> With so much good high content available on the internet and how little time people have, it saddens me that so much time is spent on the low quality noise.
No, that's unfair, you are saying all of tiktok content is low quality noise, which is wrong
In the board world of "video content", yes it is. It might be better than FB/Instagram/Twitter videos, but those and Tiktok pale in comparison to, say, HBO. Tiktok is gifs with sound filmed on a cell phone with a refreshing take on recommendations optimized for stickiness. It's the McDonalds of video content; maybe better than the niche it competes in, but its still garbage in a very convenient package. As far as the videos are concerned, they're very low quality compared to what the medium is capable of.
You might point at YouTube and how it's different here by boosting high quality content, but this is a) because they are running a lot of ads and are as such interested in curating content that advertisers would like their ads to run on and b) because they don't target the cellphone exclusively, so you can actually invest in a proper setup for your videos regarding camera, lighting, set, video editing.
The thing is that I can't see how TikTok can be profitable in the long run. Because of the low quality, low effort videos, it's much less attractive to advertisers, since the risk of ending up on controversial content is high. YouTube went through two or three iterations of this, each time refining their requirements for having a video eligible to have ads on it.
That's pseudo-intellectual arrogance.
Even some PhD laugh about stupid memes.
Also: facebook/insta/tw is mainly about re sharing, not producing.
You're out of line here. It is what it is, and just pointing out that stuff made with cheap passive fast mass consumption in mind is not arrogance or pseudo-intellectual. Complaining that bubblegum is not nutritional as a good meal at a nice restaurant is not pseudo-intellectual arrogance. You may argue that they have different usecases in mind but that's not an intellectual argument, nor an arrogant statement. Your attempts to resort to name-calling and ad-hominem attacks also don't help your case or even your ability to support your accusation.
Expecting bubble-gum at a good meal restaurant is a better analogy of what that poster said and implied (`As far as the videos are concerned, they're very low quality compared to what the medium is capable of.` if videos is the food and restaurant is the medium then it follows you don't go to a MacDonald and expect a $400 meal). No one is expecting TV shows or HBO content on tiktok and no one is expecting nutritional content from bubble-gum.
> Your attempts to resort to name-calling and ad-hominem attacks also don't help your case or even your ability to support your accusation.
Hey, I am not the one comparing apple to oranges and reducing tiktok content to MacDonald food in order to make the point that HBO is better and thus tiktok is garbage.
He doesn't like MacDonald ? Good for him. But this sounds just like the "stop liking things I don't like" meme.
> It is what it is, and just pointing out that stuff made with cheap passive fast mass consumption in mind is not arrogance or pseudo-intellectual.
But reducing tiktok to that is. (quote `Tiktok is gifs with sound filmed on a cell phone` which is technically wrong and intellectually dishonest since it conveniently ignores what tiktok content is).
But I see what you did here. You could have written it like “Everyone can now unlock the power of its smartphones to easily produce and share some kind of content to audiences that appreciate it, thus realizing one of the web2.0 era objectives of user generated content".
But no, you used term like "stuff" and "cheap" (go tell that to some teens and people that put hours into their 10 seconds video that the whole thing is cheap).
I get it, tiktok is beneath you and you don't like it. Assume it. But don't go around trying to justify it by comparing it to something it's not and that you happen to like better and expect no backlash if that's all the critic you can make.
> Your attempts to resort to name-calling and ad-hominem attacks also don't help your case or even your ability to support your accusation.
Except I didn't. Name-calling would have been "you are an arrogant pseudo intellectual". I clearly stated his claims were pseudo-intellectual arrogance, which is about a statement not the person.
And HBO pales in comparison to live theatre. But that's pretty irrelevant.
I mean, just list the top 10 tiktoks ever, or even top 100... rank them on metrics like content, depth, purpose, knowledge. Then compare them to other platforms or content formats. It'll rank quite low.
Of course if you rank it on other things like stickiness/addictiveness, fun, humor, aesthetic, novelty etc, it'll rank perhaps quite high for what it is (3-10 seconds usually)
I think in the end it really depends what you're looking for when deciding whether something is low-quality noise.
I agree that it is an insane time killer. But that is because the content is so good and presented in and addictive way.
> Consumers (audience) side: Tik Tok use AI to calculate what content will be the best fit for the consumer. When consumer use the app, consumers even do not need to put their preference. AI will automatically get a sizeable database of the consumers’ behaviors.
Source: https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/submission/tik-tok-us...
There is all this flashy stuff, dances, lip sync, jokes and all that but a sinister shadowy world in the background. Just wondering when people are going to abandon convenience and take up freedom.
With so much good high content available on the internet and how little time people have, it saddens me that so much time is spent on the low quality noise.