TikTok is an interesting beast in the cultural landscape. For all intents and purposes, it is the bad guy. It's an app that provides endless content to be hooked on, is a heavy influence on the culture, and worst of all, its puppet strings lead all the way up to the communist Chinese government.
The threat that TikTok poses to America is apparently so great that both aisles of our government are willing to threaten it with a ban on American shores if its parent company, ByteDance, doesn't detach itself from the Chinese government. That's a demand I'm not sure it would be willing to meet, at least if America is threatening it alone.
(READ: The End of TikTok? A Complete Ban Is Now Closer Than Ever)
But despite TikTok's circumstances, and the full knowledge that it poses a potential threat thanks to its connections, it's still a wildly popular app used, not just by the youth, but also by businesses, influencers both on the left and the right, artists, inventors, scientists, Christian apologists and a very interesting mowing company.
Why?
Because TikTok allows these people to speak and be heard. I post content there as well, and I can tell you that of all the platforms I post my content to, TikTok treats me with the most respect.
To be clear, I'm not defending TikTok per se, but this is step one to it being a popular platform. People have confidence that they'll be seen, and that's something that Americans, in particular, should take notice of. TikTok is happy to deliver conservative, pro-life, Christian, and right-leaning content if that's what you want.
Naturally, being heard isn't a guarantee. TikTok dials things down and lowers the volume on certain things, but not always in one direction. For instance, after it was clear that many accounts were calling for the genocide of Israel under the guise of "pro-Palestine" content, a fact that John Fetterman himself laid out, ByteDance took action and came down hard on that kind of content, and you'll see just as much pro-Israel content.
Don't get me wrong. TikTok is far from a virtuous platform and there's strong evidence that the Chinese government is using it to introduce damaging thoughts and concepts to the West.
(READ: TikTok's New Viral Feminist Video Is Stupid and Seems to Have a Connection to China)
But I highlight all of this to point out a glaring problem.
The reason TikTok rules the roost is that America hasn't produced a decent rooster to challenge it. Sure, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and YouTube have their own versions of TikTok's endless content video feed, but none of them come close to being as intuitive or easy to use. When it comes to posting your content, TikTok rolls out the red carpet for you, helping you dress and modify your video before posting and getting it out to the audience you want.
Meanwhile, YouTube feels like a rude TSA agent rushing you through the posting process before pushing your video out to no one.
In my opinion, Instagram is the closest you'll get to the TikTok posting experience but its problem is that Meta runs it, and Meta is just as bad as YouTube when it comes to content distribution. It'll get your video all dressed up then give it nowhere to go.
X is probably the worst of the lot. Its video content feed feels like a total afterthought, which it probably is.
After all my experiences with all these content platforms, one thing became pretty obvious: America has fallen behind, and I think it's fallen behind because it's not allowing itself to be better. It's become so obsessed with checking socio-political boxes that these content platforms have become all but useless to large swaths of the public.
Moreover, America has made its content platforms very pay-to-play. Want to get your video out to way more people? Pay to promote it. If you don't then they'll probably bury your content until you do, allowing you to experience random bursts of attention to show you what could be. TikTok is also guilty of this but not nearly to the extent American platforms are.
Again, this isn't a defense of TikTok; this is a condemnation of America's lack of will to be the best so it can be the most politically correct while being incredibly greedy.
Since there will be content platforms no matter how many people wish they didn't exist, I'd rather America be the leader, but it's not willing to be...and this is one of the reasons TikTok is as big of a threat as it is. If far more people were way more interested in using an American platform, the fight over TikTok wouldn't be as fierce.
Yet here we are dealing with American-made content platforms that are more interested in being politically safe than innovative and fun.
