The Fear in For You

By: Imogen Russell and Stavroula Paralikas

On September 11th, 1954, an article was published in the New York Times that warned 

Americans about the effects of TikTok. 

Just kidding.

The article actually warned about anti-intellectualism in the wake of McCarthyism, when Senator Joseph McCarthy waged a campaign against communism. This would lead to attacks on professors, soldiers and even government officials; celebrities, journalists and activists were also hit hard by McCarthy’s plot to expose their supposed Communist agendas. This would introduce a spirit of hypervigilance that would plague civilians and seep into all aspects of American culture. 

It seems incredibly timely and surprisingly relevant– an America experiencing a string of cultural shifts disrupted by a movement attempting to stoke fears. The final paragraph of the essay says: “this is a good doctrine for members of the academic world and for the general public; and it is particularly pertinent now that an election is almost upon us.”

It’s eerie that this 1954 election seems to predict the world of 2024. 

And what is the world of 2024, exactly? Let’s paint a picture: as of December 2023, Tiktok has a user base of 1 billion monthly users, equivalent to an eighth of the worldwide population. The 2024 election is rapidly approaching, and the vibes are…well, according to some internet users, they’re not great. 

One, there’s the idea that Americans are falling into something called consumer pessimism, as a result of the excessive information online and the perceived state of the economy. The same article also dives into how Americans have been “duped into believing that they’re having a rough time, when in fact, they’re doing fine.” But, the problem is, most people believe that they aren’t fine. 

One article coined these bad vibes as being a “vibe-cession.” But what narratives are created by that?

TikTok is the fourth largest social media platform, lagging behind Facebook, Instagram and Youtube; but somehow, it seems to hold the most power. What was originally a dancing app in 2019 has now transformed into something much more. It’s anything that people want to make it. In this case, though, that means commentary, a rare specialty that makes viewing videos less passive.

Or seem less passive. That’s what keeps up TikTok viewership, and unlike what derives Instagram and Facebook’s viewership (mostly reliant on likes) you can simply view something on TikTok, whether that be political, economic or social. 

Unlike more traditional social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook that base a user’s feed off who they “follow” or “friend,” TikTok is unique in that it instantly provides its users with a “feed” without requiring them to follow anyone beforehand. This idea of immediately launching people into an ocean of content that never ends poses the question of whether or not it can even be considered social media, since the “social” aspect of it– connection and communication– is absent.

TikTok’s algorithm is also mysterious; it takes inspiration from videos that a user has liked or commented on and then shows more of a similar theme. This can create a sort of confirmation bias in the sense that TikTok users are constantly consuming content from accounts that share their viewpoints and are rarely exposed to views that differ from their own, which radicalizes them by causing them to think that their opinions are objectively correct because they see so many others agreeing with them.

When people from both sides of the political spectrum are made to think that their respective beliefs are superior, they become more divided and are reluctant to engage in any kind of productive conversation regarding the issues at hand.

And with the 2024 election just around the corner, it’s important to reference the events surrounding the aforementioned 1954 election as history seems to be repeating itself. The mindset that the American public have fallen into can only be described as anti-intellectualism.

Except in this case, we’re not just talking about communism. McCarthy plagued the nation with fear of communists and told civilians to abandon their trust in anything and everyone just in case there happened to be ulterior (Communistic) motives.

But here and now, social media isn’t trying to combat Communism, it’s instead trying to turn the left and the right against each other by spoon feeding them biased content, regardless of how factually incorrect or vapid it may be, that only fuels their egos. (In a way, you could argue that this sense of control is vaguely Communistic…) What we have then is a frightening amount of passion from all directions and no way to tranquilize it, and an inescapable amount of information that we never know our place in. If we disconnected though, what else would we be leaving?