I have a lot to feeling about TikTok ending, and many of them can be summed up as upset and sad and I want to unpack that for a second.
During 2019 I joined TikTok, not because I was bored or because I needed escapism but because my friends kept sending me link to videos and i was confused. So I got on.
In 2020, we were securely in the modes of a global pandemic and I was a fucking mess. Not only was my mental health the worst it has event been, I had graduated from grad school in the most traumatic way. Being ripped away from a community and scolded for desperately trying to see anyone from 6ft away. To go form seeing you community every day, to being in an apartment with enter block walls in an empty residential community which YOU had to clear out with you 25 RAs while wearing PPE, and horrified to get too close to each other. I could keep going. It fucking sucked.
And then living in an empty building, with 300 empty beds. Listening to the building creek each night. Listening to the pipes resettle in the walls. All while newly starting SSRIs to get my mental health under control. A girl was spiraling being alone in such a big and empty building.
But then, to go on to an app, and find a community outside the one that I lost when
Then I hear people saying that TikTok was addictive (sure) and it should not exist (STFU) and that this is for the best. And my question is when did they get to decide what’s best for me?
For me personally, since 2020 it’s been a place where I found community and learned from others who were experiencing what I was experiencing, and helped me make sense of the world. And maybe three pretty close friend. One of which has taught me more about myself than I thought possible. Another who explained the Omega verse and how we can root it in feminism. Another who shared with me the joys of cosplay and how we don’t need to look a certain way to do it.
I’m mostly upset my community is gone.
Someone said to me today “go outside. Look up from your screen the end so much more than social media.”
Yes, there is. And you’re privileged enough to have the money, access to go out and access those communities.
I’ll probably add to this later as the thoughts keep coming, but I’m tired, it’s 1:30am, I had a shitty lunch, and a shitty dinner and thought I could escape for just a moment by watching a silly fucking video about ducks a friend sent but no.
I had cheesecake for dinner and lost access to a community I really enjoyed.
And fuck you Mark.