Good morning John!
So as you are well aware,
I’ve been spending a lot of time
on TikTok. And this is because
I am addicted to Tiktok.
I’d like to be able to say that it’s
because I am a professional media
analyst who needs to be able to
participate in trends in order to
understand them so that he can continue
to do his work. And that’s actually
not untrue, this is part of what
I do for a living, I think it’s some
of the best parts of my novels and
also with our work at Complexly with
SciShow and Crash Course we do
need to understand how people
are getting information into their brains
so we can get information into their brains.
But like, Facebook is also a pretty big
player in the media economy and I
spend like 15 minutes there a month.
If you follow me on Facebook by
the way and you’re like, “no you
don’t Hank, you’re there all the time!”
No. That’s just my tweets that get
reposted to Facebook.
So yeah, I spend time on TikTok
because I like it and it’s addictive.
But also I’m aware that there are problems
with the platform. Like is it more of a
security concern than Facebook or Twitter
or Instagram? Considering Twitter, just like
a month ago, had a hack that basically
exposed all of the direct messages
of all of its users to hackers, I’m like
it doesn’t actually get much worse than
that!
And then obviously it’s a platform that
is in turmoil. The CEO just quit.
Microsoft and Walmart are teaming up
to try and acquire the US operations
of TikTok because otherwise the president
might ban it. It’s just messy. It’s a messy place.
And all of this, you know it’s a little
bit above my pay grade. Like I’m happy
to analyze it and mouth off about
it but I don’t know how to run TikTok.
What isn’t above my pay grade though,
is being a creator. Like that’s a thing
I know lots about. Like a lot. Like more than
anything else. And the fascinating thing
about TikTokers is that almost all of
them would kind of like to be Youtubers
or Instagrammers (if that’s what that’s
called.) And that’s not a surprise to me, there
are really good reasons to want that.
And it reminds me of back when we
were first making stuff on Youtube and
all of the Youtubers wanted to be in
TV or movies. I mean yeah, Youtubers
doing extremely well were still going out
to auditions to be like in bit parts in movies
or TV commercials. So this is a thing that
I learned about dreams. We can really
only dream the things we’ve see before.
We want to go down the paths our idols
walked down, but the thing that we forget
is they didn’t walk down paths!
Because those paths weren’t
there yet. They created them.
So when I look at these young people
who are extremely talented and working
very hard, what I think is two things.
First, you have no idea what you’re
in for. And you can never know and
you wouldn’t listen to me if I tried to
tell you, and I’d probably be wrong if
you did. But second, you are in the
perfect place. You are where you are
supposed to be. Is it tumultuous and
fragile and do you have no idea
what tomorrow will bring? Yeah. Yeah.
And that’s too bad. But it’s also the
reason this exists right now! It’s the
reason it can be so weird and vibrant
and inspiring and constantly surprising.
And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be
thinking about potentially other paths
that don’t look like TikTok. But probably
you shouldn’t be looking at the paths that
are really well trod and full of people who
have lots of power already.
Things are really tumultuous and
the clear paths are really full.
But this situation might mean that
there actually are a lot of paths out there
that would be really useful or valuable but
haven’t been blazed yet. And that sentence
wasn’t just about TikTok, it was about 2020.
Everyday I get to wake up and mostly I get
to walk some fairly well trod paths.
And that’s nice. I like the comfort of that,
I like having a direction that I know I should
go in so that I can go in it. I’m really
grateful
at this point in my life to have that stability.
But also I found that I need to at least
sometimes go off in directions that aren’t clear,
and that I don’t know even where that path
is going. Or through an area where there
just is no path!
I found that I’ve gotten better at that.
I also find that that’s where I learn
the most, and often where I feel like
I can add the most value.
Especially when I look behind myself
and I see the path is there now.
And there are lots of people who
are finding it a nice one to walk down.
John, I’ll see you on Tuesday.
