Show HN: Erin – Open-source and self-hosted TikTok feed for your own videos

maybe you could use shadcn and chatgpt to make it cuter

The README makes it sound like this uses TikTok, or at least that's how I read it. I think it's just an app that has a TikTok-like UX. You may want to reword things to highlight who would use this and why you built it.

Agreed. It's weird, and probably also a trademark violation? It's not saying that it's "like" a TikTok feed, it's saying that it "is" a TikTok feed.

"vertical video feed" would be more accurate, it's nothing like tiktok other than it being a vertical video feed

This is great for creating a media-garden for your children!

Kid content on YouTube and TikTok can be extremly disturbing, even for an adult. Until they turn 16 I intend to vet most media myself on a self-hosted server.

Well, and there being feeds of videos?

Yup, it's a sketchy-sounding concept. Is it for "your own videos," or TikTok videos? Why does it have the TikTok logo in it??

It looks like it's a fork or repackaging of someone else's TikTok "clone."

The author's writing is fluent, but the whole thing is kind of odd. This is the Internet; the developer could be 17. Who knows.

Don't instagram, youtube and snapchat also have that design language too?

> The author's writing is fluent, but the whole thing is kind of odd. This is the Internet; the developer could be 17. Who knows.

They may be 17 or 57, why does that matter?

To me the Readme seems absolutely professional. Putting together some React UI lib, use Caddy, put it all in Docker, write a comprehensive Readme with everything there is to know about it and release it. Looks pretty standard (in a good way) to me.

Granted, the Tiktok reference is a bit clickbaity. But that's just Github in the year 2024, isn't it?

I'd say just removing the TikTok logo would be a good call. I was able to tell it was self-hosted from the blurb.

Using the TikTok logo in the app is kinda inappripriate, but otherwise yeah, I think just saying “TikTok for X” gets the idea across in the most concise way. Adding some info on what the videos could be from would be nice though (i.e. do I paste a bunch of YouTube links, or upload files myself, or..?)

>it's nothing like tiktok other than it being a vertical video feed

Agree. It's interesting that people in tech still don't get that what makes Tiktok so much better than Shorts/Reels is TikTok's semi-manually curated recommendations. They algorithmically detect user interest clusters and manually curate high quality videos for the the biggest clusters.

I thought things had changed after ElsaGate but I peeked into the airbnb room at a friend's party the other day and the kids were watching youtube, and it seems that type of content still has a hold. The kids were watching some really long video of this guy that kept making an AI-esque youtube-thumbnail style open mouth face after some 5 second event occured. E.g: Man runs into door, makes youtube face. Man tries to sit on toilet, but the toilet lid is down. He lifts it, and finds the toilet's full of colored balls, youtube face. Driving, shot of a speed bump, shot of him bouncing in his seat and hitting his head on the ceiling of the car, youtube face.

The kids were utterly enthralled. I wish I could find a link to the video but it was just some autoplay on a smart tv and I never managed to grab it before leaving the party.

This is good. It is long over due that we burn the social media sites to the ground.

Slight tangent, but it's my intuition that some version of this is the end game for media. Completely compelling, AI created, individually attuned videos generated in or near real time that appeal so well to the individual (adult) viewer they overwhelm our learned resistance. Infinite Jest, but rather than dying laughing you orient your entire life around engaging with the content.

inappropriate to whom?

> Until they turn 16 I intend to vet most media myself on a self-hosted server.

Are you going to use the same methods your parents used to do this for you/

Yes. Before the internet, my parents looked at the PG rating of every movie we rented at Blockbuster. Many parents did.

When I was 16, nearly all the media I consumed was vetted/regulated by the FCC.

No search function?

if we can fit that power into a box that can fly with me to alpha centauri, i think we'll be ok

once we figure out feeding and waste management, entertainment over a low-bandwidth link will be tricky

Would you consider that good?

I grew up with the Internet and people sharing shock horror sites with some very questionable content. It seems we all mostly still grew up fine.

Nice work!

Can we get a video demo of this in action? Curious what it looks like in desktop, too.

Really? I'm a millennial and most of the content I consumed came from

  * Initially various Warez sources (KDX , eMule etc) (2000-2005 I think)
  * later on liveleak, 4chan,  digger (2006-2007? Not sure anymore), 
  * Then stumble upon, 9gag (08-10)
  * finally ending at reddit (2010-2014, that was the year spez edited user comments. Very rarely used it since)

I vividly remember watching pretty fucked up shit back then, like racists executions of teenagers by police officers (South America) and a lot of sexual content, which is pretty disturbing from today's perspective if I don't completely misremember them.

There's a difference between accidentally stumbling on shocking TikTok content and willingly browsing a gore site.

If my kid really wants to check it, it might be acceptable, but I'm not ok with an algorithm showing it by surprise.

