark Rober[1] combine great ideas with a sense of fun and decent production quality to make this new and insanely democratic form of TV. It's also fascinating to see the production quality increase as people go from hobbyist to professional.

Of the five streaming services I pay for, YouTube feels like the best deal. And I could also just not pay for it, and deal with ads.

Oh yeah and I really like TikTok too but I only watch it about once a week because time sink.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/user/migrationology

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/onemeeeliondollars

But maybe tiktok is better in this regard, heard much praise about their algorithm.

There is great stuff out there, I find the amount of garbage I actually see and have to skip over is pretty small these days.

[0]: https://youtube.com/c/andrewhuang

"On top of that it is designed to be addicting for the sake of addiction."

TikTok doesn't create content. People do. It happens to have content creation tools [the real genius of TikTok that many overlook] that allow a lot of funny, creative people to generate content that they previously couldn't.

Is that "designed to be addictive"? I guess, in the meaningless "it's designed to offer a rewarding experience" way.

EDIT: Some of the complaints in this discussion remind me of this classic Onion story - https://bit.ly/2Qm2w87

"that's still a large part of how they make money"

You base this claim upon what? Gut feeling?

The viral videos that everyone knows from TikTok contain approximately zero instances of "seedy" content. They are people doing everyday things. AFV style funny videos. Some guy drinking cranberry juice and riding a skateboard. Etc.

I started using TikTok recently specifically to improve my smartphone camera technique. I just swiped the dancing girl videos away and now it has stopped showing them to me.

I was impressed by the competence of many of the smartphone photography instructional tutorials. Getting points across in 15 seconds demonstrates how 'flabby' many YouTube tutorials are.

I am not complaining that I get the wrong recommendations. In fact, I don't have the app. My point is the app is full is seedy content.

It's literally designed to be addictive. If you don't understand that this conversation is over.

That everyone using tik tok knows. That doesn't invalidate any of the criticism. It just tells you like the content that appeals to everybody.

I use Reddit and am blissfully unaware of such subs.

As to "designed to be addictive", you are literally using that as a lazy, pejorative surrogate for "designed to be rewarding/enjoyable".

Understand that almost every part of your life is "designed to be addictive" by that sloppy trope. HN is "designed to be addictive" by putting the most interesting stories on the front page. Netflix, Facebook, Starbucks, McDonalds, Movie Theaters, Parks, Conservation Areas -- Designed to Be Addictive. It is meaningless prattle, though it's usually leveraged to dismiss things Other People enjoy.

It's no secret how the algorithm tailors itself to what you watch. The hilarious thing is people thinking they're getting a 'win' when someone complains about any content. The app presents things to you and tries to grab your interest in any way. A lot of teenagers will, naturally, linger on that content for longer and then it becomes a cycle. That doesn't mean that is what they are aiming to get out of the app.

Some random examples that I really enjoy that I've stumbled over to thanks to the algorithm:

https://www.youtube.com/user/todsstuff1/

https://www.youtube.com/user/Abom79/

https://www.youtube.com/c/ThomasFlight/

https://www.youtube.com/c/AppliedScience/

https://www.youtube.com/user/reppesis/

https://www.youtube.com/c/corridorcrew/

https://www.youtube.com/c/Driver61/

https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamNeely/

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheHouseofKushTV/

Only reason I remember is because I thought that was a pretty transparent attempt at the type of audience they were aiming to attract.

Further, obviously the seed video that you used is going to have an enormous influence on subsequent videos (as presumably would the sender -- shared links can contain details about the sender, and if they had a logical algorithm that can play a part as well). And of course surely we all know that sites don't just track by being logged in. Even if you clear all cookies.

I just opened the TikTok homepage through a proxy in a clean instance of Firefox. First video was a woman who paints patterns on her face. Second was someone show a technique to clean stainless steel sinks. Third was a guy in Turkey showing his rugs. Then a dog bringing a leash back to its owner, someone using one of those pop-it distraction things, a guy with his cat in a box in front of a roller coaster video pretending the cat is on the roller coaster.

Eh. I don't see how your anecdote is such strong evidence of the "type of audience they were aiming to attract" (especially when the site seems to overwhelmingly cater to adult women...)

I click a link in WhatsApp, it opens up Safari in iOS on my phone, it plays the video, then at the end it starts playing another video.

I'm using a content blocker, so I presume TikTok does not know anything about my personal characteristics, so I assumed the videos that autoplay are the ones they autoplay by default.

PS I will forever harbor resentment to people around the world for putting up with video players that lack the ability to skip around the video or even see the length of the video.

Using youtube-dl you can get the videos without ads.

It has gotten worse in the past year.

I am actually surprised people see positives about Tik Tok. IMO it has a much worse societal impact than competition.

I know it won't last, but I am enjoying it while it lasts.

Said every single person who has never tried TikTok and forms their entire opinion based on things they read on online and a few subreddits dedicated to posting very specific kind of content.

Even if that was true, so what? While the venue changes, that’s what bitter elders always complain about about youth culture, to the point where it being a recognized cliche is ancient.

> On top of that it is designed to be addicting for the sake of addiction.

All of social media (and most of the web, and much offline entertainment) is optimized around engagement, to the same extent. There’s nothing special about TikTok here.

I don't care that you use reddit and are unaware of what content is on it. I could not care less.

The tik tok algorithm is designed to be addictive. It sounds like you agree but are trying to obscure that fact by throwing examples of other popular products.

Are you arguing that tik tok is not full of girls in little clothing? Your argument is easily defeated.

If someone sent you a link, it will include an identifier of the sender. It usually will say at the top of the screen "[Sender account] is using TikTok! Join now". Logically this informs the suggestions of the app.

The lack of scrubbing is annoying (although apparently the Android version recently added the ability). The app is also inconsistent in that sometimes it shows a progress indicator at the bottom, sometimes it doesn't.

Unfortunately, I think my channels are one step ahead... They usually mix in interesting video in the background while they give their advertisement verbally. So I often can't really skip them without also skipping actual content.

But thanks for that!

A sibling comment has recommended a browser addon to skip them (thanks for crowdsourcing), but it has issues, too.

Thanks, though!

If I'm confident the channel a video comes from is likely to have nothing I'm interested in I pick "never recommend anything from this channel" or whatever the option is.

If it's a video of something like say "washing machine repair" which I know won't need recommendations of later then I right click and "open in incognito window"

If after watching a video I don't think it will generate good recommendations I remove it from my history.

Recommendations are not perfect. 3 things that would help that I wish they'd do

1) let me choose to have music separate from none music. 20%+ of my recommendations being for music is a complete waste. I'd much rather to go some special site (music.youtube.com) or (youtube.com/music) then have them mixed in with video.

2) when I pick "not interested" -> "why" -> "already watched this video" then show it as watched (put the red line under it) just like "mark as read" in email

3) don't recommend videos I already watched (this goes along with both 1 and 2. I almost never rewatch videos unless they are music videos and I don't want music mixed in with videos so the fact the 10-15% of the recommendations are for videos I already watched is a complete waste of space and time

2b) fix the UX related to not-interested. A better UX would be letting just clicking the "..." and picking "already watched" instead of the 3 step process it is now. An even better UX would be a small icon

It's not the complaint, it's the moralizing combined with the complaint about self selected content.

If they weren't moralizing then yeah, that's just a report of a bad experience with the algorithm. Those don't go viral.