TikTok Remix Culture

I have never seen so many to say "average" people on tiktok like on any other social platform, in a sense that I can relate to those people and don't feel like a celebrity is trying to feed me some content down my throat. There's so much of normalization of everything that I'm blown away by how normal Tiktok is, you can see teenagers struggling in a school, you can see people hating their 9-5 jobs, you can see crafts and arts, you can see people with disabilities living life at its fullest, cooking videos, etc.

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

Tiktok is full of girls dancing with very little or very tight clothes on for likes and attention. It's really seedy. There's subreddits dedicated to posting about these accounts.

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.

TikTok is very good at recommending new content based on what you engage with (watch, like, comment, etc), if your feed is full of girls dancing, it's because you spend time actually watching it instead of just moving to the next video. My feed is full of people (for some reason mostly eastern european or from central asia) working at their construction jobs.

I don't think this invalidates GP's point. Sure, if you don't want the seedy content, you won't see it, but it's still there and that's still a large part of how they make money.

If a site has user contributed content there will usually be the "seedy" content. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit...if it gets big enough, a certain segment will monetize it. Usually as an advertising vehicle for their more overt content on adult sites. It's actually an interesting complaint because TikTok takes a lot of heat for taking down a lot of benign content.

"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 have the opposite impression. I only like niche content about tools and life hacks, but every time seedy content is pushed back into my feed.

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.