That was my original point though — it’s not saying that it’s “like TikTok” or “TikTok for X”, it’s literally saying that it is TikTok.

Edit: The title is “TikTok feed for your clips” so I guess in a literal sense it is describing itself as “TikTok for X”, but I think that’s kind of like saying that something is “Uber for ridesharing”. Yeah, that’s just Uber.

i bet before the internet?

However, none of that was fed to you by algorithms, but rather your own curiosity for weird stuff and your ability to find it. I am not saying that it is good or bad, but in my book, it is different from infinite algorithmic feeds we currently have.

My parents never restricted me access, but talked with me openly about movies, games, or websites they saw me using/playing when they came to my room. I didn't take any precautions, or fear their reactions... because they were open about things with me.

Some discussions went pretty deep, others not really.

Moreover, they usually would spend time with us late evening watching interesting stuff. Given how open they were, me and siblings would ask about it too. They weren't the type that watched the most banal thing either.

I did end up visiting many strange websites. But the way they educated me never came second. I did start concerning myself with what I consumed.

Honestly it's better to open up, talk, keep up with what they watch but in a way that can be educative for them (i.e. question, discuss).

This is mostly things above 10 yo, granted. Before that I didn't have internet. But my friends did, and I did spend lots of time with friends.

My point is, it's better to confront with real life things sooner and have the time to talk. After 16 no one has time :)

Do you really think it is semi manual? I guess I never considered the possibility, but I would be surprised. It seems like there are way too many niches and sub-niches, and the algorithm works rather quickly when news happens

Not all (or a big majority) of parents will be like this.

Until they are, screentime and internet access should be regulated for young people.

Parents think their kids are safe at home but the whole world is coming into it.

You won't know for another 10-20 years for what you are de-sensitized to.

Also, your experience won't be anyone else's. Assuming so can create challenges.

Good point

At a minimum, inappropriate from TikTok/ByteDance's point of view. Even if we put that aside, users of this app may find it inappropriate that this app advertised as a "TikTok feed" app is not a TikTok feed app (so it appears very much like a scam from the point of view).

Any hints on optimal encoding for videos, to reduce storage and network bandwidth? I would go even for a compromise in video quality, to have them looking more akin to Encarta '98 videos, if it greatly reduces file size.

Newer codecs compress better at the cost of a more complex decoder. so maybe av1 or h.265 at a low bitrate?

How do you know it's 10 - 20 years?

I'm not alone though, all the childhood people I grew up with that were exposed to this questionable content seem functioning fine now.

Although I would agree that people and especially children shouldn't use TikTok or addictive things like that, but I'm mainly talking about the content specifically.

I wouldn't want my kid browsing TikTok or anything with addictive recommendation system either, but I was mainly talking about explicitly taking effort to keep teenagers away from questionable content. But actually I'm not sure exactly how much policing the OP intended.

It seems to me like a way to get your kid to not tell you anything in fear of censorship.

this difference is that none of that was mainstream, less than one percent of my high school ever read 4chan or even knew what it was. almost literally every kid today has a smart phone, the vast majority of them are on youtube, and an absolute ton of them are on tiktok.

when older millennials were young, it was mostly television, movies, maybe some radio, and maybe some CDs/tapes. and as the previous person said, this was all extremely moderated and you didn't have unlimited access to most anything

Yeah, but OP was talking about vetting and policing content. I fully agree that addictive algorithms are bad though.

People in my school were constantly pranking each other with this type of content, so everyone even people who weren't seeking it out, were exposed to that. I assume everyone knew what 2 girls 1 cup is, and if you ask around my age right now, most people will know it from around secondary school. And at least most guys knew about the pain olympics.

Not really executions though, luckily.

Picture a two curves of technical progress. One is the process toward creating a 'hot' media stimuli so addicting that it shifts your utility function. The other is the route to interstellar travel. Now imagine the relative resources that are being expended to push technology along each curve.

an intersection of the two curves must exist, at some point

when two roads diverge in a yellowed wood, blaze down the middle

The concept seems great for video-based family albums. If there was a way to use ML to auto-categorize the videos into channels (rather than manually sorting them into folders), that would be amazing.

I definitely like this approach, but a big problem is how social media captivates your attention, gets you addicted, and then you’re watching whatever the algorithm wants.

At that point, it gets very, very hard to have a meaningful conversation about what the algorithm chooses to show you.

So I’m not so sure any more. It’s clearly not healthy for kids to be addicted to social media, and how do you avoid that except by restricting use of those apps?

16 is so old to be doing that still. If I were your teenager I would have hated that and would have been extremely embarrassed if my friends ever found out.

Thats basically how it worked back then too. Instead of an algorithm showing you this stuff by surprise it was your buddy in the computer lab saying “hey check this out.”