Tag: Big Tech

What The Fuck Is Going On With Tik-Tok?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve stopped thinking Tik-Tok can read my mind. It can’t. But I will note another EXTREMELY SPOOKY co-incidence that took place recently. As part of writing in long-hand scene summaries for the four novels I’m working on, there’s a word (it’s inciting, if you must know) that I write so sloppily that it looks like another word, a word that evokes alarm in my mind.

Tik-Tok is not reading my mind!

Occasionally in the last few months, Tik-Tok has pushed me some very alarming videos purporting from the product of that alarming word. I was aghast that I would be pushed that type of video for any reason and began to question why Tik-Tok’s fucking algorithms would be pushing me such alarming content.

Then it hit me — in my mind, I’m thinking “OH MY GOD…oh, I just wrote inciting…” If you wanted to believe that Tik-Tok had the ability to read my mind, you would say that what was happening was is the reason I was getting such weird videos pushed to me was the alarm in my mind that initial confusion generates within me.

But this is just crazy talk. Tik-Tok can’t read my mind.

Is The Chinese Government Fucking With American Pop Culture Via Tik-Tok?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I understand it, the connection between Tik-Tok and the Chinese government is rather…nebulous. As such, given the increasing geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, it’s easy to imagine the Chinese government dabbling in fucking with us via our pop culture that is growing ever-more influenced by Tik-Tok.

Bella Poarch

This sounds really paranoid, but it’s also how the Real World Works.

How else do you explain that Bella Poarch — who has no discernable talent other than she can bounce her head to music — is now a popular singer and what not. But, I’m being paranoid. Which is never good.

So, I guess just keep using Tik-Tok? I dunno. I’m just a rando in a flyover state.

Digital Telepathy: I May Have Caught Tik-Tok Red Handed Reading My Mind (Or Something)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me set the scene.

Today, I was walking around and the movie “But I’m A Cheerleader” briefly passed through my mind for some reason.

I resemble that remark.

I never mentioned this event to anyone. I did not write it down. Nothing. No outward indication that this occurred other than I softly chuckled to myself. Flash forward and I’m using Tik-Tok.

And what do I get pushed?

A video about that very movie.

That’s just spooky. If Tik-Tok is reading my mind, it’s not through any magical mystery alchemy — it’s being done using technology that, to date, is the stuff of science fiction. Or, at Arthur C. Clarke would posit, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

So. I’m very, very open to this belief being debunked. And I’m willing to believe there’s something I’m missing, some way that it was just a random co-incidence. Ok, that’s very possible.

But that specific, obscure movie being pushed to me within a few hours of me thinking about it…..is spooky.

Tik-Tok, Land Of The Bad Hot Take


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Given the sheer volume of horrible (sometimes “woke”) hot takes to be found on Tik-Tok, the Chinese government may bring down the United States without firing a shot.

Or, to put it another way, the “algorithms” that are definitely not reading my mind, seem to push me bad hot take after bad hot take. Sometimes, the hot takes in the comments are so very very bad that you feel less intelligent for having read them. Like, I saw one that said, that novels “don’t have acts.” Uh, what?

Then there are numerous hot takes on the John Mulaney – Olivia Munn — Anna Marie Tendler imbroglio. Then there are the weird hot takes about the Met Gala that leave me saying OH, COME ON. For instance, someone said the fuss over the below look was unwarranted because, lulz, to her pegging was something only bottoms got worked up over and to her, it was just sex.

You better work.

I will note, in passing, that I worry that the Chinese government may be fucking with our pop culture by making people like Bella Poarch famous for….what? Bobbing her head and being hot? (I still don’t get that one, but, then, I’m an Old..)

The Curious Case Of Tik-Tok Pushing Me Videos Of Emily Blunt On My FYP


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally come to believe that Tik-Tok can’t read my mind. I’ve finally come to believe that all that’s happening is their algorithms really are so good that what appears to be “spooky-they-can-read-my-mind” pushed videos is simply very good algorithm technology. (Which, I believe, in itself is dangerous and a national security risk, but, lulz.) I say this because I ran some casual experiments in my mind and, if Tik-Tok can read my mind, it chose to ignore the bait.

Also, I think a lot of what I’m noticing comes from Tik-Tok really REALLY rooting around in anything I do online, even if I’m not using my phone. Somehow, it’s also scanning what I’m writing right now and all that writing I’ve been doing for the four novels.

