Elisabeth van der Wilt 
TIK-TOK CAN BE SUCH A LETDOWN…
Yeah, I said it.
All I want to do is come and watch videos of people dancing, babies, or trending topics.
I should be writing, or reading my books, but I like others have fallen down the rabbit hole that is TikTok.
One minute you can be watching a few 20-second videos and then it’s been over two hours since I actually did something productive.
Half the time its content that is repeated because of a trend – Does anyone remember the Corn Kid or Chrissy Wake Up?
Do you get the same feeling? Watching and enjoying, then it becomes a huge let-down?
If you answered yes, you suffer the same problem as I do.
The algorithm studies us, which videos we heart and enjoy, which ones we watch a few times, and the hashtags in the program linger for future videos. This is why tik-tok can be such a letdown.
Suddenly you liked 6 videos in a row that was all about affiliate marketing and suddenly it’s an endless loop, and even I’m stuck on how to get out.
That means that every user has the chance of global fame. Even if you have no followers at all, your video will eventually make it on to someone’s For You Page, and if they are deemed to have engaged positively, you can reach thousands or millions of viewers extremely quickly. And the speed of the videos helps TikTok hone its data rapidly
The Guardian Oct 2022/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/23/tiktok-rise-algorithm-popularity
Eventually, everyone gets a chance to be on the FYP, but what does that mean for you and your addiction to the app?
Well, they constantly are watching which apps you liked, and they collect data on when you share the video via a third-party messaging or social media app, as well as when you send it through their own TikTok messages.
A rumour that has gone around is that if you send different videos back and forth between you and say your brother’s account after about thirty videos you’ll have identical feeds.
Here is a small run down of my flooded FYPs for the past three-ish months.
- September’s feed was flooded with the Corn Kid Song: I was actively singing this one, at the time I was learning Booktok and how I could get my book spread throughout the masses so that was actively a lot of my videos
- October was the thread of constant October doings. (I.E. the famous Halloween songs, the makeup designs was a big thing)
- November has been interesting, the first part of the month (like 1-6 I got Christmas crafts, and Christmas decorating) it was so much fun! But now, all I am doing is seeing adds on side hustles. I keep engaging so partially on mine. But I am always looking for more ways to keep busy and do more things.
So obviously you can see I’ve had mine all over the map.
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