The app once offered seemingly endless chances to be charmed by music, dances, personalities and products. But in only a few short years, its promise of kismet is evaporating.
I know which New York City microinfluencers go on vacation together, and which creators are building a modest following joking about the music of a small scene of rappers who make Playboi Carti sound like Kendrick Lamar.
But increasingly in recent months, scrolling the feed has come to resemble fumbling in the junk drawer: navigating a collection of abandoned desires, who-put-that-here fluff and things that take up awkward space in a way that blocks access to what you’re actually looking for.
Similarly, the malaise that has begun to suffuse TikTok feels systemic, market-driven and also potentially existential, suggesting the end of a flourishing era and the precipice of a wasteland period.
I knew the algorithm had fully broken me when I watched a video of a woman dismantling the lint trap on her dryer and immediately wondered why she hadn’t linked to TikTok Shop for the magnetic screwdrivers to rein in the tiny screws that were falling all over the place, or the slim cordless vacuum that would have sucked out the flyaway dust.
The randomness seemed to come from the bottom up: On any given day of media consumption, TikTok offered the best chance to be charmed by something utterly unexpected — say, a sped-up remix of a song by Miguel or Lil Uzi Vert, or a guy on a longboard listening to Fleetwood Mac and breezily drinking cranberry juice.
Before long, I was brought back to my favorite account on the app, a low-profile page I’ve been following for years that aggregates footage, seemingly filmed in China, of factory workers feeding various items — bicycles, oil drums, truck beds, strollers — through an industrial shredder.
The original article contains 2,038 words, the summary contains 277 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
I know which New York City microinfluencers go on vacation together, and which creators are building a modest following joking about the music of a small scene of rappers who make Playboi Carti sound like Kendrick Lamar.
But increasingly in recent months, scrolling the feed has come to resemble fumbling in the junk drawer: navigating a collection of abandoned desires, who-put-that-here fluff and things that take up awkward space in a way that blocks access to what you’re actually looking for.
Similarly, the malaise that has begun to suffuse TikTok feels systemic, market-driven and also potentially existential, suggesting the end of a flourishing era and the precipice of a wasteland period.
I knew the algorithm had fully broken me when I watched a video of a woman dismantling the lint trap on her dryer and immediately wondered why she hadn’t linked to TikTok Shop for the magnetic screwdrivers to rein in the tiny screws that were falling all over the place, or the slim cordless vacuum that would have sucked out the flyaway dust.
The randomness seemed to come from the bottom up: On any given day of media consumption, TikTok offered the best chance to be charmed by something utterly unexpected — say, a sped-up remix of a song by Miguel or Lil Uzi Vert, or a guy on a longboard listening to Fleetwood Mac and breezily drinking cranberry juice.
Before long, I was brought back to my favorite account on the app, a low-profile page I’ve been following for years that aggregates footage, seemingly filmed in China, of factory workers feeding various items — bicycles, oil drums, truck beds, strollers — through an industrial shredder.
The original article contains 2,038 words, the summary contains 277 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!