Yes, I can live without it.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I can confidently say that you are aware of TikTok. The app has dominated the screens of children and young adults alike since its launch in 2016. However, its trendiness seemed to have gone over my head, and before I knew it, everyone around me was recreating the dances they watched a million times over so that they too could go viral. It did not take very long to realize that I had completely missed the memo, but looking back on the years TikTok has dominated social media, I remain completely convinced that my thirteen-year-old self made the right decision by not pressing install.
Initially, I didn’t download TikTok because I didn’t want to make any videos. People often forget about Musical.ly (rest in peace), and how TikTok was created soon after Musical.ly shut down by the same company. Since I was not that interested in Musical.ly’s artificial content creation to begin with, I could not see how consuming TikTok would be any different, so I avoided it.
Since then, the app has obviously far exceeded the influence of its predecessor. The amount of time my friends spend mindlessly scrolling through it often makes me question whether or not I am missing out, but I always circle back to why I forgoed the medium altogether. First and foremost, I know myself well enough to know that I already spend way too much time on my phone, particularly on Instagram, Twitter and occasionally Snapchat. If TikTok was added on to that, I would be more of a mindless consumer robot than I already am, and that would be a recipe for disaster.
Since I have evolved from being a thirteen-year-old going against the trends, my absence in the TikTok universe has only opened my eyes to exactly how much it shapes our culture today. It’s no secret that social media, despite all that it has contributed to our world, has its detrimental effects on young people, particularly young women. It forces us to compare ourselves to the highlight reels on our screens. I won’t sit here and pretend that I have never felt insecure about myself while scrolling through Instagram or watching Snapchat stories. Every once in a while (or maybe more than that), I spiral through my inner thoughts wondering what I might be missing out on and why that might be, and, trust me, it’s hard to get out of that loop.
TikTok has done wonders for so many people. It has created a space for millions to thrive. It has brought them joy, and for that I could not be happier, but my journey navigating social media has taught me that I don’t have to play to the image that has been put in front of me. The facade doesn’t have to be all-consuming. Trust me when I say that six second dance clips are not all that they are made out to be. And plus, classic Vine humor will always reign supreme.