Is TikTok Toxic?

Is TikTok Toxic? A deep dive into the 2nd Most Popular Social Media App Today.

During a time of extreme physical isolation, social media has become a necessity for many. From teenagers to adults, the world has engrossed itself in apps like Snapchat and Instagram to fend off their boredom. One such app that has especially grown popular is TikTok, a social media app created by Chinese company ByteDance in 2016. In just over three years, the app currently has over 800 million users and is the second most popular social media app globally. Not only is its platform home to lip-syncing videos and challenges, it has also branched out to become a medium for users to express their creativity and connect with others.

What caused the rise of TikTok?

“Real videos. Real people” is the infamous TikTok tagline, branded on ads all over the internet. Though these ads have brought TikTok a stable following, its rise is due to a completely different reason: trends and challenges. The app is always renovating, with new, appealing features that allow the user to create unique videos that spread like wildfire. Take, for example, the dancing challenges such as “Renegade” and “the woah”. These dances not only became popular on the app itself but were spread on other social media apps, in turn leading to increased attention upon TikTok. TikTok does not just attract these users, it creates a continuous, steady following. An algorithm organizes the user’s page based on their past likes and age, which is set vertically to keep the users scrolling for hours as they watch more and more videos of their interest. Although the app appears fun and intriguing for new users, its flaws and toxicity become clearer after a closer glance.

The Glorification of Procrastination

41% of the TikTok user base is generation Z: high schoolers and college students. We dominate the “#foryou page” with videos ranging from topics of comedy to inspiration. Some post a funny story at school, others about tips to get into college, but the most popular categories of videos are often based on relatability, the most prominent category procrastination. Relatable stories of procrastination have always been popular, but especially with online schooling and quarantine, these kinds of videos have skyrocketed. The hashtag “#procrastination” alone has 66 million views with thousands of stories showcasing people’s procrastination in different forms. Some of the most popular videos present stories of people working on assignments at the last minute, and others show people posting “procrastination vlogs” in which they avoid doing their work and do other activities instead. While these videos do provoke a sense of familiarity, entertain us, and serve as a reminder that sometimes we are allowed to take a rest from our busy lives, after repeated exposure to the same kinds of videos, we can also be affected detrimentally. Such repeated exposure to a stimulus conditions us to normalize and model a behavior. This concept also applies to these procrastination videos. Many of us often go to TikTok to procrastinate. Unironically, the algorithm continuously pushes procrastination videos onto our for you pages, motivating us to procrastinate further. Such stories are frequently presented so positively with vibrant tones and tend not to convey the negative implications of procrastination, instead glorifying and emphasizing it as a prospect that students could easily engage in. On a bigger scale, procrastination has become a social norm for our generation, and even those of us who have not procrastinated feel a sense of responsibility and obligation to conform to it after seeing how widespread it is on social media platforms such as TikTok. This affects our student life, from our education to extracurriculars, and we begin to procrastinate more, holding ourselves less accountable and instead embracing such behavior due to the justification we get from others’ stories, and in turn, reciprocating it over and over again. As a result, more and more of these videos are also created, and the process repeats, with us developing a sense of comfort from them, and then utilizing it to continue on with our procrastinating behavior.

Breeding racism and cyberbullying

Laxed Siren Beat Dance, a transitional dance where people show off their country’s clothing, is just one of multiple viral cultural challenges circulating on TikTok regularly, making the platform a virtual cultural blend. These trends have brought on a form of unity through cultural education and positivity, allowing different cultures to educate and learn about one another. It has bridged the physical isolation caused by the Pandemic and enabled a sense of comfort and support for each other's communities. However, the same trends that people use to showcase and embrace their culture are also used by others to bash the growing cultural diversity on TikTok. Especially in current times when discrimination against Asian minorities has become unprecedented, these trends have been further misused in order to bring about the same insensitive discrimination online. From the Chinese made accountable for the COVID-19 to the Indians bashed for their foods, videos promoting racism increase day by day. With little TikTok regulations holding them accountable, users often proudly use derogatory words to belittle and dehumanize others. Though we all have the freedom of speech to express our political and cultural opinions, the racism and discrimination brought on by TikTok cannot be justified. One whole culture, one entire race is disrespected in the sole name of “entertainment”, stigmatizing and demoralizing each culture’s whole significance and history. The elemental progress that minorities are able to effectuate through finally embracing their cultural heritage after years of a continuous existential crisis of self-loathing is diminished because of others’ backward, racist mentality. In the name of “free speech”, TikTok often lets this hatred remain untouched without taking it down unless they face extensive backlash and continue to normalize such behavior.

Hatred and cyberbullying also stem from the clash of political opinions. Differently opinionated people on the app frequently engage in arguments with one another. From discussing president Trump to the legality of abortion, the TikTok platform consistently has many clashes of opinions. Though many of these result in respectful and informing debates, others often become more serious and toxic. Insensitive comments and statements are made to each other, and eventually lead to another form of cyberbullying, which too often goes unregulated by TikTok.

The push for One-Dimensional Social Standards

Like every other app, TikTok also comes with a mental toll. Including the common effects like loss of direct communication with others, it also causes deterioration to our self-esteem and unnecessary jealousy of one another. The app celebrates one-dimensional social standards: One type of body, one type of diet, one type of lifestyle, and pushes for these incessantly through its algorithm, idolizing them, while different, realistic lifestyles are branded unhealthily and viewed negatively. Though most of us are able to differentiate our lives from these messages, refraining from comparing, other users - some young enough to be 9-10 years old are not. It seems unavoidable to keep these children off of the internet, but constant exposure to one kind of societal view readily causes them mental harm and deterioration of self-esteem. This applies not only to young children, but also withTikTok’s largest user group, adolescents, who face an increasing amount of pressure to comply with these standards. They, too, constantly compare themselves and develop a toxic and unhealthy dislike of themselves. Luckily, these issues are being addressed on a larger scale by more users, who are attempting to dissolve such narrow societal standards and bring on more body positivity and present more realistic lifestyles.

Why do we still use TikTok?

While we all profit from the temporary entertainment that Tiktok provides us, we tend to neglect the toxicity it can cause to our lives. Issues like racism and one dimensional societal standards may not seem serious virtually, but these issues are extremely problematic and harmful in the real world. A multitude of minorities face racism in their daily lives and many women and men alike often face pressure to abide by the societal standards promoted by social media apps like tiktok. The hateful comments and cyberbullying on tiktok affects real people like ourselves, and while we remain ignorant of it, the victims remain hurt too. This goes to say that in the long-term, the same app that allows us to unite as a community may also become the app that divides us all.