#727: Tech bro plutocrats and TikTok's resurrection

"It’s grief for a version of the internet that might have been, but isn't"

Hi, hello!, and happy MONDAY, a day we almost never spend together. But it felt peculiar to send the weekend’s links yesterday, given the unfolding (devolving?) TikTok saga. Indeed, TikTok is already back online; a flood of think pieces and eulogies were invalidated; and the tech broligarchs gathered in DC to clink tiny bottles of Moët champagne and toast the dawn of a bold new plutocratic administration.

Last week, now-former President Joe Biden warned against the dangers of this particular clique: America, he said, risks becoming an oligarchy dominated by a rising “tech industrial complex.” Millions of Americans apparently blinked twice, opened a new tab, and … Googled the term, since they didn’t know it. Feels a little bit telling to me. Feels like a ready-made metaphor! But hell, at least we’ll still get to TikTok through whatever fresh hell awaits us now.

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If you read anything this week

Four reads about the brief, wondrous death of TikTok. It galls me that Donald Trump gets to take political credit for saving TikTok, when he in fact banned the app four years ago — just really ineptly, so we all forgot (!). In either case, Americans lost access to the feed for all of 14 hours this past weekend. That occasioned a lot of hand-wringing and reflection, some of which remains relevant:

• “The Bright Side of TikTok’s Downfall,” by Adam Clark Estes for Vox. The aforementioned tech monopolists keep a pretty solid stranglehold on social media. But the disappearance of TikTok — along with the stunning MAGAfication of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — could create an opening for new and better social networks. Adam is vastly more hopeful than me, but sure! Who knows. This is a peculiar time in history; anything could arguably happen.

• “I Love RedNote, Unironically,” by Steffi Cao for Slate. I’m particularly intrigued by the theory that the next great hope and savior of the social internet could potentially come from China, a country that is … not precisely synonymous … with a thriving or open internet culture. But millions of Americans have reportedly flocked to RedNote, and some seem to like what they’re seeing there. Steffi Cao, a keen observer of these things, said the app’s creators are “light-years ahead” of their equivalents in the West.

• “TikTok Users Learn The Internet Isn’t Forever,” by Alex Sujong Laughlin for Defector. More than the other eulogies for TikTok that I’ve read, this one nailed the lingering and quite real sense of loss — not for the app itself, or the culture specific to it, but for a more innocent era in digital culture and politics. “My grief is for the naive optimism I used to feel when I created things on the internet and believed they expressed me more than they contributed to the bottom lines of billionaires with dubious relationships to truth and democracy. It’s grief for a version of the internet that might have been, but isn’t, and never will be.”

• “The Internet Is TikTok Now,” by Hana Kiros for The Atlantic. Endless scrolling video is now de rigueur on every social site, for better or worse. That might be TikTok’s real legacy, regardless of what happens to the site long-term.

“The Social Media Sea Change,” by Anne Helen Petersen for

Culture Study

. AHP’s recent writing on social media disillusionment has made me feel deeply, disconcertingly seen: As The Verge’s David Pierce put it in our recent newsletter guide, “no one on earth is better at Reading The Vibe” than she is. I highly recommend both this new essay, which untangles the declining personal utility of social apps, and her closely related mid-December piece on why so many people are posting less:

“People seem to be grappling with a more fundamental question: Does posting add more to my life than it extracts? In this iteration of the internet, in this ideological climate, with these platform-specific incentives — is social media ‘worth’ it?”

“Who Was Cyberbullying Kendra Licari’s Teen Daughter?” by Lauren Smiley for The Cut. A deranged read — truly diabolical. (If not entirely surprising, in the end.) You will also not be surprised to learn that this incident has already merited a Lifetime movie and a forthcoming true crime doc for Netflix.

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In case you missed it

The most-clicked link from my favorite reads of 2024 was Cory Doctorow’s essential manifesto on enshittification.

The best links of 2024, part 4

For the mid-week edition, I traced the cultural narrative around TikTok through more than 10,000 (!!) media mentions, concluding the app has become a vector for lots of other social preoccupations.

The 10,000 faces of TikTok

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Postscripts

I’m trying something a little different with Postscripts this week: a bulleted list of full titles and headlines, as opposed to our usual word salad. I’m told some of you find the word salad approach “fun” and “random,” while others find it — how do I put this — stressful, overwhelming and unhelpfully vague. Would love to know if you prefer the HEADLINE or WORD SALAD approach (poll below); I plan to run this experiment for at least a few weeks.

• “So You Want To Escape The Algorithm” (Escape The Algorithm)

• “‘Not Second Screen Enough’: Is Netflix Deliberately Dumbing Down TV So People Can Watch While Scrolling?” (The Guardian)

• “The Playlist Power Broker Who Makes Or Breaks New Artists” (WSJ $)

• “Just How Many Ads Are There On Ad-Supported Streaming Apps, Really?” (Sherwood)

• “Mark Zuckerberg Says He Wants More 'Masculine Energy' At Meta. So Why Don't More Men Use Facebook?” (Business Insider $)

• “The GoFundMe Fires” (The Atlantic $)

• “Inside The Wild West Of Smartphone Fertility Apps” (The Guardian)

• “How Athletic Sparked The Nonalcoholic Beer Boom With Brews That Don’t Suck” (Bloomberg $)

• “How Far Would You Go To Make A Friend?” (The Cut $)

• “She Is In Love With ChatGPT” (NYT $)

• “Wikenigma: An Encyclopedia Of Unknowns” (via waxy.org)

• “Do You Speak Brain Rot?” (The Atlantic $)

• “Everything Old Is New Again” (Airmail)

Paid supporters can find unlocked links from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic below the paywall.

That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards,

Caitlin