On a June night two summers ago, Spencer and I were peacefully bored on a stormy night in Michigan. I’d recently dove into Tik Tok and wanted to check out what kind of people and things were on Tik Tok Live.
We scrolled past pretty white girls putting on makeup, a very weird Christian baptism ceremony on a beach, and a man working behind the counter at a convenience store telling jokes to everyone who came up to make a purchase.
We were confused and laughing and timid about it. As if we were pulling back a window curtain to spy on neighbors.
After a while of scrolling we came across a woman in her kitchen. A little girl ran in and out of frame. They were both laughing. Every once in awhile, the woman would say something to the camera about what they were doing. She was making popcorn on the stove top with her daughter for the first time. The daughter stood up on a stool to be able to see the stove and they both laughed and laughed at the kernels popping and flying up in the air.
Spencer and I watched in in silence for a good while. We loved what we were watching. It was beautiful and pure in a way that was so easy and so intriguing. And we couldn’t answer the question as to why the woman decided to live stream it. But we were thankful for her letting us into that tiny moment and corner of her life.
Since then I’ve been certifiably addicted to Tik Tok live.
I’ve sat putting on my makeup while the Tik Tok algorithm shows me a group of girls doing the same thing in Texas. There are cops who sometimes stream from their cars and answer questions about what it’s like to be a cop (this feels illegal?). And there are many many Tik Tok live “debates” where strangers join each other’s Live’s and talk through hard topics like whether or not adoption causes lifelong trauma and should be stopped, if Trump ever really did anything to help the Republican Party, and if a woman’s “body count” matters.
In the past couple years and especially since the pandemic, I’m not as good at being home alone in silence any more. So when I haven’t been able to think of a record or a podcast that I want to listen to, I’ve chosen to put on Tik Tok live and listen to strangers talk about things- let their voices fill the room in a way only a stranger on a screen can.
No one ever makes good points in the debates. There’s a lot of uneducated people on Tik Tok trying to put sentences together and articulate ideas that are completely half baked. I spent a lot of time cringing at young girls (Tik Tok’s guideline is to be 18+ to livestream but you know) giggling and dancing and the horrifying and revealing comments that pop up at the bottom of the screen. True Crime enthusiasts that try and speculate on an ongoing case and end up causing more harm than good (that’s a whole other post but google “Tik Tok Idaho Case” for some very good articles on what happened). It’s painful and masochistic to watch these for so long and try and parse anything substantial out of them.
I got to the point where I really wanted to go Live on Tik Tok to see what it felt like on the other side. You have to have 1000 followers to stream so I thought I’d never get there, and I was okay with that because I also have very little interest in becoming an influencer at 28. But as the internet goes…I ended up having a viral Tik Tok of my sister’s Chihuahua that gained me 15.1k followers.
So in the last month I’ve bought a phone stand, a light, and have tried to brainstorm things that would make people want to stay on and watch.
What seems to be most popular on Tik Tok right now are videos of people doing lottery scratch off cards. The camera is focused on the card alone and they use a nail tool to scratch off and talk and cheer while they do it. There are dozens and dozens of these accounts and they get thousands of people watching them every night. They have giveaways and incentives to get people to give virtual “gifts” aka money. And the weirdest part is that people DO. They send these “scratchers” gift after gift for doing what? Scratching a card and keeping the winnings to themselves?
I understand the draw though. It’s satisfying to watch someone physically scratch something off and then also have the anticipation to see if that card is a winning card.
People like satisfying things. That’s REALLY been proven in the last 5 years in the rise of ASMR, slime, and popping videos. So my first attempts at Tik Tok live were going to scratch that itch.
I tried doing coloring pages live- with the marker slowly filling in the shapes in a calming pattern while music played in the background. I tried streaming myself doing a puzzle and cheering every time I got a piece in. I tried doing crossword puzzles and have the viewers help me source the answers.
Nothing I tried worked. It was disappointing. At lot of people would come in at first and I would greet them but no one stayed for long- even with my professional set up with a light and phone stand and soothing voice tactics.
I got introspective and obsessive about trying to figure out what would actually work. I felt myself thinking about it more than other things that meant more to me like writing and practicing guitar and drawing on my own. It started feeling gross in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.
Spencer and I laid in bed one night talking about what was happening with my new found interest in Tik Tok live. I felt sheepish about the whole thing. While I was approaching it from somewhat of an anthropological angle it brought out the glaring truth that right now I am an unemployed 28 year old looking for attention on the internet and finding ways to distract myself from making that art that is actually meaningful to me.
I haven’t gone Live much since. I wasn’t getting that instant satisfaction that I think I was craving all along. I wanted to be the stranger that people listened to and it wasn’t working.
But something curious that has kept me thinking is that one of the last Lives I did was just me and Spencer in the kitchen at 10pm. Spencer was cooking chicken and salmon and I was holding Basil and staring into the screen. People joined and asked questions about what we were cooking and what our dog’s name was. People joined and didn’t leave.
I often think that the biggest joy and simultaneously the biggest disappointment of life is that we are all just trying to figure it out. We are debating with strangers we’ve never met, we are dancing and laughing at a reflection of ourselves that is being streamed onto strangers screens, we are monetizing other’s need for enjoyment and satisfaction.
But isn’t that in and of itself kind of lovely? I didn’t crack the code as to what people want to see on Tik Tok live and I don’t think many others have either. We are all tossing and turning in an odd internet cement mixer- trying to make each other happy.
So to the woman who made popcorn on her stove with her daughter, you made me happy. I haven’t forgotten it. I’ve wanted to figure out a way to give that happiness back and I hope that someday I will, in a new way.
One of the kids in my youth theater group is mildly Instagram famous and told me they had one viral video and then people just kept watching. They post silly stuff, but they do it very, very consistently.
While I was approaching it from somewhat of an anthropological angle it brought out the glaring truth that right now I am an unemployed 28 year old looking for attention on the internet and finding ways to distract myself from making that art that is actually meaningful to me.
Ouch. This really resonates with me. When I start thinking of myself this way I remind myself that many of the people I admire most also wouldn't "look good on paper" either, so to speak.