 I owe the vast majority of what has happened to me in the last six weeks give or take to TikTok. Now, TikTok gets a really bad rap and I wanted to make a video to explore why that is and to also maybe speculate a little bit as to whether or not that bad rap is deserved or not. As many of you may know, the first video of mine to really kind of go viral was the Cardi B Swisher Sweets Uggs video. Well that actually only happened because when I posted it on TikTok, somebody that followed me on TikTok shared that video to Twitter, tagged Cardi B, and then Cardi B retweeted it. I feel like there is a potential that I could owe my entire career to a retweet from Cardi B. Things that I could never have even remotely predicted. So make no mistake, I do owe pretty much everything so far to TikTok because that's where any of my videos first started to gain some traction and actually still, that's where I have the largest following. But I find that when I scroll through the TikTok curated homepage, I'm a little baffled as to what the hell it is. I see a ton of trends that don't make any sense at all and I can totally forgive the fact that maybe the user base is a lot younger than most other platforms which might lead to some of the trends that are popular, but what blows my mind is what some of the creators on the platform will do to capitalize on those trends. And that's where I see content where I'm just like, I just, I don't want to look, I don't want to look, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts my soul. I can't do it. Let's just take a look at some of this stuff that I'm talking about. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I would love to see this happen in real life. I'm so, I'm so confused. That was so violent. I love how she looks so proud of herself afterwards, like, I showed him. You just watch it and you feel embarrassed. I'm about to eat ice cream for the first time. No, you're not. I've never had ice cream before, so. Yes, you have. How are you? How are you? You said you didn't eat ice cream before, bro. Not that you've never eaten food before. I'm about to eat chips for the first time. I've never eaten chips before, so I can't get them. Maybe this video is parody in and of itself. If it is, then I don't know. I guess it's kind of funny, but self-aware parody doesn't seem to be too much of a trend on TikTok. Okay, this next trend baffles me. First of all, I don't even understand what the hell is even happening here. It makes no sense. Why does she tap him on the shoulder like once? She's like, and then immediately spins around like, this one is a variation of that concept, but instead of like the same sort of, oh, let me get, I don't even know what the hell is the first one supposed to be. But apparently in this one, getting tapped on the shoulder is pretty much life-ending. It just hurts. It just hurts. It hurts. I love when you have these like middle-aged adults that are just, my wife and her friend won't stop running their mouths, so I need more alcohol. But this bottle's empty. I know. I'll switch the glasses in front of everybody that is basically looking at me and nobody will notice. I love how he turns back and looks when she's like barely even moved away, but he can't believe something happened to his wine. Maybe all of you kids who are using TikTok know because I desperately want more alcohol. Tell me, kids, do you know where my alcohol went? This seems like a wise thing to post. This trend is just fucking stupid. I don't even know what else to say. But the thing that bothers me about this trend is how many people are doing it with almost zero effort to change anything about the premise. Here's the definition of originality when it comes to this trend. Let me change the time that they're required to respond in. And then let me change the consequences of them not fulfilling their end of an agreement that they never agreed to. Now I can post the same trendy video, but it's totally my idea. This is the only one that's remotely passable because if this dude is an orthodontist who's trying to advertise on TikTok, then I applaud him for making videos on TikTok because I think it's the right demo for him. But it just doesn't make me cringe any less. These videos are all the same. I don't want to get too much into the creators of these videos because my goal is to be like, look how shitty of a creator this person is. A lot of these people are kids like in high school that are trying to explore making content online and I think that's a great thing to try out. The thing that blows my mind more is how popular these videos are. I didn't cherry pick random ultra obscure content that nobody paid any attention to because everyone thought it sucked. No, I pulled stuff that was like some of the most popular on like the curated for you page. This stuff all has like hundreds of thousands of likes, thousands of shares. This is like really popular content. I'm just at a loss for why. Oh, it just hurts. It just hurts. It hurts. It hurts to watch. It hurts. It hurts. I'm in pain. Everybody in this video was part of the gap. Is it supposed to seem like it wasn't? I don't know. I don't understand. Look at every one of their faces right before he reaches over and goes bang and like to think that if he actually did that to real people who are not in on the joke that that would be their reaction. I just broke your hand on the escalator. Just whip your head around and giggle. What are you doing? That's crazy. Why'd you do that? That's so spontaneous. He's like, he's like violent. He's like, give me that hand and she's just like no reaction. Just turn. Oh, what was that? I'm just missing a finger now. I don't know what that was, but none of it compares to sponsored ads. TikTok is then a very similar thing to Instagram where companies can buy a sponsored post and it's supposed to be integrated and just look like a native post. And they do a good job of that. I mean, it looks pretty much the same. The only difference is it has a little button where you can either download something or learn more or whatever. But these videos. So I really want to take her out tonight, but I don't get paid until next Friday. So I'm going to use the earning app to cash out $100 instantly. Now I can take my girlfriend on a date. Girlfriend. Get paid today. They hurt worse than the rest. They're trying to create things that make sense contextually and that are native and you got to applaud them for that because they're trying. But the problem is somewhere there's a lapse in communication. Somewhere there's a total lack of actual awareness because they make these little skits that just make you want to crawl inside of your own asshole and die. Who thought that was a good idea? Girlfriend. It's like she doesn't even know who he is. She just happens to be standing right there. But this, this last one, this, this is kind of what makes it all make a little bit of sense. It's the demographic. It's, it's just so much younger than all the other platforms that most of us use typically. And I think one of the reasons that TikTok gets such a bad rap is because of this. A lot of the content is sometimes created by, but more often aimed at that demographic that's just super young. I mean, look at the comments in this video. 2008 squad? Are you kidding me? This is one of the first times in my life that I've been like, I feel old and it's a legitimate comment and not made ironically. 2006, 2007, like, yikes. So that kind of explains it. I mean, it makes sense that this content is aimed so young and that a lot of people who maybe don't fall into that demographic are watching this stuff going, why, why? But as ridiculous as some of this content is, there's actually a lot of content on TikTok that's really great and that maybe a lot of people say kind of resonates sort of the same type of style as Vine did. You can find compilations of those videos all over YouTube of just like the best TikToks that are very similar to what Vine used to be. Now, I think we all know, I mean, it adds a lot of other things that Vine never had. But in a large sense, TikTok is filling that sort of role as a short form, easily editable video platform. Is it garbage like so many people say it is? I don't think so. I think it has a long way to go. I think it's just really young in a lot of ways in the app itself and then in the audience of that app. So I think just in all aspects, as ridiculous as some of the content is on it right now, it's a young platform and it needs a lot, it needs development. And I think the more people, especially the more creators that are already on other platforms, jump on and try to use it for some creative things. Like it's just going to be a good thing in the long term. Like I said, I mean, I owe a lot, I owe a lot to TikTok. And speaking to the TikTok team directly, they are definitely aware of what their platform is, what their demographics are and where they'd like to be in the long term. And they're just working towards it little by little. I think we're going to see good things ultimately. But in the meantime, there's no shortage of content that just makes you want to become very small and disappear. If you want to follow me on TikTok, I encourage you to do that. There's a link in the description down below as well as to all my other social platforms. Thanks for checking out this video and we will be back to our regularly scheduled meme content shortly.