Mine and Everyone’s Problems with Tik Tok
This is kind of a LONG overdue rant on my personal view of the sudden surge in Tik Tok’s popularity. I’ve always had my own problems with Tik Tok and it all stems from the type of platform it has become for a lot of people. Tik Tok to some maybe fun and expressive to create whatever you want, but there are issues that’d need to be talked about. In this argument I will express my true feelings about Tik Tok and why I hate this app so much, but still continue to use it. There’s multiple different apps you can use if you do not want to have your data tracked, put up with the drama and controversy from this app, I will list ALL of them down below.
The Chinese Government:
So, I’m sure we’ve all seen or heard people from the news and news articles talk about the Chinese government tracking and collecting our data when we use that app. And I’m sure this is a very true thing since China is very good at tracking what their citizens use and since we use this app so much (which is an app they created) then we might as well fall in-line with them. But honestly, America does the same thing, so it’s like the pot calling the kettle black in my opinion.
The “Pretty” Algorithm:
If you’ve witnessed your “For You Page” then you’ve probably seen that almost every last person you’ve seen is blessed to have a physically good looking face/body. “Abnormal body shapes, chubby, obese, or too thin.” They also axed people with “Ugly facial looks,” “disformatted” faces, missing teeth, and old people with “too many wrinkles.” This is all mostly due to Tik Tok wanting to reduce the stress of bullying and cyber-harassment for people who might be less fortunate in the looks department. Along with this, is the ideal standards of putting white people as the mascots for this app and only very rarely giving credit and love to those whom are POC. This brings me to my next point... The unoriginality.
The Unoriginality/Stealing POC Content:
Tik Tok is a breeding ground for many young teens and 21 year olds who love comedy, dancing, art, lip syncing and DIY projects. But all of these categories have been stolen from previously existing apps such as Vine, Triller/Dubsmash, Musical.ly (the predecessor) and YouTube. This plus the unoriginal copying of others videos such as the same sound effects, editing effects, etc. it’s more so staplized a culture of people who copy others ideas and use it as their own content without giving credit to the original creator. One huge issue within Tik Tok’s dance community is the original creator of the “Renegade” dance. The creator of the dance is a young black girl from Atlanta by the name of Jalaiah Harmon. For a long while when the dance was in its prime she had never been credited for creating this dance. Another black content creator on the app Keara Wilson, she is the creator of the Savage dance, the dance that was inspired by Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion. As of now she only has 431.4K likes on her page, all the while the white influencers on the app have amassed millions upon millions of views and likes for recreating the dance and some of these influencers lack crediting her for her dance.
The Offensive Culture:
Like stated above, Tik Tok has really began to profit off of the more stereotypical side of black and latinx culture with the “Hot Cheeto Girl” POV videos. These videos will include young people of any racial ethnicity or any sex/gender wearing long eyelashes, hoop earrings, slicked edges, big lips with lip gloss, exaggerated nails, and head scarfs. They try to enhance the wrong stereotypes of black women and chula latina women by being “loud, ratchet, ghetto, and using improper language”. If that doesn’t scream racist, shall I introduce you to a white influencer on the app known as Lil Huddy who uses the N-word.
IG: @fuxkma.tt
My Closing Thoughts:
In some ways, Tik Tok can be a great app to come up on and make a name for yourself. Every new social media app always runs into problems like these. I’ve always hated Instagram for how much it loves to promote unrealistic standards of beauty and the likes competition. And now the app has went back to solely being creatively driven by hiding likes (which was amazing for my own mental health). Every app, even Tumblr has its struggles. I know mostly people from my generation Gen-Z and Millennials love using Tik Tok because it’s what’s trendy, but trends do not last long and whatever offensive, inappropriate statement or video you’ve made will be on the internet forever. I think it’s more so important that we show what types of people shouldn’t be broadcasted on the app and leave room for more likability.
Alternative TikTok Apps:
YouTube Shorts- This isn’t a released app yet, but YouTube is making a competitor app against Tik Tok coming later this year.
byte- This is the actual successor of Vine created by Dom, the creator of Vine. It’s still a new app, but it’s a alright.
Dubsmash- A dancing app similar to Tik Tok, but less controversial lol.
Triller- A dancing app like Dubsmash that’s pretty popular to use.
Instagram Reels- Instagram’s TikTok imitator
Oevo- An imitator app of Vine
Vigo Video- It’s the international app used by people in other countries for short videos.
Sources:
National Security
Renegade Dance
Savage Dance
Hot Cheeto Girl
Chase “LilHuddy” Hudson
Pretty Privilege on TikTok
