Tag Archives: TikTok

2 week social media vacation

I’m removing Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram off of my phone until Sunday February 7th, 2021. That’s two weeks of shutting down the social media tools I engage with on some regular daily or weekly level. Staying on my phone will be WhatsApp and Snapchat because they both have family group chats that I engage with, without having other interactions beyond family.

I will continue to blog every day, and these blog posts will auto-post to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook (to my Pair-Dimes page, not my personal wall, so please follow if FB is where you usually see my blog posts). Feel free to chat with me in my blog comments, but comments on other platforms won’t be seen by me.

There is no specific reason I’m doing this, other than curiosity. I want to see what I miss, and how I will use my time. I think I’ll end up with more audio book and podcast listening time, and I’m hoping that I’ll write and meditate more. Time will tell.

I actually deleted the Apps Sunday night, and I wrote everything above before going to bed. This morning I realized that one thing I’ll need to think about is how I get news? Normally I start my day in Twitter Search looking at the News tab and trending hashtags to get a sense of what’s happening in the world. This has been my strategy for a couple years because television and radio news are not designed to inform as much as to keep you watching and listening. And while I read some print news on my phone, it tends to be focussed on the coronavirus or US politics these days… and it seems to be more commentary and opinion than actual news.

In the end, I won’t have missed much if I’m tuned out of the news for two weeks. And although I’m not always in the room, my wife does watch evening news on tv. I will survive just fine with less news along with my social media vacation.

Interestingly, I came across some Coronavirus news this morning and did a little math with the stats. It seems that while the US has vaccinated 20.5 million people, Canada has only vaccinated 0.817 million. Looking at populations, my math tells me that the US has vaccinated 6% of their population while Canada has only vaccinated 2%. What’s the first thing I thought of doing with that info? Tweeting it… my social media vacation has already started to curtail my behaviour.

I’ll share my vacation experience and reflections on February 7th.

Who are the Kardashians?

It was September 2011 and I had recently returned from China after living there for 2 years. I had just started working at the adult learning centre and I had a meeting at our Continuing Education head office about a 15 minute drive away. A few minutes into the drive the radio announcer started taking about the Kardashian family. I listened out of interest about who these people might be, and out of shock that there could be a tv show about these people’s ridiculous lives.

I arrived at the centre and after walking into the office with 4 secretaries I had only met a few times, I asked, “Can one of you help me out with something? Who are the Kardashians, and why do I want to keep up with them?” This got a laugh, but not a response. I had to add, “No, really… I’ve been in China for a couple years, I have no idea who they are?”

Their answer didn’t help me. I was completely unaware of this pop culture reference and Bruce Jenner was the only name I had any connection to. Admittedly, I never ended up watching the show, and still don’t really know who they are beyond the name Kim, and that Bruce is now Caitlyn.

I think of this now because I’ve noticed that today there seems to be more and more pop culture references that I don’t get. I don’t watch TV, my Twitter network is mostly educators, and the Facebook and TikTok algorithms know that I’m a 50+ year old dad. I am shielded by an information wall that hides many new pop culture reference. I see memes that reference people I don’t know. I hear names I have to Google. I hear words that don’t mean anything to me.

How good are the algorithms? When I go on TikTok I don’t see a single teenager dancing, but (very) occasionally I see a mom doing the moves their kids do. The only place they get me wrong is that I have to tell them (using the ‘I’m not interested’ feature) to keep creators telling bad dad jokes away.

So it’s not easy keeping up with the modern day Kardashians. The newest cultural references seem to change weekly, and despite not living in a foreign country, I feel like I am missing out on what’s going on in the different and fast changing world. This is especially true with hit songs that seem to get popular on TikTok. They are what we used to call ‘one hit wonders’. Artists who catch a wave of likes thanks to a single use of their song in a TikTok that explodes in popularity, and then the song hits the pop charts. This isn’t always an unknown artist, one 1-minute video brought Fleetwood Mac back to the top of pop charts.

By the time I’ve heard and recognized that it’s a thing, the cultural reference or song is usually almost at the end of its life. So it seems that I’m at an age where I will always be behind and catching up. This realization isn’t going to change what I do going forward, it’s just interesting that a decade ago I had to be literally on the other side of the world to be left in the pop culture dark… And now it seems like a weekly thing, simply because my social media consumption is based on algorithms that are completely different than a younger generation.

Documenting your life

It occurred to me last night that a daily blog is an interesting way to document your life. It’s not a true journal, like a diary, because there are things I won’t share because it’s public… However it is a document of my thoughts and it opens a door into the things I think about.

I’m basically at a point now where I look back at old posts and some I remember writing and some I don’t. The blog is documenting thoughts I don’t even remember having. Have you ever looked back at a piece of writing and not remembered writing it? It’s kind of a weird feeling.

Kids today are doing this in different ways. They are sharing videos on TikTok, photos on Instagram, and even memories on Snapchat. Yes, even on Snapchat, the app where everything disappears, there is an option to save your video and Snapchat will share your ‘memories’ with you each year, like us old folk see on Facebook.

We are documenting our lives in digital, social spaces. Some of these spaces will disappear over time, and we will lose a piece of our histories. I no longer have my Ning and my Wikispaces memories archived, I can’t even remember some of the names of the apps that I stored memories on, that no longer exist.

But some will survive, some will get archived. While a paper journal can disappear, digital footprints might stick around for a very long time.

TikTok creativity

It’s interesting to watch how TikTok is exploding with new users of all ages, producing creative work.

Here are a few examples of original posts: 1, 2, 3, 4,5.

Then there is an incredible, understanding of permission to share your own version of that work. You’ll see a joke trend, then realize that that wasn’t the first place it was shared.

Then you’ll see someone duet a video, (share a TikTok side-by-side), and often that duet might be more popular than the original. When that happens, the original poster isn’t disappointed, but rather appreciative of the added exposure. Here is a fun example where rather than dueting (new word?) to do what was intended, the person made a parody that was far more successful. And this was the response of the original TikTok-er.

You’ll also see some incredible collaborations on TikTok. What I find interesting is that much of this original work is inspired by a copy culture… a sharing and expanding of creative ideas. Sometimes this is just blatant copying. Sometimes it’s copying with a very creative adaptation, and sometimes it’s just pure parody for a laugh.

I think we can learn a lot about creativity in a place where copying work that came before it is celebrated. The reality is that it is hard to be originally creative, but not as hard to be creative based on someone else’s work.