As if it were capable of hacking our normal cognitive pathways and sending messages straight into our brains, TikTok's rise to becoming the most popular site on the internet has sparked endless discussions about its stickiness. Critical analysis said the platform's effectiveness was due to its seemingly all-powerful algorithm. Eleanor Cummins and Rob Horning talked about how users saw the algorithm as a tool for self-discovery and how it ensured an endorsement of content it delivered. The cultural appeal of the algorithm has been torn apart by others who claim that it fills a void in contemporary spiritual life by positioning itself as a data-backed deity that reads our swipings and likes much like the ancient oracles did our palms and stars. The analyses show that we have vulnerabilities to TikTok because we have lost faith in the algorithm.
The phone is a central part of TikTok's operating logic and has been overlooked due to the focus on the algorithm. A failure to fully explore the role of this device in TikTok's powers of transmission has resulted in a limited appreciation of how the platform works.
The transition from cinema to TV in the 20th century allowed moving images to enter our homes. We watched it as we got ready in the mornings, ate dinner and spent time with family. As moving pictures were taken out of the dark and placed in our domestic spaces, the mechanics of how we received, processed, and related to them changed. Heidegger believes that the new features of our dwellings take on a familiar casualness because they are intertwined with our sense of being in the world. Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl coin the term "parasocial" as they note in their paper. Home audiences saw mass media personas as friends, giving broadcasters the ability to manipulate them at a more personal level.
When media entered our homes, it had a different relationship with us. TikTok has been able to position itself as an extension of our minds due to the integration of these devices. We need to understand how the mind works in the age of the technologized self in order to extricate ourselves from the app.
Platforms used to want to be device-agnostic and accessible to everyone. According to Kyle Chayka, this allowed companies to promise users that they could use any device if they wanted to, and that they could follow anyone they wanted on the site. In many ways, the mission to organize the world's information is an example of this logic. The details of our encounter with these platforms have not been the focus of discussions.
Transcendence is exchanged for immanence with TikTok. TikTok promises to reveal your deepest desires if you're lucky. TikTok is a full-screen diary of your unmediated inner self and its interface is hyper-mediated with screens within screens and links exploding.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
