His shoulder bumps into yours in the darkness; both of you are tumbling through the halls of the Louvre, you clutching the jewels in your tight embrace, digging into your arms as you bolt. You look over to your companion, partner in crime; he’s holding it. He has the crown, its gems winking at you, caught in the bits of light spilling through. This is it, what you and your band of ragtag friends have been planning for, for what feels like forever now. Where are they? You could have sworn they—never mind that, you both can meet them at the entrance. The sweet taste of greatness is closing in, and he’s no longer matching your pace, making strides; he’s ahead of you now. You call out for him, you don’t know what happened, and the crown comes crashing down, clattering onto the tile. You can’t breathe, can’t move; you look up to him, trying to meet his gaze, yours frantic and his desperate. You try to move, to him or the crown; you don’t know anymore. But you can’t; despite your trying, you look at him again, but he’s not there anymore—because an ad has shattered your reality. This isn’t real—you’ve just succumbed to the newest heist TikTok that’s graced your feed. Â
The Louvre heist has taken TikTok by storm. The hearts of the app’s scrollers ride through grand halls eager to get in on the excitement, completely gripped by the promise of adventure. So what if it’s not actually real? Mystery or not, truth or reality, TikTok pleads its case to the internet court—so what? It’s just innocent fun. What’s the harm in some imagination when the feeling is just so addictive? An escape into fantasy has supplied scrollers with an opening to something more, a world of possibilities within a spellbinding storyline filled with crime, drama, and maybe even a timeless romance.Â
It’s a bad habit at the very least, but TikTok has taken it upon itself to claim more of the story than what’s actually for them; what is meant for the media’s consumption is pried away from reality. It’s routine, evident when the newest celebrity interaction the internet is enthralled with becomes broken down to the timing of their glances and the distance between them at the latest award show. When it’s revealed that the male lead in this constructed fantasy is already in a committed relationship, it causes an uproar, shattering the illusion. Though no one actually did anything wrong—the celebrities in question were just being friendly—the anger of the online community is more than palpable, as though something has been ripped away from them. How can that be, they question, when it feels so real? What really happened and the implications of it are muted, and that harmless vice takes a turn for the worse.Â
We want to be within it; it’s understandable—to an extent. An outlet can be healthy; what’s life without a little indulgence? But within this undertaking for control, to take precedent in a plot, we’re losing the real one. Certitude, the actuality, is swept under the rug in favor of chasing that feeling of solace within this invention, where people are characters, and real events are just backdrops.