Instagram to Tik Tok to paper

to pen.
I’m taking a break from scrubbing the
kitchen cupboards down, this is a job my
future wife has asked me to do whilst she
is away working a shite senseless job in a
call centre, Iv learned to really enjoy
cleaning missions, it seems to refresh the
soul and enable me to connect with what I
have in the material world. I have decided
to write this essay (I call it an essay
because that’s what clever people like to
hear) in order to make straight some of the
things on my mind, the purpose is to make
people in a similar situation to me feel
better about themselves or just better
about what’s going on.
I plan to print this out and give it to people
on paper, I think the world is lacking
writing on paper that is relevant to today,
there is best selling books about social
media and all of that but I’m talking more
about short essays printed… blah blah…
let’s get on with it Ken lad!
Today I discovered Tik Tok live, it is like
nothing Iv ever seen before, If this text
survives more than ten years people might
have forgotten tik Tok, so I will just clarify
it’s a video streaming app on the phone,
where people from all walks of life post
videos to create a kind of epic collective
soup of madness (hope that’s an accurate
description)
Today I saw a woman sat in a cowboy hat
in front of some device with lots of
bubbles and crystals swirling around in it
(pretty hard to describe to be honest) her
assistant was fishing threw the bubbly
thing and pulling out crystals and trying to
sell them to the audience watching, there
was around 3 thousand people Watching
the live stream, then i skipped by swiping
down to the next video which was a baby
with a huge swollen head, I mean ‘huge!’ at
first I was like “what is this strange filter”
then I realised it was a desperate plea for
help as the baby was dying of some
tumour, I didn’t know what to think about
this, i stared at the video confused for a
few moments then decided it was too
much to handle so swiped again, this time I
landed on a corner shop video, the young
lad was trying to sell stuff from his corner
shop like chocolate and crisps, the video
had six thousand streams “am I missing
something” i said to myself?” I swiped
pretty quickly away, the others videos i
could understand the fascination but this
one went right over my head. The next
video was of a middle aged woman with
big boobs talking sensually into the
camera, I swiped that one pretty quickly
because I’m getting married, then
following that video was a woman in the
Middle East somewhere sitting next to her
dying son, who looked completely starved
and suffering, again I didn’t have a clue
what to think, this contrasting content was
just blowing my mind, it was like
everything in the world within reason
coming at me at once, I have a friend who
works for Tik Tok and she says that the
unfiltered version of Tik Tok is way more
Insane, it’s everything human beings do
uncensored, it’s her job to censor the
content, it seems like genuinely traumatic
job, I suppose No one should be exposed
to 8 hours a day of evil human activities,
not even the police see that much insanity,
not that I have ever been a police man, I
would be a Terrible police man because I’m
completely unorganised and scared of
teenagers making fun of me. Adults
making fun of me doesn’t really matter
because they mainly do it out of their own
bitterness but teenagers and kids are
connected to that cosmic insult shit.
So… Iv been on Tik Tik for a total of five
minutes and Iv already seen loads of crazy
shit and this is the shit that they have not
censored so imagine the other shit!
The next video I stumble across is a girl
filming her floral wallpaper, she has a thick
Essex’s accent and is just rambling about
her wallpaper, I Watch the video for ten
seconds and lose interest… The video that
followed was a guy selling Pokémon cards,
then the video that followed that was a
young girl about 17 years old on a exercise
stepper bent over her bobbies right in the
camera ‘how the fuck is this aloud?’ I
asked myself and skipped to the next
video, the next video was armed police
running at a young black man in London
screaming “get on the fucking floor” the
police man had a semi automatic machine
gun or whatever it was, I couldn’t really
believe what I was seeing, I know of course
on the Darkweb you can see anything but
this is a platform that censored a drawing I
did of a woman with her boobs out, it was
a crude cartoon and not sexual at all.
So I had been on Tik Tok for fifteen
minutes, I’m not going to lie I was loving it,
I didn’t feel like a prisoner, i didn’t feel like
a zombie, I was just enjoying Watching all
of this fascinating human shit, it was
making me want to draw.
I realised some years ago that I was more
like the desperate folks on Tik Tok than a
sophisticated high society London art
world chap, when I lived in London I used
to pose around top international galleries
at private views drinking fine wine and
pretending to understand “what the fuck
was going” but it lead me to utter despair
and nonsense, when I stepped down from
my high horse and stopped being such a
narcissistic power hungry art snob the
world revealed itself to me, I began to
make real friends and enjoy peoples
company, i stoped feeling alienated by
everything and I’m managed to eat a Mac
Donald guilt free, i managed to buy Nike
trainers after spending years walking
around in leather shoes and a corduroy
suit, I wore a thick brown corduroy suit in
the summer in London when it was 31
degrees, I wouldn’t take the jacket off
because I felt like it spoiled my look, I was
a pretentious insecure little shit, trying to
be a snobby elite level artist but what I
really was, was a freak who loved making
art and loved doing mad shit and when I
say mad Shit, I mean mad shit, I will leave
the mad shit explanation for anther so
called ‘essay’.
So I still had attention for a few more Tik
Tok videos, to be honest I’m like most
young people I could scroll the fuck out of
this shit for hours, I don’t because it makes
me horrendously anxious but let’s be
honest it’s way more exciting than the
material world, unless you have some kind
of insane job like a heart surgeon or
special forces agent.
If you are a curious creative person you
would be lying to yourself of you did not
admit that all
Of this Tik Tok shit is Not amazing, I
watched a woman sky diving live, now that
might not seem remarkable to the modern
over stimulated mind but let me put this in
anther way, I watched on my phone (a item
smaller than a book) I watched a video in
high definition live of a woman jumping
from an aeroplane, falling threw the sky
and letting open a massive bit of Asian
made fabric to save her life (a parachute)
it’s mental when you think about it, it’s
beautiful when you think about it, my
advice to anyone is not to go threw life
being all ‘mental’ about social media, it will
kill you and those around you, it will inspire
the most intense bitterness within your
soul, learn to get along with it a-bit you will
see amazing beauty, it might be far from
the sensation of jumping out a plane in real
life but it is still
Something to marvel at, I know this shit
isn’t good for kids, it must be insanely
vexing being a parent and having your kids
on that, I can’t even imagine to be honest,
but looser creative
Artists please learn to love this shit, you
will enjoy your time on earth much more,
it’s also educational.I have learned so
much from YouTube, Tik Tok and the other
apps, most of it has not much practical use
but fuck it! I’m not a practical guy, I’m a
modern city baby, I’m a dumb curious
cartoon loving guy.
Everyday I post on social media, I’m
addicted to the instant gratification, now i
don’t even get gratification, I get like two
likes, to be honest it’s tough but I love so
much what I’m doing, It’s not really that
tough, if i was making contrived stuff that
got two likes, I would probably be close to
ending my life (seriously) but I do what I
love and what I believe to be true so I can
plow threw the complete lack of
recognition, a corner shop owner trying to
sell crisps on Tik Tok gets thousands and
thousands more views and likes than me,
it’s all just funny when you think about it,
at the end of the day it all comes down to
death, I truly hope this doesn’t sound
pretentious but I think we all think about
our death bed and what our thoughts will
be when we are on it, I really think I will be
pleased with myself, of course I have to
keep trying daily but at this rate I will die a
happy man.
So the moral of this essay is, go on Tik Tok
try not to spend too much time on it… and
with some detachment, enjoy it’s beauty
and madness and be on the level of the
desperate and dumb because thats where
you will find your soul lurking behind the
screen of a man selling crisps in a corner
shop in a small town in England.