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Tiktok Archive

Archives for August 2023

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Embarrassing mini-bosses in Zelda: TotK is one of the best sub-genres of gaming TikTok.

For example: Lynels are challenging beasts that take practiced timing, powerful weapons, and patience to beat.

...or you could just slap them with a ring of cooking pots on a spinning wheel. Whatever works for you.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Chicago is the latest city to sue over “Kia Boys” car thefts.

Chicago joins Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York City, and Columbus on the list of city governments suing Kia and Hyundai over cars that can be stolen in seconds by teenagers armed with nothing more than a USB cable and the knowledge gleaned from a TikTok video, as we wrote about the Kia Boys thieves in June.

The failure of Kia and Hyundai to install basic auto-theft prevention technology in these models is sheer negligence, and as a result, a citywide and nationwide crime spree around automobile theft has been unfolding right before our eyes.

Since videos posted on social media exposed this defect, thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles in Chicago surged from about 500 in the first half of 2022 to more than 8,350 during the second half of the year. Thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles continue to comprise more than half of all vehicles stolen in Chicago in 2023.

A car tangled up in a charging cable.
Illustration by Sean Dong for The Verge
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
TikTok may ban links to other e-commerce sites like Amazon.

According to a big report about TikTok Shop in The Information, TikTok is considering the big move to better bolster its shopping efforts.

This year, the shopping service is set to lose more than $500 million in the US, The Information says.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Alright, you sold me, I guess I’m getting a Pixel Fold.

What’s the good of being named Wesley if I don’t have a Star Trek: The Next Generation-era console to fiddle with? The Trek-themed launcher in this TikTok from thetechpreacher might be just the thing... if I had a Pixel Fold.

Yes, these launchers have been around forever, but look, I forgot about them, and this video awakened something in me.

I wish he said where it’s from. I think it’s this one?

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
A leaked document offers a glimpse at negotiations between TikTok and the US government.

In a draft agreement obtained by Forbes, TikTok reportedly offered the government a number of concessions to avoid a ban in the US.

That included the ability for the DOJ and DOD to examine TikTok’s US servers, prevent changes to its privacy policies, and even “veto the hiring” of anyone on its data security team. It’s not clear if any of these purported agreements are still on the table, however, as Forbes says the document was drafted in the summer of 2022.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
All of them promised me.

Setting aside the idea that a motorized standing desk that lets you sit and stand throughout your day might actually help with back pain, this song by Tom McGovern sums up why I’ve never tried a standing desk.

That and, candidly, I really don’t have the emotional energy to undo my displays’ wall mounts and patch all the holes.

Jacob Kastrenakes
Jacob Kastrenakes
TikTok sees an endless loop between its video feed and music streaming service.

The company’s music head, Ole Obermann, talked to Semafor about how that’ll work:

“The music that gets served up to you in terms of recommendations in TikTok Music will be heavily influenced by what we already know about your musical tastes through TikTok ... you could also be in TikTok Music with a playlist of your favorite songs, and then, say, go make a video using a particular song as the soundtrack.”

The service has already debuted in Indonesia and Brazil and is going to expand “eventually.”

The fandomization of news

Younger generations expect news to come straight from creators. But when creators are wrong, the news ecosystem quickly breaks down.

Kate Lindsay
Mia Sato
Mia Sato
Lost in the girlouboros.

Women have a lot of things to do these days — we go on hot girl walks in our tomato girl dresses; prepare our girl dinners in our clean girl apartments. And of course, be a vessel for mass marketing campaigns.

As Vox’s Rebecca Jennings points out, these “trends” are just repackaged normal things we do (walk, eat, tidy our homes). But tack “girl” on to something and it creates the potential for virality and money — a new generation of girlbossing.

Mia Sato
Mia Sato
The word you’re looking for is “marketer.”

“MovieTok” TikTok creators are in The New York Times letting everyone know they are not critics — as if that wasn’t already very clear.

Unsurprisingly, the line between a promotional post and an honest review is nearly nonexistent. Some make sponcon for studios or accept gifts; others avoid saying anything too mean:

Cruz, 34, echoed other MovieTok reviewers who said they dislike doing sharply negative posts and would be unlikely to slam a movie whether they were in business with the studio or not. She said she generally prefers to deliver negative opinions in the form of a “compliment sandwich,” preceded and followed by more positive remarks.

Perhaps this is why studios are hitting up influencers during the Hollywood strikes?

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
It’s Nerf (engineering) or nothin’!

Bill Hammack, AKA The Engineer Guy, explains why he calls this Nerf three-dart blaster’s cascading air mechanism “the epitome of good engineering” in this video on TikTok and YouTube.

It’s an old video, but watching his explanation of how the blaster’s series of valves trigger just one barrel at a time — and how to defeat its design to fire more than one dart — is immensely satisfying.