TikTok made the script faster than you
TikTok sped the cycle up until the script changes faster than you can follow. More speed did not bring more freedom. It made the copying tighter.
TikTok sped this up until the script changes faster than you can keep up.
TikTok sped this up until the script changes faster than you can keep up.
A trend now lasts a few days. The sound is borrowed. The gesture is borrowed. The framing is borrowed.
On Instagram you copied from a fairly stable set of examples. On TikTok you fit yourself into a moving template that the app feeds you in real time.
You might expect more speed to give people more freedom. It does the opposite. If you change the template too much, the app stops sharing your video. So you keep close to it.
The part of you that did not need to be made for an audience..
TikTok sped this up until the script changes faster than you can keep up.
On Instagram you copied from a fairly stable set of examples.
On TikTok you fit yourself into a moving template that the app feeds you in real time.
Step back and the whole pattern is clear, across all three apps. A small group makes something new. The crowd copies it. Money gathers around the copy. The copy hardens into a script. The people who arrive later just lay their version over the template, chasing attention that is split a thousand ways.
What this slowly uses up is one specific thing. It is the part of you that did not need to be made for an audience.
On Instagram you copied from a fairly stable set of examples.
The part of you that did not need to be made for an audience.
TikTok sped the cycle up until the script changes faster than you can follow. More speed did not bring more freedom. It made the copying tighter.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Palimpsest self, parasocial media”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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