[kev6168]

Like eating potato chips, watching the videos on Douyin (Tik Tok) can become a non-stop action because it's a super convenient low-effort pleasurable thing to do, it's faster than fast food while lying on the sofa.

The app opens in sub-second and then starts playing a video right away, the video is also selected to conform to your previous likings. Or I also like to say it's the mobile phone era's bubble gums, a source of endless simple pleasure. Of course there are also many videos providing valuable educational content.

From my own experience, I feel Douyin has enforced pretty strict policies regarding what video are acceptable. A while ago I submitted a video about early day internet success stories such as eBay/PlentyOfFish/etc., it was rejected repeatedly. No reasons were given and I didn't bother to ask. I suspect it's because I had words "rich"/"money"/"quick success" in the description. You often hear other people's complaints in their videos, such as "My last one was deleted by Douyin and I don't know why." Anyway, it's just my one anecdote.

[nielsbot]

I think the analogy extends in other ways too: too many chips are bad for you and leave you feeling yucky... Same is true for video consumption? I just think people should be careful. :)

[kev6168]

That indeed was what in my mind. For viewers it can be a huge time waste. I lost many nights' sleep watching kittens, puppies or comedy videos, often from 11pm until 5am, in my early Douyin days. The platform kept giving me stuff from the same category again and again. There was also the suspense that you wish to know what the next video would be like. But the next day I felt terrible. Nowadays I don't open Douyin/Tik Tok after getting on bed.

On the other hand, this form (of convenience and simple pleasure) matches our basic desire, imo. So maybe it will continue to develop and expand.

I should say Douyin/Tik Tok is also great for people to express themselves, to create artistic content, to provide valuable content. So potato chip or bubble gum are naturally not very accurate descriptions.

[rasz]

This description pretty much fits YT. Play cat video, it will stream cat videos at you whole day. Of course Youtube is banned in China.