Since last year or 2022, I have been an on-and-off user of TikTok. In the beginning, I mainly watched cute couple content to ease my terrible period pains (It worked better than my expensive painkillers). Then in 2023 because I was recently unemployed, the algorithm started showing me “How to make $100 every day” content.
At first, it was harmless, I clicked on some of it and dreamt of how good it would feel to have an extra $10–100 every day but then it started getting malicious. I would be fed UGC creator content every second video (after ads of course) and I don’t even know what UGC is!
I started feeling overwhelmed and sad. As in staring out of the window and contemplating the worth of my existence, sad. As in grinding my teeth to a pulp and bringing back the click in my jaw. But why should TikTok and its all-powerful algorithm have this much power over me?
I think I feel compelled to keep it because not having it feels like I don’t have my finger on the ‘pulse’. Is the pulse in the room with us right now? I have not been able to make money on these data annotation jobs or sell AI-generated content on Etsy, all the jobs I have been pushed to apply for by creators who I did not know 2 seconds ago and TikTok somehow made me feel like a failure. TikTok feeds into my delusions of specialness and my insecurities about not being good enough so easily.
Plus, I last logged off of Twitter (X) in 2020 when that was the epicentre of ‘things happening’ and I survived to fight another day so I think I’ll be fine. Growing up with the internet has made me feel like my existence and the internet are inseparably entangled. And maybe it is but I also did not grow up on Katniss Everdeen’s internet to not know that I don’t HAVE to conform. Hopefully, my rebellion yields some results. So far I have taken to writing on paper, reading more and taking walks to fill my time.
So, although I’ll miss creators like Vickto_willy and her cute relationship, I think I’ll survive and possibly be better off.
Let me remind you to breathe in and breathe out. Stress kills.
Check out my analysis of May December, I had fun talking about the costume design and why Gracie is the most malicious woman of the year.
