TikTok Remix Culture

Basically every comment here says positive things about tiktok. Is this a bot invasion on HN or is it really that good?

The few times I tried it it gave me loads of crappy content. No thank you, I'm not in for another doom scrolling addiction. The world has already enough addictive dopamine-f**ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias. I don't have the energies to fight against or maniacally curate my feed for yet another one.

I'd evaluate the usefulness of a social media or any other app by looking at a couple of metrics: 1) how much time do you spend there daily? 2) after you have used it, do you feel a better/improved person? I'd be curious to see numbers for these metrics. If anybody has links to papers/surveys that study how good or bad is a certain social media, please feel free to share.

Tiktok is "addictive dopamine-f*ing time-sucker almost contentless social medias" perfected more than anything else, by a pretty good margin.

It's a good thing to avoid honestly, you miss out a few rare genuinely funny jokes and avoid the brain damage. Seems like a good trade. Wish I'd made that choice.

If you are in the business of inflicting this kind of addiction on other people then I can understand the positive attitude, Tiktok is a work of art on that front.

I don’t know. I’ve been hearing from people who actually use the app that it is really good, and the video editor is amazing.

I disregarded the platform at first because the content it surfaced didn’t appeal to me, but I can see how with good algorithms it can become a real platform for the future.

There sure has been a change in attitude towards tiktok here on hn. Just go back a year or so when Trump tried to ban it (or force a cheap sale to oracle) and tiktok was accused of being an extension of ccp - read the comments from back then.

Ps: it is really that good - imho next generation social media.

HN is a place that now hates cryptocurrency and loves tiktok.. very curious!

I doubt there's been a change in attitude, just different threads attracting a different mixture of interests. The only user I could identify who participated in both kinds of threads doesn't appear to have changed their mind.

Facebook, google etc are also an extension of American 3 letter agencies, so I get why people don't really care. Almost better to ship my data to ccp that cannot really use it for anything, than give big US even more on me.

Yeah. That should be the issue.

Though TikTok is kind enough to run their international version on AWS.

I just see child level brain development content. Meaning, extreme cliches, gooey/sticky materials, household objects in weird context or used strangely, weird recipes, animals making strange noises, pretty people dancing, one dimensional emotional stories like I helped an old lady cross the street, wedding clothes, weird iPhone "hacks" and tricks etc. Surely depends on location, this is Germany.

Actually quite similar to the so-called "chumbox" content types.

I agree there is unnatural behavior in this comment section. No way the enthusiasm is organic.

At least tiktok is real

Some notes as what I would say is near target user who generally enjoys the time I spend on Tiktok:

1. Tiktok the company is absolute crap, mainly for censorship of content and diverse creators (they even recently they A/B tested censoring private messages between mutuals). This is absolutely tied to China, though the political CCP part is a lot of unfounded griping probably. But to be clear, Tiktok the user culture and the company are very different.

2. Tiktok has essentially become the new Tumblr. The algorithmic approach means that once you give some signals, the content specifies a lot and it can be a great experience for people interested in more niche things. The "default" Tiktok is incredibly bad, but spaces for queer creators, the neurodivergent, political discussion, and niche interests such as urban planning, book clubs, fandoms, movies, tv shows, art, and more are thriving. That's something that many don't see unless they are in those groups because of the algorithm, so no "cursory" look at Tiktok will find that.

3. To answer your questions, I have had my doom scroll days but generally I keep to an hour or so now and generally feel pretty good after using it. Again it depends on what "side" of Tiktok you are on, but it avoids a lot of pitfalls. I haven't seen studies, but here's one data point for you. I'm 25 for reference on age.

If you don't feel the need or desire, you don't need to be on it. But I really think the best way to conceptualize it is a visual Tumblr with an automatic algorithm approach rather than a focus on manual curation.

Can't imagine having political discussions in 15 second increments. Twitter is bad enough already.

> The few times I tried it it gave me loads of crappy content

Feed the algorithm. Like/comment/follow content you like and it shows you a lot of good stuff. It really works.

I bet most of us doesn't use tiktok, therefore we are unlikely to write any comment to talk about it.

If the positive comments are made in good faith, I see no reason to downvote/flag them.

You can have up to 60 seconds and just upload multiple parts. Sure, this isn't the most nuanced approach but it kind of works.

That's exactly what it's like. The strategy is to keep users engaged and entertained, while keeping them dumb. Talk about Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the Indian border conflict or a ton of other topics and you might find your content shadow-banned or your account gets suspended. Since they try this as much as they can get away with, you can be sure the recommendations and trends are manufactured based on what ByteDance/the CCP wants you to see.

It's telling the type of content is almost exactly the same as on Douyin, the Mainland Chinese version.

Can you? I haven't used the site in quite a while, have they changed things?

You haven't used it much yet you somehow in your very short experience know everyone's experience with it and anyone who has had a different experience must be paid or on drugs? I hope you realize how bad that sounds...

Even more so than like, your best tool is long press > not interested. Use that indiscriminately for a bit and you'll be in a much better place.

Yes, it's rough at first, but it's pretty amazing how it works after some time. I get really niche content like VSCode tips, Math proofs, tips on the later games I'm playing or even Hamilton+programming jokes.

The even started to roll-out 3 minutes TikToks to some creators. But the fact that you can't go seek into the video make them quite annoying to watch. (Or when you accidentally scroll up and need to re-watch the whole thing..)

> Is this a bot invasion on HN or is it really that good?

Probably neither, but please don't break the site guidelines like you did there.

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

In a case like this thread it's pretty trivial to answer the question yourself, actually, by looking at the posting histories of the commenters.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

I agree, I am not downvoting or flagging any comments unless they are clearly spam.