Given what I’d read about TikTok, the Chinese app that’s captured our country, that it’s silly videos of teenagers lip-syncing and dancing, I didn’t have much interest in it. But I had created some instructional videos on YouTube about chord scales for jazz guitar that I was looking to get wider exposure for, so I thought I’d try TikTok.
How my videos did is one story. Relatively quickly they all had around 400 views. Here is a key point. Those weren’t 400 people who decided to watch, but rather 400 times that the TikTok algorithm decided to put one of my videos in someone’s queue, based on what it thought they might like.
Why 400? And why did it stop there? Well it appears what the algorithm does is pick, say, 10,000 people and use them as a trial group for a new video. Then it watches how they react. It’s not looking for “likes” but rather how long someone looks before swiping to the next video. Clearly, based on those responses, TikTok decided not to expand my audience. Had there been a good response, then it would have increased the viewership.
This is how some videos get a million views very quickly. But notice, those million views are not a million people choosing to watch it, but a million people TikTok decided to send it to, watching, learning, studying how they react.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. Of course I decided to see how it works for me, and started watching. Sure enough, silly videos of teenage lip syncers. I swiped passed them. Then some other stuff, things I had no interest in, but, in very short order, TikTok’s algorithm said, well if you don’t like those, how would you like to see Bob Dylan at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival? When he first went electric.
I doubt anyone much younger than me, 76, really has any clue as to how big that was. Bob Dylan was the star of the folk music rebellion against top 40 hits and glitz, the idol of all us hippies to be. And he trades out his acoustic guitar for an electric?! At the biggest folk festival in the country…
Oh yeah, I want to see that. (I’d never seen footage of it before.)
OK, so I’ll scroll some more. OMG, look at the size of the wave that guy’s surfing! And in very short order TikTok figured out that I like surfing videos, clever chess traps, how to play guitar licks, ladies falling out of their tops (no porn, they never actually fall out), the latest news, stories about how dumb Trump is, really cool poker show downs (like when two players each had pocket aces, but then four hearts showed up in the flop so the guy with the ace of hearts won.) And swing dancing, tango dancing, peaceful scenes with music I like (it never plays anything with rap or techno in it for me), and the news from Iran.
Iran. Lots of current video of this women led revolution against the theocracy. They’re using social media to appeal to us to share the names of those arrested, to make it more awkward for the government to execute them. Heavy, heavy stuff.
All of this is mixed up and presented in a way to just keep you interested in “one more.” I was about done the other day, gonna put it away, and it says, before you go you want to see Secretariat winning the Kentucky Derby? OK, I’ll watch that.
The thing is, I believe the TikTok algorithm knows me better than I know myself. And I’m not a teenager scrolling at my desk in school.
I understand how TikTok is now getting more views than FB or YouTube or anything else. I understand how it’s totally addictive. The problem is, it’s not just wasting my time. I was up-to-date on all the election news through TikTok faster than through my Washington Post or New York Times online accounts. And learned some great chess tricks to use against my grandson, and how to play some classic rock guitar licks. And interesting science facts, like explanations of quantum entanglement. Neil DeGrasse Tyson constantly shows up in my feed. Is it bad the kids are exposed to him? But are they? Or does he just show up to people like me?
I understand how scary this is to those in charge. My TikTok feed totally reinforces my views that the Republicans are bad, Trump is a threat, and the Iranian revolution is a good thing. How hard would it be for it to start to influence me in some other directions? Would they want to? I can’t say as I’ve seen anything about politics in China.
