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Do I Regret TikTok?

2024-09-20 · letter vlog · Hank · 8:29 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, calendar ritual

Four years after joining TikTok, Hank weighs what he loved there (a culture factory that changed his life) against what he regrets: helping give power to a platform whose attention arms race rewards fear and outrage and that is structurally weak at moderation; he argues platforms are places where we live, with good and bad neighborhoods.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank's first TikTok four years ago; attention as the stuff of life (Kyla Scanlon); giving away control of attention

  • ★★ Hank says almost exactly four years ago (September 2020) he uploaded his first TikTok; his fourth got millions of views, and with a book coming and his fascination with platforms he pushed hard into TikTok. — 00:00:00 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says part of him is very glad he pushed into TikTok and another part is not. — 00:00:00 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank cites Kyla Scanlon's TikTok saying our eyeballs are the most expensive thing we own, his new favorite way of saying something he has long said. — 00:00:00 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Hank says attention is the stuff a life is made of, we only get so much, and in theory we control what we do with it. — 00:00:29 · attention economy
  • ★★ Hank says we are often not in charge of our attention, and sometimes want to give control away, which he doesn't hate: we have always given attention to movies, books, storytellers and conversation. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — What is good about TikTok: discovery, a culture factory; AI algorithms already direct our content

  • ★ Hank jokes that humans spent so much time braiding ropes that a lack of rope-braiding time might be one of our big problems. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank says there is a lot he genuinely likes about TikTok: he has discovered many fantastic comedians, artists, musicians and science communicators who reach very different audiences. — 00:00:58 · TikTok

  • ★★★ Hank calls TikTok a culture factory full of art, experiments and storytelling; he took part in its beautiful moments, and it fascinated and inspired him and changed his life. — 00:01:27 · TikTok

    “it is just a culture factory”

  • ★★★ Hank says people worry about AI someday taking over the world as if that had not already happened. (playful) — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — The costs: cool versus caring, the attention arms race, bad tools like outrage, what alt accounts show

  • ★★★ Hank says much of what we consume is directed by AI algorithms, which shape what he believes and thinks about and, more importantly, what content media and creators make. — 00:01:56 · recommender system
  • ★★★ Hank says algorithms, media and creators work together to keep us on websites at any cost, and the cost seems real: worse mental health, a more antisocial society, more divisive arguments. (hedged) — 00:01:56 · recommender system, mental disorder
  • ★★ Hank says almost half of Gen Z wishes TikTok had never been invented. — 00:02:26 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Hank thinks TikTok's greatest advantage over Instagram and YouTube, besides being first, was simply that it was cooler. — 00:02:26 · TikTok, Instagram, YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank says caring is the opposite of cool: once TikTok success mattered, creators could not help caring, which hurt its coolness and can start a doom loop in what content succeeds. — 00:02:55 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Taking up John's Tuesday point that algorithms work with our biology to control us, Hank says creators like the brothers work with algorithms to do it too. — 00:02:55 · John Green, recommender system
  • ★★ Hank says TikTokers fought an arms race for attention that could not be won by raising quality, since there is not enough money to pay for it. — 00:03:24 · attention economy
  • ★★★ Hank says many of the best tools for getting attention under extreme competition are bad: fear, controversy, moral outrage, drama and feelings of superiority. — 00:03:24 · attention economy
  • ★★★ Hank's own feed is not like this, but on alt accounts he sees many people watching anti-social, anti-democratic, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-immigrant content ideally suited to lowering societal trust. — 00:03:53

00:04:23 — Creator responsibility, TikTok's structural moderation weakness, and what Hank regrets

  • ★★ Hank says working with machine-learning algorithms to control other people's attention is literally his job; he believes he does it for good as well as for a living. — 00:04:23
  • ★★★ Hank says he brings his credibility and audience to platforms, a scary responsibility, because he does not know whom he is giving power to when he creates there. — 00:04:23
  • ★★ Hank says on YouTube he knows some of the people he gives power to, which helps, but that is only who is there now. — 00:04:23 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank thinks TikTok is structurally worse at handling its power: short-form video earns less per minute uploaded, so there is more to moderate and less money for moderation. — 00:04:52 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank notes the problem that TikTok may be controlled or influenced by a government that would prefer the US to trust itself less and be more dysfunctional. (hedged) — 00:04:52 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says no one needs to tweak an algorithm to increase fear, outrage and division on a platform; simply letting it happen is enough. — 00:05:21
  • ★★★ Hank does not regret his experiences on TikTok, but regrets a little that it made him substantially more famous, though fame has benefits too. — 00:05:21 · TikTok, celebrity
  • ★★★ What Hank definitely regrets is helping put power into a place he cannot control, does not understand and does not think has been a net positive for society. — 00:05:21 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says he went into TikTok curious, hungry, excited and amazed rather than strategic; though somewhat manipulated by its systems, it really delivered value for him. — 00:05:50 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says the world right now is messy and fast-moving, and he wishes he had been more careful. — 00:05:50

00:06:19 — Platforms are not monoliths: content platforms as towns with good and bad neighborhoods

  • ★★ Hank loves diving into new subcultures and calls cultural waves his expertise, but as an expert in the experience he must admit expertise in the outcomes, which he dislikes. — 00:06:19
  • ★★★ Hank says a content platform is not a monolith: algorithms do not decide alone what people watch; people decide what gets created and what they spend time on. — 00:06:19 · recommender system
  • ★★ Hank often, though not always, feels the parts of TikTok he spends time in and creates for are good, which makes it confusing. — 00:06:49 · TikTok

  • ★★★ Hank says platforms make more sense when seen as what they are: places where we live. — 00:06:49

    “Places where we live.”

  • ★★★ Like a town, a platform has bad and good neighborhoods and can and should improve the bad ones; if towns become less livable, people leave. — 00:06:49

  • ★★★ Hank worries that platforms giving people reasons to be afraid, antisocial and distrustful will make real worlds less livable and platforms the only place people feel safe, which should scare everybody. — 00:07:18
  • ★★ Hank has little faith in the governance of these spaces, but much more in YouTube's than in TikTok's. — 00:07:18 · YouTube, TikTok

00:07:45 — TikTok stopped feeling like something done with people; YouTube still does

  • ★★★ As TikTok stopped being fun, buzzy and cool, it changed for Hank from a place of doing things with people and making culture to one where things just happened to him; he enjoys it less. — 00:07:45 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says that, amazingly, 17 years later YouTube still feels like something he does with people. — 00:07:45 · YouTube

00:08:15 — Pizzamas app dad jokes; Pizzamas begins Monday; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to download the Pizzamas app (linked in the description) to get his terrible dad jokes every day of Pizzamas. — 00:08:15 · Pizzamas
  • ★★ Hank says it took him a while to gather all the dad jokes, which really are terrible, and that Pizzamas begins on Monday. — 00:08:15 · Pizzamas

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: attention economy · recommender system · TikTok

Also: People: Kyla Scanlon

Projects: Pizzamas

Organizations: Instagram · YouTube

Groups: Generation Z

Concepts: arms race · artificial intelligence · celebrity · content moderation · coyote · dad joke · machine learning · mental disorder · moral outrage · subculture · trust

Only in the description or credits: Pizzamas app

Replies to

  • continues · My Consciousness. Their Capital. — “As you said on Tuesday, John, algorithms are in the business of working with our biology to control us.”

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