I’ve read so much about the all-powerful TikTok algorithm, while simultaneously not understanding anything about algorithms, that it has developed a godlike status in my mind: mysterious, all-seeing, all-knowing, probably quite judgmental. Apparently not even the TikTok algorithm team really knows how it works, so there’s no chance for me.
But if it’s so sophisticated, why do I get such weird content? I check out TikTok semi-regularly, hoping for neatly packaged trends to think about, or for the kind of stuff I like watching on other platforms: videos of birds – especially gulls – doing amusing things, elaborate French patisserie, nice gardens and capybaras. Instead, the default “For You” tab seems determined to baffle and appal.
Every time I open the app, I’m offered videos from a 15-year-old who has a luxuriant beard and looks about 40. That’s his whole deal: he has a big beard and looks older. Another regular is a woman who wears very tight leotards to show off her … er, prominent pubis? Again, this appears to be her whole USP. I get a lot of exhortations on swirly purple and orange backgrounds to manifest my financial destiny, and news so fake I expect Elvis to appear on the moon at any moment. There’s a grim phalanx of painfully slim young women with flawless makeup preparing depressing foods in Tupperware, and lurid pimples I have to swipe past at lightning speed before any popping occurs. I get endless POV (point of view) clips of dermatologists making incomprehensible medical in-jokes (skin jokes? Sorry, sorry), plus TikTok seems to have diagnosed me as a type 1 diabetic.
What’s happening? Either the algorithm is not all it’s cracked up to be or, far more troublingly, it’s intuiting my secret desires, maybe by tracking the dilation of my pupils or how much my fingers sweat as I swipe (I told you I didn’t understand algorithms). Either way, I’ve developed a morbid fascination with trying to work out what jarring, brightly coloured nonsense it will offer me next, swiping endlessly, which … hang on, ah yes, OK. Perhaps it’s even cleverer than I thought.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
