I was born in 1998.
I caught the last few years of rustic, old-fashioned fun; playing in the sand for hours, running barefoot in the hot sun chasing after friends, going everywhere within a 4-mile radius from home in a unicycle, and then a bicycle and the like.
We didn’t have the world at our disposal yet.
The World Wide Web really came into my life when I was 11. Yeah, Wikipedia for school projects and e-mailing friends. My friends and I picked up on it very fast.
In a way, we did grow up with technology around us.
I recently attended a Zoom Meeting where everyone was 30 plus years old, and the moderator was explaining to everyone how to leave a “breakout room” for a full 10 minutes. I was amused- the option is right there.
We are the generation that pumped our talent into sources of entertainment like Youtube & Instagram and monetized it. We are the generation that disbelieves in the 9–5 enough to work hard to turn their talent into a business of its own. We are the generation chasing adventure, the generation that changed the face of travel by always being on the go. (Of course, I don’t speak on the behalf of the entire generation Z, and there are always exceptions.)
We love the internet like our lives depend on it because they do.
But when I say I am glad Tik-Tok is banned, my reasoning goes slightly beyond my personal distaste in the app.
Tik-Tok Is Ruining A Collective Childhood.
Tik-Tok is exposing tweens and little children to the world of fronting, showing off, and making money.
I’ve personally seen 14-year-old boys talking about making money on Tik-Tok and 17-year-old girls comparing their style to Influencers and trying too hard.
Of course, they’d do that even without Tik-Tok, and it would be stupid to want the new generation to grow up as we did in the ’90s.
The phones with all the technology will only advance, but that shouldn’t mean that we provide such a pothole of unsolicited, explicit and often explosive content to kids.
Children are growing up way too fast and understanding the horrendous ways of the world way too soon.
Their version of “taking a break from studies” is now sitting around lazily to watch Tik-Tok videos of 16-year-old girls and boys lip-syncing explicit songs while dancing provocatively.
Yes, not everyone does that. And yes, there are some genuinely talented people on Tiktok. There are chefs, teachers, massage therapists, and other people who provide value to their viewers, but how many people will go on Tik Tok to learn how to bake a cake? We have YouTube for that.
Tik-Tok is for fun. Silly stupid laughable fun.
It nurtures a community of narcissistic people who shoot videos in the privacy of their rooms, while their shirtless picture is framed and in clear view behind them.
A community of people whose sole motive is to make people laugh, without even caring about the quality and level of mockery, with a young influencer twerking to a verse from the Quran.
Then the elaborate apology videos “if”, and only if, they are called out for it.
Do we all really have nothing left to do except watch little girls and boys grow up online, with all their silly missteps and blunders?
Let’s not mention the amount of cringe content, the bullying, and small influencers committing suicide.
Nobody Cares About The Data Theft
Let’s just say it like it is. Gen Z and Millenials are very familiar with being tracked online.
We know our phones are always listening to us and we’re beyond the point of caring. Being a Chinese app, it’s not unlikely that the app tracks user data, but the young generation is unfazed.
It has been reported that 83% of gen Z and Millenials do not care about Tik-Tok tracking our data, to us, it’s just another company out to make money off people.
Aren’t We On The Phone Enough Already?
Look, I’m not one of those stuck-up people, talking about “looking up” and “putting that damn phone down”, I myself used to clock over 3 hours a day on my phone until last year.
We’re already always on the phone. Do we really need another useless app that takes away more of our time?
Is there nothing exciting left in life for us anymore?
Look, marketers aren't stupid. They know our pulse. They know how to keep us engaged and hanging around for more. Tik-Tok has been designed in a way that makes it difficult to close the app.
They bait us, and we, the seemingly intelligent generation, hover over our phone screens like a moth to a flame.
So yes, good thing it is banned. We couldn’t practise self-control with yet another social media app, so good thing it was taken away from us.
Of course, the reasons vary, and for US citizens, they are right in their anger and resentment towards their President and his silly reason for banning it.
Tik-Tok was just another Chinese app among the roughly 50 apps that my Prime Minister decided to ban, since their attempt to encroach our land, which resulted in tension at the border.
Whatever the reason, good riddance.
I am not bitter. I am happy for the people who could make a living off Tik-Tok while it lasted, and I know entertaining people is not an easy job. I just hated how easily accessible it was to children, and how difficult it was to put down for adults.
There is a herd of people who will go where the world goes. If they see that Tik-Tok works, businesses will start pumping their efforts there, influencers will blindly head over to start their party here as well, unassuming fans and other people will also start using the app, just because everyone’s here.
Who is actually stopping to think, to understand what’s happening?
There is a small “mob” however, that will have the courage to choose a different path, and disrupt their thinking pattern to make smarter choices. It’s up to us which group we want to be a part of.
Again, all opinions are my own.
I only hope we, the generation z, the internet-savvy, street smart, money-making machines, don’t miss out on life because we were busy watching clips of each other “throwing it back”.
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If not, then maybe some poetry?
