TikTok isn't a conversation forum, it's a content channel
Suddenly, Sunday
Suddenly, Sunday
Hi there, welcome to Engineering Our Social Vehicles! I’m your host, Paul Logan. Today is Suddenly, Sunday. If you’re a first time reader, that means that on Sundays around these parts we like to…
Oh wait, shit.
It’s Sunday already?
On Sundays around here, we like to wonder how the hell it’s already Sunday. Where did the time go? Oh right, I spent it on TikTok.
ExplainTok
Over the weekend I decided to try my hand at ExplainTok - the part of tiktok where people post short form video essays. I was surprised to find how easy it was. Here’s my shot at converting Consensitivity: Why you don't have synesthesia into ExplainTok format:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
This took me about 45 minutes to film, cut, and post. The original essay took about 5 hours to research, compose, draft, and post- with an additional hour or two interacting and posting. As of right now, the original article has 278 views. 1
The TikTok video, on the other hand, cleared a thousand views and got over 100 likes in a day. Excuse me, what?
Not only did the video do better, but it didn’t immediately send people into my DM’s threatening to harm/dox me like with the neurodivergence article, and it also didn’t provoke a bunch of people to say shitty things because I shared my own content that I worked hard on and wanted to discuss. There wasn’t even anyone in the comments bikeshedding about irrelevant details and credentials (as with Begging the Serotonin Hypothesis); just people there to consume content who were stoked on interesting information.
I was quite frankly amazed to post something, let alone something that had under an hour of polish, and have 0 interactions where someone was gross to me. After several months of content creation on Reddit, I’ve accepted that there’s many commenters that treat OP as a raid boss whose HP is self esteem.
Not to be the victim of a improper outlook due to beginner’s luck, I tried again, this time on a topic that I know:
Would get torn apart on Reddit just ‘cuz.Actually it wouldn’t, because it would be impossible to find a place to post it without getting banned (unless I disingenuously skinned a personal site as a professional news site).
The title of the video essay was “How the Shyamalan twist ruined modern storytelling.” It took about 35 minutes to film, put together, and post, all told. It received a few hundred views and got 56 likes:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
My weekend vacation on ExplainTok has left me with one question:
What the hell is wrong with Reddit?
If you haven’t guess yet, the TL;DR of this post is in the title: TikTok isn't a conversation forum, it's a content channel. What I mean by this is that TikTok as a product is not formatted to get people discussing or thinking critically about things. Actually, quite the opposite- it’s meant to get people sucked into a bubble of interesting but non-oppositional content.
TikTok feels like a product. Reddit feels like a forum someone has been trying to reverse-justify into money unsuccessfully for almost a decade. This difference underscores all the other reasons I’m about to list for why it’s so much easier to get away with lazy work on TikTok.
Platform Ethos:
Reddit values anonymity: A nonzero number of the people you waste your time arguing with on Reddit are teenagers who have a lot more time to waste than you do.2 The same is true on TikTok, but there you’ll see they are a teenager.
Reddit hates self promotion. Like, has a certifiable paradoxical hate for self promotion considering its users hunger for original content. TikTok is all self promotion. This is why I’m not going to buy Reddit stock if it ever IPOs: it’s a social media company that likes to ban content creators for posting content.
Reddit is a sort of e-libertarian paradise in that it is pretty hands-off in allowing communities to moderate themselves. TikTok’s entire sell is that its algorithm does the moderating for you. They sit at opposite ends of a spectrum.
Content format:
It’s quite easy to parse an essay and pause to ponder or decide if you agree. With video, the hits don’t stop coming. It’s a lot easier to cover up sloppy work or leave unsubstantiated claims hanging when.
No links, not even in the comments. This virtually removes burden of proof.
TikTok’s shortform content doesn’t promote deep engagement. This isn’t a statement that Redditors deeply engage with content; I don’t think they often do, but when it happens there is simply just more to engage with.
