A Eulogy for TikTok

Social media is neither social, nor media. Discuss.

Maybe you’ve never used it, but I would be willing to wager that in the past two weeks, you’ve heard more about TikTok than ever before because the app is due to be banned in the United States. That’s right, the “home of the free” is going to turn off access to an app because of some potential concerns of national security?

The whole mess is maddening, partially because I’d finally found an audience and gotten some readership, but more broadly because in the last two weeks, nearly every content creator on TikTok has had to post about where they’ll be going when TikTok “goes away.” Many are simply going back into the Metaverse but there are lots of other options, each with the prospect of a new learning curve and starting over.

A great many are turning out in the hours before the law goes into effect. I’ve seen marches, petitions, last-minute bills, and possible executive orders all thrown around as some sort of salvation for the app that has brought millions together, and helped millions more to build their businesses and brands.

Instead of hopeful, it only makes me angry…but I suppose I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with social media.

I was an early adopter, using Facebook back when you still had to have a .edu address to get an account. I tried Twitter more than once but never really liked the taste. I had Instagram when there were hardly any people on it. I’m not telling you this to make me seem cooler, I’m only trying to say that I’ve had and used those accounts, glad to keep track of the people I’d met in my travels around the country and globe.

Then came the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal.

By then, Facebook had descended into a quagmire of folks who confused search bars with status posts and profiles run by bots offering to help you avoid your profile being censored. We were still living in New Hampshire and I really only used it to see pictures of my niblings. Securing a promise to use a shared folder, I downloaded all the profile pictures & tagged images and deleted my account.

I tried and failed many times to build up a presence on Twitter, finding it a better place for pornography than discourse by the time I got there. I was a very active volunteer for the 2020 election and felt connected to the resistance. While you could always find out what was happening, I was “on Twitter” during the January 6th insurrection and that was more than enough of that.

A picture is worth a thousand words and so I stayed on Instagram for the longest. Not as myself, of course, having turned my personal account into one for my music blog several years ago. Even after Instagram was acquired by Meta, the platform seemed to resist the pull of gravity and I thought it might avoid becoming “another Facebook.” Sure, there started to be ads now and again, but it was still a pretty decent place to enjoy pretty looking things like Christian Hogue.

Recently though, the flow has reversed and now the user-generated content is now reduced to punctuation around the conversation of ads. I know that I am bald, having been there when I shaved my head each and every time since I embraced the natural progress of follicular degeneration; however, Instagram’s targeted ads really need me to know that they know, too, and that there are magical diamond bald head shavers I could try for only $39.95.

Then there was TikTok…

After years of mostly-Meta social media, it was a breath of fresh air to see content from around the world and to have a platform learn from what I like rather than what makes me angry. I alluded to the fact that I stopped being myself on social media long ago; however, when I published by first novel (it’s available now, go buy it, please), I soon learned that BookTok was the place I needed to go to try to make a splash.

I was expecting to use the insider knowledge from my years of Instagram, but TikTok didn’t respond the same way. William and I tried a whole host of things, but the only thing that made any difference on TikTok content was a personal touch. As soon as I started talking, the app was able to figure out who might like to hear my voice and connect me to it. I started using the app back in October and grew my account.

Not as rapidly as some, but organically…for the most part.

I found readers.

I met other writers.

I joined live conversations.

I learned and remembered details about other people - something that NEVER happened with the random people who followed me on Instagram. I found myself eager to see what my new friends were posting, what they were reading (sometimes it was even MY book!), and to generate little videos that would delight them.

I’m certainly not in favor of anything that might destabilize the nation, but the story used to justify banning TikTok doesn’t really hold water. After all, Facebook became what it is by collecting and selling its users data. 2018 represents the one time where they got caught and it made waves. But it also did nothing to dissuade a massive amount of people from using their products.

It wasn’t TikTok that got called out for misinformation during the 2020 election…

By selling user data, Meta was able to buy more platforms, giving them access to more data, and allowing them to grow more and more wealth. So much so, in fact, that they were able to buy influence over elected officials and lobby for TikTok to be banned. But why?

Because it’s a competitor? | Possibly, we do prefer monopolies in America.

Because it’s owned by a foreign entity? | Oooh, good one, we also like xenophobia.

It’s because TikTok remained outside the sphere of control.

TikTok has created networks among the underserved with a space for every individual to find a community. I have personally built relationships with strangers, and found a space to be among those who don’t fit into the Stepford model of (Facebook) life. And I would wager that’s what scares US lawmakers: the prospect of not being able to monetize or direct the flow of information to the American people.

Even if it somehow manages to survive the law's going into effect, under the ownership of an American investor who is friendly to the incoming president, it will follow in the wake of Facebook, Instagram, and the Washington Post, becoming a sea of advertisements and seemingly identical suburban families appropriating or spitting on global culture.

There will never be another TikTok, no matter what folks tell themselves.

The time for change isn’t now, it was when our system of “checks and balances” contorted into a means by which the most vocal fringe can sabotage the whole of the government, forcing hands when it comes to making choices that can impact millions of people.

The time for action isn’t in the days before the law is enforced, the time for action was back when a ban was forced into an omnibus spending bill that would make sure the government was funded.

The time for outrage over the safety and security of user data was when the domestically-owned social media platforms were first reported to be mismanaging users’ information…

The time for mobilizing isn’t in the face of having your power taken away, it was when they started to come for it.

Instead, we make an entire news cycle out of the TikTok ban, focusing on how many individuals will be harmed by the app going dark, and generating countless millions of dollars for the cable networks and subscription news sites. But no one will talk about how the ban was forced into law nor the choices made by elected officials who were bought with misinformation. No one will mention that the biggest benefactor of the TikTok ban is the same company that shelled out to make it happen.

So, here I am, an indie author with a second book on the way, starting over on a new platform, hoping against hope that writing as opposed to recording myself doing filter-based challenges will help me find my audience.

Oh, I’m also on Bluesky…for now.

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