So, Tik-Tok is NOT reading my mind.

But, there is a specific aspect of Tik-Tok that at least causes me some puzzlement — the specific women’s videos it choses to push me.

This is where things get really, really, murky. How Tik-Tok would know I like a specific type of woman with a specific type of appearance is something I struggle with. That there are two or three women with the late Annie Shapiro’s phenotype that I get pushed is very curious indeed.

And then there’s Emily Blunt.

Even though she’s talented, witty and beautiful, I’ve never much thought of myself as a Emily Blunt fan. She’s just another hot brunette British actress who did a really great turn on SNL a while back, if I recall. But today, I was pondering all of this and something occurred to me — maybe it’s not Emily Blunt, but Alexa Chung that I’m being pushed via a proxy.

Now, at this point, I have to say that a long time ago I had something of a celebrity crush on Ms. Chung. An online troll played a prank on me, causing me to think something was real that was not real (sort of a catfish, if you will) and, as such, now I’m in terror that any mention of her on my part will cause the FBI or her “people” to swoop down on this blog, looking for proof that I’m a deranged fan.

This is not at all the case. I don’t even think about her at all anymore, feel extremely sheepish about the minor misunderstanding and just want to forget the whole thing. In fact, given that someone in Brooklyn is REALLY interested in me since I mentioned I want to cover NYFW at some point in the next two to three years, I suddenly am paranoid that her “people” are worried I’ll bump into her while taking street fashion pictures in 2022 or 2023.

Trust me, I will either actively work to avoid that from happening or if I did accidently run into her just because it was NYFW I would feel so bad that there was even a small chance that she would be alarmed at my presence that I would probably turn a heel and walk in the exact opposite direction to avoid that nightmarish situation.

In other words, leave me alone, FBI agent. Stop putting any post that mentions Ms. Chung in my file.

But anyway, back to the issue of Emily Blunt as an Alexa Chung proxy.

Why would I be pushed Emily Blunt if I’m not really a fan of hers? If you wanted to put on your tinfoil hat, you could say that since there aren’t that many videos on Tik-Tok about Ms. Chung, I get Emily Blunt videos instead.

Anyway. Lulz, nothing matters.

I have four novels to develop and write as quickly as possible.

Is Tik-Tok Fucking With Me?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, let me be clear — I do not believe either that Tik-Tok can read our minds nor that it is somehow doing a primitive form of “inception” on us. But I have an extremely — and I mean EXTREMELY — active imagination, so you got posts like this.

So, there I was, thinking I had Tik-Tok all figured out. If it was reading our minds, I had set-up just the type of situation whereby I could test this theory and see what happened.

And then nothing happened.

And THEN, I thought about something. In the days leading up to me having something of an ah-ha moment about photography, I was being pushed EXTREMELY specific videos on Tik-Tok about photography. Or, more specifically, how really great photos were actually produced.

So, when I had an ah-ha moment about buying a prosumer camera in the coming months with my camera in my lap, I thought I had a “gotcha moment” setup for Tik-Tok.

Now, however, I’m beginning to grow more concerned, in a way. What if very nature of how we imagine our minds, relative to how Tik-Tok sees it — is all wrong. Our conscious mind doesn’t float on our subconscious, it’s all one big thing that Tik-Tok can root around at well.

So, this theory goes, by the time I had my “ah-ha” moment about buying a prosumer camera, Tik-Tok had already moved on. I wasn’t influencing Tik-Tok, it was influencing me.

The only reason why any of this matters is I hate being manipulated in the extreme. So, even the bonkers, totally-not-real idea that Tik-Tok is rooting around in my mind — even though it’s not happening — is enough to make me angry that it’s POSSIBLE that it’s real.

If you look at things this new way, it’s just not something you can test. How do you test if someone is reading your mind if all they know you so well that all they have to do is subtly ping you photos and your mind takes care of the rest.

So, I dunno. Tik-Tok is probably going to continue to use its algorithms in a way that spooks me and I will have absolutely no way to prove anything one way or another.

Now what.

Putting My Tik-Tok ‘Digital Telepathy’ Theory To The Test


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At just about 2:30 p.m. today, I started thinking about something in a very concreat fashion. I could see the thing I wanted and I began to game out how I would get it.