Platform Format:
TikTok is content first; Reddit is comments first. Most Redditors are arguing in the comments before they’ve consumed the content. There’s no reason for a TikToker to go to the comments of a video they haven’t seen, and they actually can’t look at the comments without the video playing unless they pause it.
As I mentioned earlier, Reddit relies on its communities to select content- often falling into a lot of issues with vote manipulation and people nuking content they disagree with. Some of the most Successful Reddit content gets destroyed or ignored the first time it’s posted. TikTok does an objectively amazing job at amplifying the signal of upstart creators, and though I’m sure reposting unnoticed content could be beneficial, it’s much more about correct tagging.
Communities vs. Tags: This all comes to a T with the fact that it’s often impossible to find a friendly place on Reddit to post OC. I’ve been banned permanently from subreddits for trying to start conversation- you can’t get banned from a hashtag. I think this all speaks to why algorithmically selected content is going to quickly replace community driven social content. Here’s a good essay on the replacement of social-connection driven content with algorithmically selected content.
Downsides
Although I’m obviously a little spiteful of how hostile Reddit is to upstart creators, I appreciate that it forced me to operate to a higher standard of creation. I really cut my teeth trying to post content Redditors wouldn’t immediately eviscerate. The reaction to The Great Filter and Utilitarian Ethics on r/philosophy is to this day some of the best feedback I’ve ever received on my writing, including courses I took at Oxford. I will say, however, that 80% of the comments section was still people being mean.
Coming up on Reddit quickly led me into a practice of spending 6+ hours on articles to make sure they had substantial quality to attract attention. I regularly had my facts or conclusions challenged and had the opportunity to converse extensively with those doing the challenging. It’s led to much more nuanced positions that I feel better able to support and defend.
TikTok doesn’t have anything approaching a standard of quality or rigor. An hour on ExplainTok yielded… diverse outcomes. I learned about the Battle of Blair Mountain, which I’d only read about in passing before. I also watched a user attempt to explain the physical concept of time as a subjective illusion, and was a little alarmed by the level of mouth jazz to substantive thought occuring. It doesn’t matter, though, both videos seemed to be smash hits with millions of views. This is the problem with content forward platforms: they are not doing anything to encourage critical interpretation of the information being delivered.
Conclusion
I wish there was a Reddit that had the celebration of new creators that is prevalent in the TikTok community. I wish there was a TikTok that had the critical eye for facts and opinions that Reddit fosters. I’m sure in the future we’ll see something along those lines. But for now, I’m going to see how long I can keep a foot planted in both lanes.
Yes I liked my own article. It’s one of my favorites; that’s why I made a video of it.
The ol’ arguing with an idiot is muddy pig wrestling quote is at it again.
I found you and the esov subreddit but not the article and feedback you mentioned.
I agree, I wish there'd be more positivity. Creating content is inherently a good thing, even if people happen to be wrong or if it's flawed, and it's one of the things I theoretically like about TikTok.
One of the things I dislike about TikTok is... everything else. Watching videos is incredibly exhausting for me. If I have the choice between watching a 30 seconds video and getting root canal treatment, the second option never stops looking more tempting (this is not hyperbole. I dislike it that much). It gets worse when there's audio content. Yes, I'll look at the cute kitten or the funny thing, and I'll often even like it and recommend it to others, but the moment I want information and I have to sit through a video to get it? Nope, nope, nope, nope. Brain doesn't comply.
NGL, I'm actually terrified that more and more content will get locked away behind videos, because it means that I won't be able to participate. It's already gotten to the point where people don't write down programming tutorials anymore but post them on youtube instead, and that's in a field where you literally expect people to copy/paste and tweak the code you share. Everything else doesn't even have that requirement, and it seems to be easier to make videos than to write text, so... it feels as if more and more things are vanishing behind animation reels with no search function, guarded by hyperactive influencers who are jumping around like galvanised frogs. (Not Every Video etc, but the initial energy threshold it takes me to even check if it's the case? That root canal treatment is looking better and better!)
TL;DR: I'm glad that you're writing, and I hope you don't wander off to TikTok.