Since 2019, TikTok has been the most downloaded app on the App Store and it has taken the world by storm. In the early days, TikTok was a social media platform where users would make dance videos, funny videos and share their interests.
However, as the TikTok grew in popularity, the app began to change. The once fun dancing app, has become a place filled with toxic content that can be harmful for children, teenagers and young adults.
Which raises the question…
What Makes TikTok so Toxic?
TikTok is toxic because it encourages unrealistic beauty standards, sexualizes minors and encourages creators to be controversial in oder to get more views. Since TikToks are usually 7 seconds to a minute long, they tend to be entertaining instead of informative. This leads to hours of mindless swiping and wasted time.
In this post, I share the history of TikTok and go in depth on the 8 reasons why TikTok is toxic.
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History of TikTok
TikTok was released back in 2016, by Chinese company ByteDance. Since TikTok was founded, it has become popular globally and now has over 2 billion downloads.
In China, TikTok is named “Douyin” and has been popular since 2016. ByteDance wanted to expand on a global scale and launched TikTok overseas in September of 2017.
By January 2018, TikTok became the first ranked free app on the AppStore. The TikTok app is now available in over 150 markets and over 75 countries.
With over one billion active users, TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in the world.
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8 Reasons Why TikTok Is Toxic
1. The Users
It’s no secret that the users on TikTok can be super toxic. Whether if its hateful comments, participating in cancel culture, trolling or body shaming, the TikTok community is incredibly toxic.
Since TikTok has so many young people using their app, the users tend to be immature. The comment sections on TikTok are well known for rude comments, perhaps from immature people.
Many popular creators on TikTok have received tons of hate comments and have even been cancelled. As soon as a creator makes a mistake, there are swarms of TikTok users ready to cancel them.
2. Unrealistic Beauty Standards
On TikTok, a big reason many of the creators are famous on the platform is because they are attractive. No matter what you’re into, the TikTok algorithm will always feed you attractive people.
This has lead many people to develop self esteem issues because they will compare themselves to the”attractive” creators.
Many of the creators will also heavily edit their TikToks and even use filters. This can have many negative effects for young users as they will develop body image issues.
3. Sexualization of Teenagers
One of the biggest criticisms people have about TikTok is the sexualization of minors. Many of the popular trends on TikTok involve provocative dancing, which is inappropriate for younger audiences.
In my personal experience, one of the major reasons why I never liked TikTok was because of the sexualization of minors. Since you can’t control the TikTok algorithm, naturally it will show you young people dancing.
I always found it weird that I could be scrolling through TikTok and a 14 year old twerking or doing the “WAP” will come up on my feed.
These trends encourage inappropriate and toxic behaviour, and it affects young people, who are still developing and forming their views.
4. Racism
On TikTok videos, many users comments can be rude, toxic and racist. Some creators on TikTok have experienced racist and offensive comments.
On TikTok, creators may create inappropriate content or post racist comments and it will backfire on them. There are people who lost their jobs, got kicked out of school and have gotten kicked off of sports teams due to them being racist on TikTok.
Even though there are people who have faced harsh consequences due to being racist on TikTok, there are still many racist people on the platform.
5. Fake Lifestyles
Many influencers on TikTok flaunt fake lifestyles, which encourages people to be financially irresponsible and can make people feel insecure.
This is an issue I’ve noticed on Instagram as well, where creators will make it seem as if they’re living the perfect life, when in reality they’re not.
The culture of flaunting expensive clothes, cars and houses is one of the toxic trends on TikTok. This has lead to consumers buying stuff that they can’t afford so they can show it off in their TikToks and Instagram posts.
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6. Nonstop Scrolling
One of the worst parts of TikTok is the nonstop scrolling. Since many people spend hours of screen time a day on TikTok, it has been proven to be terrible for user’s attention spans.
The TikTok algorithm is more addictive than any other social media app. The mix of short for content, popular songs and a good user experience makes TikTok super addictive.
This leads to TikTok users, spending hours a day scrolling endlessly through content looking for that dopamine hit.
7. Promotion of Bad Products
On TikTok, dropshipping companies will use “influencers” to sell their cheap products. It’s not uncommon for a new product to show up on TikTok, with a bunch of influencers heavily promoting it.
Since there are so many promotion, it’s hard to truly know the quality of the product. However, some who have purchased certain items complain of poor quality and long shopping times.
Since it’s so easy to reach a large audience on TikTok, many influencers will leverage their audience by selling them products. This is one of the most toxic parts about TikTok.
When it comes to products promoted on TikTok, I only purchase the ones sold on Amazon or another reputable online retailer. At least with Amazon, the products are easy to return and you can see the reviews to check for yourself.
8. For You Page
TikTok’s For You Page, also known as the “FYP”, is the home page on TikTok. Unlike other social media apps, the algorithm decides what you see on your home page.
On Instagram and YouTube, you choose what you want to see. Whereas on TikTok, the algorithm is feeding you a mix of trending videos and videos you’ve interacted with in the past.
If you don’t enjoy seeing a certain type of content, there is no real way to stop it from popping up on your FYP.
Recently when Andrew Tate was going viral on TikTok, there were a lot of people who couldn’t understand why he kept popping on their For You Page.
Due to Andrew Tate’s intricate way of marketing himself, it was nearly impossible to stop that content from popping up on the FYP.
This is super toxic since there is little control over which content creator pops up on your For You Page.
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Final Thoughts on Why TikTok is Toxic
Although TikTok is a super popular social media app, many people know there is a toxic side to the app. There is plenty of quality and creative content on TikTok that actually can be very useful.
Unfortunately, in order to watch good quality content, you have to scroll through a bunch of bad videos.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of TikTok and I rarely use the platform. However, I understand that there are plenty of people who love the app and find it entertaining.
At the end of the day, we all use social media apps, so it just comes down to which one we prefer using the most. However, it’s important to limit use of any app that starts to make us feel bad, insecure or have a negative self esteem.
In this post, I shared the history of TikTok and why TikTok is toxic.
Do you enjoy using TikTok? Please let me know in the comments below.