I Ain’t “With It”…
An old lady yells at a TikTok trend, the world keeps on turnin’.
I feel like Grampa Simpson when he was yelling at a young Homer and Barney about “what IT was”, and how he used to know all about it. Yesterday blew my mind a bit, and that’s saying a lot. Unfortunately, I’m a little desensitized to most shock videos and media due to…ehh, pick something. Sometimes I’m on the side of “lighten up”, sometimes things aren’t that funny. This was definitely one of those moments when I could not lighten up. It was, bluntly put, a triflin’ ass mess.
Getting to the point, those AI NPC lives…are what I’m talking about. Yeah, they annoy me. I usually block the creators or tap “not interested”. However, a very specific one caught my eye last night. If you stay on TikTok long enough, you’ll come across some very interesting (often unhinged) lives. They’re fun for a lot of people, but rather nonsensical to me. That’s okay. It’s not my job to be “with” everything going on. My time came and went, full of pop trivia and so-called gossip-worthy shocking moments. Having grown up when I did, maybe I should be knee-deep in being unbothered. Especially when I’ve seen the digital progression of people who will do and say anything for views, clicks, and attention. It makes money. It stops being shocking and more of a shake of the head. How many social experiments do we need? What’s next?
I’m indifferent to fanservice and cosplay stuff. Some of it is actually cool. Some of it can be too much, and I think that’s where the oversaturated feeling comes from. I’m on TikTok for pets, recipes, skits, LGBTQIA happenings, and a little gaming. I feel the oldness slither around as I type that. I’ve become…a middle-aged woman. I fully accept it, knowing full well that everything ain’t for me. Young people do weird stuff. They find humor in craziness and nonsense. I did it when I was young. To a certain extent, I still do. Hell, some of the Gen Z weirdness is right up my alley, and I applaud it!
However, for the sake of cloud yellin’ and my complaint —
“Nonsense” isn’t new. It’s recycled, updated, and marketed to the new generation. It becomes noise and doesn’t make sense to those of us in certain age brackets. It’s the same nonsense I know I fed into when I was young, but different because it’s something they can identify with. Just like a lot of them are sooo tired of us cringe-worthy Millennials and our nostalgia, I guess I’m tired of (some of) this new crap. Anyway, in passing on my fyp I saw a dude with a ripped tee and messy hair acting like a slave. An “NPC slave”.
Deep sigh.
I didn’t want to give him a view outside the preview window, and my finger slipped at first. It went to the next live of some gamer dude. I sat for a while, trying to process what I had just seen. TikTok has this way of trying to push topics you’ve told them you don’t want to see. Despite firm attempts to shape my fyp, I know they were trying to push what was hot. He got about three seconds out of me when I scrolled back to block him. Suddenly the live went dead and a message saying it was “discontinued” popped up. I’m assuming it was mass reported.
It was hard to tap on his name to block him because his screen name was a dollar sign emoji. I didn’t want to go back, knowing the app records that as interest. Great, I’ll be seeing and blocking more NPC lives. Knowing that people will do anything, it was disappointing and sad to see that dude choosing that route. This wasn’t some nuanced joke about slavery, wrapped in a commentary that only some would get (I’m not writing “woke”, don’t get me started on that.) beyond face value. Nah man, this dude had reduced slavery to some kind of weird, repetitive experience with disheveled clothes, messy hair, cotton props, and a greenscreen background of a watermarked cotton field.
We fight for dignity on TikTok all the time. Black creators of all walks of life — from being trolled to having our issues silenced and removed — and here this man is live just shuckin’, jivin’, and acting a fool. You know somebody was screenshotting and screen-recording that crap. Racist trolls eat mess like that right up. He handed it to them on a foolish-ass platter. I was embarrassed for him. That was the only idea he could think of? It’s no better than the rest of the NPC muck but come on man. A lot of our ancestors lived, suffered, and died in similar fields, and now you’re gonna speak broken English and make light of their plight…for views. Not even enough to make decent money. I don’t believe the people who keep saying the money is there by acting like an NPC character.
Even in the name of comedy, shock, and pushing the envelope…I’m not going there. Not like that. Not in my writing, not in the darkest levels of my humor, and certainly not in the name of making a few dollars on a genre-saturated app. I shouldn’t even be shocked, but now I’m missing the nonsense lives with people streaming cheap toys dancing on electric ladders. I’d rather see the hood girls scooping the candy into bags and trying to make a way with corner store treats and good music. Where are the boutique queens selling the same fast fashions in different colors? I’ll even take the lives of the puppets sitting and staring into the camera. Anything but some fool yelping and wiggling about for a few views.
Some people find it funny and harmless. The laugh emojis and gifts were present both on the live I saw and another that was captured. It was hee-larious to people in the comments. Remember I told you somebody had captured that crap. More than likely, it was not that creator’s first time doing it. I don’t want to link anything concerning him, so you can open TikTok and look him up for yourself.
It makes me think of my older cousin and how he is able to just…not be online. He was always his own person and I admire his stance on avoiding social media. He comes on every now and then to post something he has baked, or music. That’s it. In and out, one and done.
I don’t go looking for stuff like that. I don’t want to see it. Saying “It’s the Internet” is not good enough. We know that. Why are we asking for respect as Black folks and degrading ourselves at the same time? It’s always “just a joke”. There is a write-off answer for everything because we’re all desensitized. This isn’t an over-the-top “cancel him” thing. I’ve seen racist ugliness on and offline, and it can be far worse than some nutcase “actin’ a damn fool with no sense”, as Nana Ellen used to say. When you get used to unacceptable things, it mutates into being normal.
What I saw was far different from a skit or somebody dancing with provocative intent. This was a step outside of the usual things people swear are degrading. It’s worse when they do it, it’s tragic when we do it to ourselves. I understand making comedy from pain, but again — the best comedians and creators do it from a nuanced place. It isn’t a bottom-of-the-barrel moment to make light of ancestral suffering. What that young man was doing was nothing more than an untalented attempt at gettin’ in on a trend.
You can’t tell people what to do. I suppose that this is a moment in time that bothered me, and all I can do is block it and release the anger it sparked. He won’t be the last one to pull this mess. When trends take flight, somebody always takes it too far. The shock, if any, wears off. The world is silent. Nobody cares, again. Something else takes its place. Laughter, apathy, small group discussions — the world keeps on turnin’.
Yep.
About the author: Veronica is a Chicago native who currently lives in a small Tennessee town. Fueled on dark roast coffee and Golden Oreos, she spends her free time writing Medium pieces and tie-dyeing. [Contact Info]
