everyone says you can always restart. that your future isn't forgotten, just sort of misplaced. they name actors and singers and authors who started at 46, 59. they cite chappell roan's 10 years. they tell you to push and push, that some day you'll open a door and the truth will be behind it.
but what if you aren't a celebrity in sheep's clothing. what if you're just a normal person. most people aren't exceptionally talented or else talent wouldn't be exceptional - right? what if you're just another median person; not ever startlingly bad nor terrifyingly good.
you put the shopping carts back and you walk your dog and you write poems on the internet. you have grown a plant or two; killed a few others. you did okay, overall, and you've been okay most of your life. not valedictorian, but you were a smart kid. you had some hard knocks, but you got up again. your life is just - average. you probably will never sing onstage at coachella. most of the time you are at peace with that - someone needs to drive the speed limit. life isn't about extraordinary circumstances, it's just about building a life you love and figuring out how to live in it.
but you would like to feel as if you'd found "the answer." everyone else seems to have some kind of talent they are born nesting in - and meanwhile you just exist. is that why you cycle through crafts and hobbies and activities like a roulette wheel? are you waiting for the moment where it turns out - all this time, you've been a visionary. a genius. all this time, you were special. even you: someone who has-never-been.
crawling up your throat: something bitter and savage. not quite a feeling of wasted potential. after all, you need to first have potential in order to waste it.
In art there's this concept of Negative Space, where you learn to understand that it's not just the thing you're looking at that's important, but the emptiness around it, and I wish we valued art more in our society because so much of life is like that.
It's important, when you look at something, to consider what isn't there just as much as what is
Rant made by an autistic, history-loving, chronically online American tiktok cosplayer. Please let me know if I've gotten anything wrong and I will edit the post.
Reblog to spread awareness!
This is not just about Tiktok, and it's not about national security. The Tiktok ban is wrapped up in the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" which has the ability to ban any foreign website or app that the United States government sees as a threat to their "democracy." Not only that, but if the gov't didn't want China to gather data, then they would ban things like Shein and Temu (the latter which they advertised during the Super Bowl), which collect similar data that Tiktok does. If they wanted to prevent our data being stolen in general, they would ban companies like Meta, which monetarily supports the Tiktok ban and had to change their name because "Facebook" was associated with the largest data leak in history.
The documentations of the Tiktok court interrogations prove how incompetent our government is. Repeatedly asking the TikTok CEO Mr. Chew if he's Chinese while he repeatedly assures them he's Singaporean. The officials being concerned that they can't find Singapore on a map. The officials then being confused why the app would be able to have access to their wifi because it needs wifi to load.
The possibility of the US buying Tiktok exposes a greater issue in America: monopolies. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890 that restricted the activities of large companies known as monopolies, which started out as small companies and would either buy other companies or buy the factories which produced all their materials. This eliminated competition in the market and gave the monopolies almost full control of quality and prices of items, and it was considered very anti-American at the time. Since the US already has multiple major social medias, including Facebook (Meta), Instagram (Meta), Threads (Meta), X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit, adding Tiktok would mean that nobody could compete with the US in the social media market. This makes them a monopoly, and it's incredibly dangerous.
Banning Tiktok breaks several American trademarks. A) the Republicans banning Tiktok are very concerned about their second amendment right to own guns, but they seem to not care about the first amendment right to freedom of speech and press, which Tiktok delivers. Of course there are app guidelines, but for the most part you have fairly uncensored political and ethical commentary like no other social media. B) the only other countries that have banned Tiktok are either heavily demonized by America or are direct targets for American propaganda (ex. China), which really doesn't make the ban look good. C) banning a social media for the purpose of censorship is a trademark of communism, which Americans are INCREDIBLY wary of.
Your country may follow in suit. Because of America's influence as a global superpower and an ally to many other major powers, America banning Tiktok would likely lead to a domino effect in other countries.
The rich get richer. There is a concept called social darwinism, in which it is the rich's beliefs that the poor must fend for themselves without the help of the government in order to make a living - "survival of the fittest." Tiktok contributed around $14.7 billion USD in 2023 and $24.2 billion in 2024, and it supports around 224,000 jobs [source]. The actual Tiktok website says in 2023, they contributed $15 billion USD in revenue and supported 7 million US businesses [source]. Without these jobs, there could be in increase in homelessness, debt, and sickness due to withdrawals (if you're incredibly addicted to Tiktok) and lack of quick dopamine hits (due to the rapidfire nature of the algorithm).
Remember that the president is not your friend !! Many of the political figures rallying to support Tiktok right now, such as President Biden, initially voted for the ban. President Biden is likely supporting now so that Trump won't get credit for it, and future President Trump is likely doing it for brownie points among younger generations.
The Xiaohongshu migration exposed the American government and its lies. The stories from American 'Tiktok refugees' about the questions from native Chinese on the Xiaohongshu / Rednote / Redbook app (considered the Chinese mixed of Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook) posed a lot of conspiracies and realizations about the American government. The Chinese actually own their homes, they have lower food prices than we do, and they have a slim homelessness rate. Whether this is true or not, it has greatly influenced how we see ourselves in the grand scheme of the American oligarchy, and that is not something that can be suppressed with an app being banned.
Tiktok is not totally Chinese! The CEO is Singaporean, as I've already stated, and there are multiple headquarters in the US, with the main one being in Los Angeles.
In conclusion...
Whether Tiktok is banned or not, whether permanently or not, no matter who saves it or rallies against it, remember that it is harder to scare and control someone when they are in a group. And if you think this was interesting, I'd love it if you could reblog to show some support and inform your friends as well. <3
hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god
"well i like this post but i'm worried my followers might not" fuck your followers. The entire point of tumblr is to cause irreparable psychic damage to your followers. We are locked in mortal combat on the astral plane. You must win. You Must Win. You Must Destroy Them.
if you’ve ever thought i’m standoffish, politely distant, or generally hard to befriend, know in your heart that i’m exactly the same in real life. my neighbours just showed up at my door drunk on Canada Day celebrations and told me how desperate they’ve been to meet me for the past few months and then tried to fix the water pump in my basement
one of the neighbours returned today with heavy machinery and gravel and fixed my driveway. i feel like a feral animal they’re trying to coax with little treats
they've told me the gossip which is that a few years back a 70 yr old man collapsed the bridge at the end of my road by driving his tractor over it, lost his tractor in the river, climbed back up the cliff unscathed, walked an hour home, and then the whole road fell into disrepair and all the campgrounds closed and the once popular waterfall down the road became obscure and secret. so like, be the change you want to see in the world. collapse a bridge to chase out the tourists. also you can lose widespread knowledge in under 10 years if one old man collapses a bridge
also i met this bridge collapsing old man on a walk a few months ago and he said to me "you should check out the river at the end of the road, there's a tractor in it!" like he wasn't the one who put it there
adjacent advice: if you need more confidence, get a cool jacket or a haircut or something and think about how cool it makes you. this is loser advice, but we're all losers here. swallow your pride and roleplay as a cool guy and you'll become a cool guy.
getting older as a kid is like yippee!! wahoo yay!! but then immediately as u enter ur early twenties ur like whoa lol hold on wait wait hold upa minute stop
Actually, I Can. @natbamboo - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
