Do You TikTok?

It's out there, it's popular. Do you use it?

This topic makes me feel more curmudgeonly than most. I resent the rise of portrait-oriented video and I have a powerful aversion to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels. So my “no, never” vote carries me into the future as well — I don’t and I won’t.

I'm the odd duck it seems.

I find Tiktok to be a varied source of information/entertainment as well as 'breaking' news. With it being social media, I judge content with a heavy scoop of skepticism.

No I don't.  I don't want more social media to keep track of, and I don't like some of the social effects it is having on young people so I don't support the platform.  My husband has an account, but only to watch viddies from our local meadery haha.

I think the point of expanding to a new media platform isn't to reach the people already on the site but to draw more people in.

The lower the "yes, I do" number is, the more reason to use platform and draw those new platform users to the site.

Nope, never have.

Alex Ronan wrote:

The lower the "yes, I do" number is, the more reason to use platform and draw those new platform users to the site.

Yes! Do do you know any cool homesteading or permaculture channels on TikTok?

Permies is normally as wild of a site I get on. I even dropped my membership to Chess.com.   I will go to You Tube for advice on repairs. But those are rare.

Tip:
If you want to never see these short videos from any source (youtube/facebook/instagram/etc) do this:

On Android or on a computer:
Use Firefox as your browser, with the SocialFocus browser extension.  Ideally, use Firefox to access youtube and facebook.  If you must use the youtube or facebook app for some reason, the "StayFree" app can block short videos inside those other apps too.  

On iPhone use SocialFocus in safari, and there are other apps that might be able to block videos inside apps.

I set this up for myself over a year ago and have not had to watch any of these short videos.  I've now helped set it up for several other friends and family.  If you or someone you know is being preyed upon by this stuff and doesn't want it, it's worth doing.  

The SocialFocus extension can also entirely block all social media feeds as well, not just short videos.  I use certain facebook groups and marketplace, but I don't want to ever see a feed of random crap.

Note that this is a sort of arms race similar to ad-blocking, where the social media companies are trying to push this stuff at us despite our trying to block it, so the specifics of how to block them may change over time.

I despise social media and the way that these algorithms and the people that control them now decide most of most people's conception of the world.  They are so good at finding whatever media will captivate one's attention, and they so pervasively thrust themselves at me in apps/websites that I am using for other reasons, that I was sometimes falling prey to it myself even though I knew how bad it is and don't want it.

Last vote in apple poll was on December 10, 2025