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Three terrible TikTok trends and why they’re totally awesome
According to Reuters, roughly half of all Americans want to ban TikTok. I reckon the desire to kick TikTok into touch isn’t about Chinese data gathering or the probability of pre-invasion propaganda. I reckon…
It’s Gen X’s angry realization that iGen prefers TikTok to their parents. Or school. or just about anything, really.
Not gonna lie: I get it. I also prefer TikTok to their parents, their school and just about anything, really.
For anyone with wide-ranging intellectual curiosity – or a goldfish’s attention span – TikTok is SMC (Social Media Crack).
One swipe and I learn that an AMRAAM isn’t a Hindu meditation center.
Next swipe and I’m watching an instrument-by-instrument breakdown of Stayin’ Alive - a song whose intricate production belies unimpeachable banality.
Next swipe and I’m watching amateur comedy sketches that are what Saturday Night Live isn’t: funny.
What’s not to love?
Whatever it is, it takes less time to swipe it away than an errant fly at an open air picnic (a tradition held before the sun decided to punish us for gas-powered SUV’s).
Bonus! TikTok learns what I don’t want to watch. Real-time World War II tank battle video games? Gone! Thirst traps of digitally-enhanced women? Gone! Any video in which His Orangeness appears? Gone!
And then the algorithm slips in some crazy, obscure or insightful shit I never knew I wanted to see until I saw it. Yeah I’m a stoic. Now.
I know: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts offer the same filmic farrago. But TikTok wins walking away. Walking away from social responsibility.
That’s why I love TikTok: the app doesn’t give a shit about political correctness.
Submitted for your consideration: three TikTok “trends” that earned the ire of the nattering nabobs of negativism.
Yes! I hate cats. They’re the miniature versions of the animals that ate my ancestors. If cats were any bigger, we’d still be shooting the damn things.
Oh wait. There are bigger cats out there and we can’t shoot them, never mind wear their pelts as a badge of wealth, good taste and honor.
But we can watch TikTok posters torture the fuck out of them in incredibly inventive ways – for a laugh!
Don’t get me wrong: I love kids. I just couldn’t eat a whole one. But seriously yolks…
As the father of four daughters, I’ve always followed the sacred Jewish teaching: don’t cut funny.
How can a good Jew criticize a trend that gives the Post’s writers the chance to lace their report with killer puns?
These tot omelets did not go over easy with fans on TikTok, who accused the perpetrators of egg-sploiting their kids for internet clout. “Poor baby, she looked so hurt and confused,” said one heartbroken critic regarding a video where the mother uses her daughter as a human egg-beater. “Poor thing. She looked really excited to cook with you too,” wrote another. “You were the only one laughing.” A third declared, “And that’s how you lose trust.”
Trust schmust. Sure, the parent should immediately give the kid an egg to crack on Mommy or Daddy’s head. But full marks to TikTok for refusing to surrender to Eggs Are Murder activists.
TikTok trend ‘girl dinner’ faces backlash over concerns of disordered eating
Girl dinner – the real-life late-night nutrition of women raised without rudimentary cooking skills – got a billion views on TikTok and millions more in the mainstream media.
The MSM wants it (all those lovely views) but doesn’t get it (the joke). Even when a “girl dinner” poster recommends a glass of wine or ice cubes.
“The joke may end of influencing eating habits for people of any gender.”
See that? “Any gender.” We can’t discuss anything without gender inclusivity.
Except on TikTok, where posters can and do rant about anything: Joe Biden’s “crime family,” the origins of the Wuhan Flu, the Fed’s monetary policy, gorging on carrots to turn your skin orange. Anything.
That’s more than you can say for the American social media giants fighting to protect Constitutionally-protected speech. I mean, “battling disinformation.”
TikTok’s inanity/insanity is totally worth celebrating, no matter what your race, gender, sexual preference(s), income, size, political leanings or browser.
Sure, stupid people do stupid things they see on social media, leading to unfortunate outcomes. How is that any different from our electoral system?
Is this a bad time to point out that Charles Darwin (a.k.a., a “straight-up mother fucking devil”) was right?
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