Letters From TikTok
Surprising lessons from social media.
TikTok is a whole thing. One of the pieces of the magic of TikTok that is non-obvious if you haven't spent time on it is the power of that algorithm. The non-technical explanation: when users watch a video longer and don't swipe away, the algorithm intuits that you like that video. It will show you more things that are like it. When you swipe away quickly, you probably don't like it as much. Every second on TikTok counts. It is a giant to measure our engagement and feed us more of what we are hungry for. Owen Muir, the editor here, has a TikTok account.
There is more to it of course. There are two kinds of content humans engage with: things that horrify us, and things that our brains engage with way that's pleasant. The knowledge of how the algorithm is working leads to a proliferation of content it's not very good. Like for example, videos with long blocks of text that just take time to read, leading to longer time spent with a particular video.
However, unlike YouTube, which could have utilized similar technology, its longer-form videos generated a different cultural zeitgeist; TikTok is really all about trends, fast and furious. The ability of the algorithm to promote content rapidly to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people? Zazz! That's a powerful tool. Things that do remarkably well tend to be funny and catchy. There's often music involved. And there's often dance. TikTok is a place of privilege for either absurdity or lizard-brain beauty.
It's the one place where elderly white rappers from the UK and young attractive women in sweatpants have a similar leg up. A pair of older gentlemen from the UK recently captured everybody's attention on the platform. I introduce you to the magic of Pete and Bas. Reportedly, Pete is a grandfather who was listening to a rap song in the car with his granddaughter and decided he'd give it a try. The results are, frankly, magical. These guys are good. They’re excellent. And we live in a bizarre universe where two elderly gentlemen from the UK can become wrap sensations overnight. Behold:
It's just… funny. It's delightfully weird. You're not expecting old guys to flow this hard, and they do; they're genuinely good. TikTok is not a place for the perfect. It's the Haven perfectionists. It's engaging, charming, funny, a little inappropriate, and remarkably powerful.
TikTok also has a live feature, and as someone who spent a lot of time on Clubhouse, like tens of thousands of hours, I can say that TikTok is a lot more lonely; it manages to have a similar vibe. Many people will show up if you happen to pop on. If you're extremely online (sup,
) you're going to see old friends. I've done a bunch of these and gotten metrics that are, frankly, shocking. I'm a doctor, talking about the details of the health insurance marketplace, psychiatric treatments, and providing psychoeducation on a massive scale. I'm not in sweatpants, and I'm not dancing, but still, there's a place for the oddballs like your author.Kamala Harris figured this out already and has been creating remarkable political campaign material because her campaign-hired 20-year-olds have reportedly never had another job. They have a concise cycle of creation through approval and getting something out in the world, which has ennobled an entire platform. It's OK to be funny and weird. Presidential candidates are being funny and weird. Nutter butter? Do you remember those cookies? They still exist, and their social media account is the epicenter of unbelievably effective weirdness on the most perfectly tuned viral marketing platform.
The thing that is fierce about the Nutter butter account, which by the way, has 1.1 million followers and 7.5 million likes as of today, is that not only is the content deeply weird, and somewhat unsettling— like this is a series of pictures of a house with creepy music just slathered in peanut butter well Nutter butter cookies wander around—but the comment section?
