Queen Charli D’Amelio: A Tik Tok Guide for Adults
I was bored on a train circa 2018 the time when I first downloaded Tik Tok. There were some comedy clips similar to the now defunct platform Vine, and some videos that played with a dual-screen illusion. But mostly, Tik Tok was 15-year-old kids lip-syncing lyrics while blinking doe-eyed at the camera, hands swishing through their manes of hair, sometimes artfully laughing at the camera. The cringe was real.
After trying to swipe through a bunch of these montages I deleted the app without a second thought. As a millennial in my mid-20s, I determined Tik Tok content was pretty dumb and clearly designed for awkward Gen Z flirting. I already had Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit and Tumblr accounts, so I wasn’t planning on looking at Tik Tok ever again.
January 2020 came and went. If you hadn’t nailed your flapper aesthetic to ring in the new era of roaring 2020s, you were already behind the curve. Life was yet another month filled with high-stress technological evolution, economic growth and political turmoil. Keeping up with the rapid pace of life was stressful, exhilarating, unstoppable. But by mid-March, progress thudded to a halt as COVID-19 hit America’s shores and Americans were forced into lockdown.
While panic immediately skyrocketed, many initially felt a small dose of relief. Being forced…
