![]() None of these companies could really compete with TikTok on its own terms or win back users from the platform. Whatever first motivated the rush to copy TikTok’s design and methods for surfacing content, two things quickly became clear. While TikTok was adding users who were each spending astounding amounts of time on the app, Meta, Google, Twitter, and Snap were struggling toward more modest goals: goosing slow growth, keeping people from leaving, extracting more revenue from each remaining user, and keeping those users engaged, at all, by any means possible. These companies weren’t just going through a TikTok phase, in other words. Prominent YouTubers started cranking out Shorts not because they wanted to, or because their audiences asked them to, but because YouTube told them to and YouTube is their boss. Snapchat lured creators into Spotlight, its TikTok clone, with the prospect of big payouts. Instagram made it very clear that the only way to stay relevant on the platform was to post lots of Reels, and it started paying creators to use them. It was just a bunch of new TikTok-style features implanted into old interfaces, right? Social-media professionals - influencers, “creators,” or anyone with a desire or need to keep their numbers up - knew better. The tech industry’s TikTok psychodrama was evident to anyone with a social-media account, but at first it seemed like the sort of thing you might be able to ignore. ![]() Now, the first thing Twitter users see is algorithmically scavenged content in a feed called “For You.” YouTube nagged creators to post “Shorts” and tried to get users to watch them. Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook were redesigned to look, feel, and in some cases recommend content more like TikTok’s. When it started stealing users and their attention, the apps simply copied it, as is industry custom, without hesitation or shame. By the time TikTok showed up, its biggest competitors were already getting old. The first part of this story is simple enough. Where they used to see posts from people they know, now there are algorithmically suggested videos from somebody made for nobody. The big social apps now feel increasingly the same because they’re filled with the same stuff: content their users didn’t ask for made by people they don’t know on platforms they may not even use. The government can try to ban TikTok - and may actually follow through - but in this way, TikTok has already won: It drove its competition to madness. This is what all the apps are like now after TikTok. You’re on Instagram, it turns out, but you could be anywhere. A thunking scroll produces another video, then another, then another. Wait, which app did you open, again? The video is captioned like a Snapchat post, with a bar of fine white text over a smoky banner: “This monkey loved my magic trick □□.” There’s another caption, too, apparently written by someone else, this one in a TikTok font: “Today I went to the zoo and the GREATEST THING happened …” To the right, you see a vertical row of icons: hearts, a voice bubble, and a paper airplane that suggests you send the video to someone else (who? where?). Why are you watching it? Because the app showed it to you. Who made this video? Nobody you’ve ever seen before. He makes a lighter disappear and the baboon makes a weird expression. A man is tricking a baboon with some sleight of hand. Your brain shuts off, and your thumb takes over. You’re stuck in line at the grocery store, so you check your phone. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer Photos: John Herman
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