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by bonoboTP 1864 days ago
Agreed, this thread looks astroturfed. I can't believe the readers of usual HN articles would be so all over Tiktok.

All I see on Tiktok is brain damage. Pretty people doing "slipping in banana peels" level humor, weird childish stuff like how to use scissors, "mindblow" recipes that make no sense. Various junk "lifehacks" etc. Its all garbage after scrolling for like 30 minutes.

But I'm also not the target demographic, as a programmer in my 30s with still a bit of attention span left. I really don't envy the kids who grow up with this garbage.
2 comments
DanBC 1864 days ago
You can control your tiktok feed. If you make no attempt to control it you get an eclectic mix. If you use the tools that tiktok gives you you'll end up with a curated feed.

TikTok is very good at giving you the content you're interested in, if you take a small amount of time to train it.

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bonoboTP 1864 days ago
How much time does it need? How do I even tell the algorithm what to show if nothing comes up that I'd want? All I see is lame pranks, ass, tits, dancing with nipples showing through the clothes, a banana being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, fishing with weird bait, a guy jumping on the conveyor belt to do push-ups at the supermarket checkout, it's all lowest common denominator garbage.

Maybe I could train it better though, because I realize YouTube is also cancer in incognito mode. But honestly I can't imagine 5-10 second snippet videos being worth watching however "good" they may be.

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DanBC 1863 days ago
(I don't think you should be downvoted for expressing a reasonable opinion).

I think it suffers from the same thing a lot of social media suffers from: if you know who to follow your experience is a lot better. But discovering who to follow is difficult.

I watch someone on YouTube who does a few cooking videos. And she uses TikTok for the very short recipes, or variations on recipes she's already done.

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Der_Einzige 1864 days ago
I think tiktok sucks and all, but the users talking about how great it is are not a bunch of green name nobody's - it's established users. I doubt that they were all made using fake comments just for this moment for tiktok to AstroTurf.

But maybe you're right - I'd claim it's just unlikely

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