Before my Lamron inbox is bombarded with links to articles like this one about how bad TikTok is, let me first clarify that I recognize that the app may be nefarious. And sure, Facebook isn’t any better, blah blah blah. I get it, we basically just shouldn’t be on social media. I can’t help that I love attention. Whoops, that’s a topic for another article.
Let me further clarify that in August, after my mom freaked out and sent me ten articles about how TikTok could somehow lead to my premature death, my anxious brain nagged at me until I caved and deleted the app. My friends were very sad that they had to start sending me TikToks over text instead of through my TikTok DMs.
That didn’t last very long, but you probably guessed that from my embarrassed tone. I moved back to Geneseo and back into TikTok at the same time. WTF. Why?
The answer is simple: a quest for joy. I was desperately craving the bouts of uncontrollable laughter that only certain hilarious TikToks can induce. I wanted my stomach to hurt from giggling too hard. I wanted my friends to text me from the other room and ask what the hell I was laughing at. I was missing the feeling of sharing videos with friends that I knew would appreciate them.
Watching someone smile or hearing a chortle from the room next to yours because you’ve sent them a TikTok curated specifically for them is a divine experience; it just may be my favorite part of the app. My second favorite part, then, would be the tears of laughter that it often compels me to shed.
There’s no real way to know why TikTok videos bring out the snort in my snicker more than any other form of comedy. Maybe we don’t need to know, though. Maybe it’s just another unsolvable philosophical mystery. Sometimes it’s just enough to mindlessly scroll until you have to turn off your phone to prevent yourself from pissing your pants.
I would share some links to the funniest TikToks I’ve ever seen with you, but they wouldn’t fully convey the mystical quality of TikTok that I want to describe. TikTok knows what I need, and the app provides. The universe is listening, and TikTok is its conduit.
The root of this TikTok magic is most likely the incredibly invasive TikTok algorithm, which is so perfectly attuned to each of our individual senses of humor that it shows us exactly the right comedy to get us cracking up. I recognize this. But there’s more underneath the information gathering. Maybe it’s the feeling of unity and solidarity with TikTok’s content creators that seems somehow deeper than an algorithm, or maybe it’s the hunch that TikTok has found a way to plug into the energy of the universe and is letting fate do its thing.
It seems like TikTok can sense that I’m losing my faith in humanity before it floods my feed with puppy videos. If I’ve had an exhausting day, TikTok brings the funniest woman on the internet to my page, and I know I’ll never find her account again as I scroll to the next video; such is the way of the world.
Something about the ephemeral nature of TikTok videos feels natural. The best feelings are fleeting, and the best videos end too soon, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. You watch, you laugh, you scroll and ask Tiktok to throw you more random videos. In a way, that’s what life is—one TikTok after the next. We trust the process and let it take us where it will.
Every time a WitchTok—the pagan or spiritual side of TikTok—video shows up on my feed and tells me I was meant to see it, that everything will be okay, I believe it. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe we are where we’re meant to be.
So, I guess that’s why I redownloaded the app, info-stealing be damned. Don’t be mad, mom, I promise I’ll send you the next puppy video I see.