Tik Tok Together

If you have a pulse, you probably haven’t escaped Tik Tok. For all my deep suspicions about lack of privacy and tracking on the Internet and applications, there’s a lot to love about Tik Tok. Maybe because of its algorithms of showing you more of what you like, I haven’t been led into its dark underbelly. But from what I’ve seen (been shown, if I am being honest–I don’t have the app myself), Tik Tok has to be doing some good.

Tik Tok almost certainly is spying–that’s the business model of most apps, including Facebook, which I don’t have either. Such is our digital fate, I guess.

Tik Tok seems much less toxic than Facebook. You have all kinds of people–lots and lots of extremely good-looking teens but also plenty of people who are less than perfect, performing in their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, all of which look uncannily similar. The ceiling fans. The builder-basic hollow doors with faux trim. The beige carpet. The vast majority of Tik Tok performers look like people you know, living lives like yours.

What I love is seeing some kid doing something silly with their cat or dog (even though I am NOT an animal person by a long shot), especially the guys, whose tenderness toward their pets unmasks their vulnerability. They are adorable even if they aren’t model-perfect. In fact, the model-perfect ones tend toward the hyper-sexualized dances that Tik Tok is so famous for but that are variations on a boring theme. The others are so much more interesting.

Are they all actually in the same kitchen?

You see people pointing out the illogical quirks in their worlds, asking “why is this?” You see some real talent. You see lots of stupid stunts. You see lots of pets.

I watch these with my kid–my aunt wisely told me some years ago that she read the same Young Adult fiction and saw the same movies as her grandchildren in order to have things to talk about with them, so if my kid wants to show me some Tik Toks, then I will watch and we will discuss.

So many ceiling fans

I watch these with my kid–my aunt wisely told me some years ago that she read the same Young Adult fiction and saw the same movies as her grandchildren in order to have things to talk about with them, so if my kid wants to show me some Tik Toks, then I will watch and we will discuss.

The ones that really get to me are those with Black families or Black teen-age boys. Everything about their lives, on the surface, is the same as the Tik Toks with white families or teen-age boys. The kitchens have the same style cupboards. The living rooms have the same style sofas and the ubiquitous ceiling fans. The bedrooms have the same built-in closets, the same Ikea dressers. The bathrooms have the same vanities and tiles. They wear the same sweatshirts and T-shirts as any other teens. But I know that outside their homes, they aren’t treated like everybody else, especially the Black teen boys. I watch some adolescent play with his dog or letting his cat curl up by his neck, and I see a boy–a child, really–who is gentle and sweet and who, if stopped on the street for a reason that would never be used to stop one of the white boys, might end up assassinated by the “forces of order.”

When society is so divided, can something as mindless as Tik Tok change minds? By letting Black kids present themselves as who they are–just kids–can it open the eyes and hearts of people who see them only as Black?

I have been talking to a lot of people lately about voting. While they all would deny being racist, that is what it comes down to for some who support the current occupant of the White House. They tell me they work hard and that people get what they deserve. They are against helping anybody. They deny that the deck was ever stacked against certain groups, or if it was, that was fixed long ago. People in the $200,000-a-year range, who are probably considered wealthy in the quasi-rural communities I’ve been contacting, affiliate themselves with billionaires, even though they are the ones paying taxes–$200K isn’t enough to hire the kinds of lawyers and accountants you need to commit the kind of large-scale tax evasion that lets you deduct hair-dressing expenses and not pay taxes for a decade despite multimillions of annual income.

The same people tell me they are worried about keeping their guns, for “protection.” I point out that crime is at historic lows. They aren’t buying it. If I manage to talk with them a bit longer, they come around to defining their fear as young Black men and boys. No personal experience has caused this, no run-ins, no cases of being victims or knowing somebody who has been a victim. It’s just their world view.

I wish they would get on Tik Tok.