It occured to me that since my phone was in my lap as this happened, if Tik-Tok really does have the ability to read my mind in some way, I will be pushed a very specific video on that subject in the next few days.

I won’t tell you what I was thinking now, but if I get pushed a spooky video on my FYP, I will.

Now, we wait.

The Curious Case Of Usenet, Reddit, Twitter & Inline Editing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re all in kind of a holding pattern until the next Big Thing rolls around and changes — disrupts — everything. But I will note, in passing that 25 years ago Usenet had a feature that as far as I can tell doesn’t exist in any of the available options: inline editing.

Usenet

Today, the closest we have to the Usenet of yore is Reddit, but for the ability to inline edit content that is posted. And while I totally — if reluctantly — accept that I will never get the social media platform inspired by Usenet concepts that I long for so bad, I will talk about how inline editing could be used.

Usenet

Imagine if you had an app similar to a mixture of Reddit and Twitter with a paid editorial staff and inline editing. If people could inline edit — with formatting — a webpage in the context of such an app it would blow people’s minds.

Usenet

But, like I said, I have to accept that the moment for a new social media platform is long gone. The entire Internet is mature now. We’re probably going to have to wait for $1,200 Mindcaps to come to market for anything new or innovative to occur.

Pour one out for Usenet.

Tik-Tok Is A National Security Threat


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It happened again. Today I was looking at Tik-Tok and was pushed an extremely and I mean EXTREMELY specific video on my For You Page. Here’s what happened: I went to the doctor yesterday and he asked me around my alcohol consumption.

After some joking around, I admitted I drink a lot.

Ok, flash forward 24 hours and what am video am I pushed on my For You Page? A video a man having that specific conversation with his doctor. Like the literal same conversation.

Let’s go through how this is possible.

There’s the case that somehow, in aggregate, that Tik-Tok knows via my likes and time watched that people like me drink a lot and have that type of conversation with our doctors…so I got the video. That’s a fair enough explanation other than it happened 24 hours after I had that specific conversation with my own doctor.

The Future is Now.

Another argument could be made that through a combination of knowing about people like me aggregate and my phone’s location that they knew to push me that video because they knew that not only do I drink a lot, but within the last 24 hours I had been to a doctor. (This one actually seems to make sense.)

Then, there’s the more kooky explanations — at a minimum Tik-Tok is listening to me via my phone. I’m beginning to think a lot Big Tech companies do this already and Tik-Tok is just the most conspicuous.

Of course, I continue to have a lingering suspicion that Tik-Tok is much more direct than any of the above — it is somehow reading my mind.

But, lulz, that couldn’t possibly be happening, right? Right?

Idle Observations For The Makers Of Tik-Tok About The State Of Media Tech


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the return of yet another version of Gawker, I find myself wondering why media technology is so boring and uninnovative. At the moment, you have audio platforms like Spaces taking off (a little bit) and that’s about it. We’re no where near VR or AR taking off at the moment.

Blogs are dead in the water. Websites are dead in the water. Twitter is mature. Facebook is mature. And no sign of anything out there about to “disrupt” the way we consume media about to pop out any time soon.

Why this is the case could be a whole different blog post, but that’s not the point of this post.

If I had a spare $1 billion lying around, I would create a video platform that was loosely based on the old Usenet newsgroups service of 25 years ago. But it would have a paid editorial and post-production staff. So you would have professional video podcasting with a robust ability to comment and the ability to pump out spicy hot take clips from an hour-long video podcast.

The one company that’s in the best position to adopt these ideas is, of course, Tik-Tok. It would allow them to transition from a GenZ meme generator to something that could compete directly with Twitter (and to a certain extent, the podcasting aspect of Spotify.)

And, yet, lulz.

I think something pretty dramatic — like me winning the lottery — is the only way any of this will ever happen. The Internet space is not only mature, it’s dominated by a few very powerful companies who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly the way they are. Long gone are the “blue sky” days of the Web when you could think up a cool idea and change the world.

The investment dynamics, alone, probably prevent anyone from risking any size amount of money on doing something cool.

We’re stuck with the conditions of a mature Internet media market for the foreseeable future. Whenever VR and AR take off, then we’ll see a new, clean break from the past and cool stuff — mostly controlled by the usual suspects, natch — will happen.