TikTok could be exacerbating this attitude in men who are already predisposed to feeling helpless in their dating efforts. I notice that I feel worse about my appearance when I've spent more time on TikTok. I also notice that I see more extremely conventionally attractive people on TikTok.

I see the issue being more so with dating app algorithms, though. Those companies/algorithms are incentivized to keep men in the dating pool and paying Bumble/Tinder for dates. The best way to do this is to make those men think that they need to pay to win the game and will lose otherwise.