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TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

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Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was living in Germany when I started using it and I told myself that it would help with learning the language, since I was being served german language content (oddly it seemed to think I was in Austria). It was a bit dull at first but I guess somehow, I kept using it enough. I'm not a dancer or super into dance but I did get hooked by some of the dancing stuff. Slowly but surely, I now get almost no dance content…

Interesting. So you weren't interested in dance, but you got interested through TikTok? Reminds me of how Pinterest's value prop includes exploration and inspiration (as opposed to searching for what you know you are looking for).

No. Some of the dance content hooked them but they used not interested to get rid of it.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#72
post #4

I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't…

The first Chinese app with some traction and it blows american ones by being delightful and diverse :D

Wait for them to start doing TV shows with some non-Chinese focus.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#73
I didn’t found TikTok addictive but rather utterly juvenile and amateurishly unsophisticated in recommendation algos. It kept inserting a lot of borderline soft-porn type content which I think keeps younger audience glued more than anything else. I would conclude that it doesn’t take a lot to create recommendation algos to grab attention of below 40 age group.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#74

" If people have the right to be tempted - and that's what free will is all about - the market is going to respond by supplying as much temptation as can be sold. " - Eliezer Yudkowsky, LessWrong, "Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization, March 2007 https://www.lesswrong.com/s/MH2b8NfWv22dBtrs8/p/Jq73Gozjsuhd...

Yeah, that's wrong: the market is quite obviously limited by the ability to produce temptation, not consumer's finite ability to buy it.

As in: before TikTok, there was lots of TikTop-Temptation to be sold. Demand didn't change, supply did.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#75
post #46

Breaking news: Something on the internet is addicting. Is this what we've been reduced to? Rehashing the same thoughts ad infinitum? Is it because a "thought leader" said it?

There you go. It is the same rehashed formula tested on a new generation of billions of people with a different brand attached to it. As you can see in the comments here, they are loving their new digital drugs since Facebook and Twitter appeared. They will soon dislike it and hate it and move to the next hit.

Rinse and repeat.

> Is it because a "thought leader" said it?

Well I said it long ago for the rest of these social networks [0][1][2] even before this person did. So to me, it is once again and unsurprising reaction.

But as always, followers only listen to their master's voice don't they? Listening to their master to feed them their next post, tweet, update and reaction. Like drug addicts, when there are social media addicts, there is always therapy and treatment for this sort of addiction.

Very unhealthy for the mind.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28134863

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23397260

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27550997

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21135123

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#76
I loved this app. But its banned now in India. I really loved the creativity shown by simple average people, sometimes these people were really poor. And their creativity blew away a lot of so called actors, celebs etc.

I my eyes it was a game changer.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#77
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed with them last year, and literally everyone I spoke to was brilliant. I think a lot of their magic is in hiring great people and having a very flat org chart. They get out of people’s way, and let them do cool shit.

Are they an American or Chinese company?

Chinese ! So maybe less focused on absolute numbers in terms of profit and able to be more focused on the product ? Even saying that feels so wrong, right, like US companies really cant enjoy building anything anymore ?

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but TikTok is an order of magnitude above other social media apps when it comes to learning what you like. It’s both scary and extremely impressive. Twitter on the other hand seems to promote monoculture, and tends to push you towards what everyone else likes. It essentially pushes whatever is popular. Some of the most interesting content and users on Twitter are shadow banned, either intentionally or through…

Twitter is an outrage platform. We would all be better off without it. I genuinely believe it’s a disservice to society.

Yes. There are very few things I’m certain of, but I’m certain Twitter is a net negative on society. I view Jack as one of the most dangerous humans of the last decade.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#80
post #73

I didn’t found TikTok addictive but rather utterly juvenile and amateurishly unsophisticated in recommendation algos. It kept inserting a lot of borderline soft-porn type content which I think keeps younger audience glued more than anything else. I would conclude that it doesn’t take a lot to create recommendation algos to grab attention of below 40 age group.

In my experience, you have to search for things you like for a few months to give TikTok the data it needs for recommendations.
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