TikTok has an iron grip on cultural trends, fashions, and nearly every industry. What started as a silly app filled with lip-syncing clips and dances has evolved into a platform that praises alien-like beauty standards, shortens people’s attention spans to that of mice, and further propels culture into an insatiable and superficial mess.
Social media affecting young people’s mental health is no new problem. Parents and psychologists alike have blown the whistles and spread the news. But nothing is quite as disturbing as the TikTok filters that have completely warped the basics of human anatomy. Snapchat used to be criticized for its dog filter that adorned users with a long tongue and puppy ears. TikTok graduated to making its users look like anything from a Disney character to a Botox-ed Beverly Hiller. With the increasing number of young people spending countless hours on TikTok, it is no doubt their perception of basic human features, let alone a healthy appreciation of their own beauty, will be entirely warped.
As screen time usage increases, the attention span of users decreases. Videos can be 15 seconds, 60 seconds, or three minutes long. TikTok’s success poses the question of value when it comes to content. If something can be condensed into a bite-sized snack and give you the same feeling of fullness, why eat a full meal? This puts pressure on creators to keep pushing content with little regard for its quality.
The music industry has also been particularly affected by TikTok. Artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Glass Animals have both seen massive success in their work when songs like “good 4 u” and “Heat Waves” get swept up in trends. On a smaller scale, it has allowed independent artists to grow their audiences. One small band from Reno named Surf Curse saw their 2013 song “Freaks” blow up on TikTok, eventually landing them a record deal with Atlantic Records.
Every other social media platform is adopting some version of TikTok, like Instagram’s Reels and YouTube’s Shorts. Even though TikTok provides opportunities to both new creators and informed professionals, there is a rapacious nature to its never-ending For You page and eerily informed algorithm. What comes next in this pipeline of content creation and what else it will take from its users is unclear. It would seem TikTok’s takeover is inevitable, but that makes user moderation even more imperative.