TikTok

I had an account for Musical.ly just to secure my "namespace". I think I used it once.

Fast Forward a few years and it becomes the behemoth that is TikTok. My profile didn't get moved over and I have no interest in social networks at the moment. But my wife and son use it.

I know this by the repetition of certain music clips I hear drifting around the house. They send me, via text, links to the latest "gotta see this".

But there's nothing new here for me.

It's candy-coloured UI smacks of a MySpace/Snapchat love-child. The content makes 12second.tv, and later Vine, seem luxuriously long.

Martin Belam seems to have nailed what TikTok is

Anyway while scrolling in horror through TikTok I suddenly had the blinding flash of recognition of what it would have been like for me in 1988. It would almost certainly have been full of slightly older cute goth girls in their best going out outfits doing make-up tutorials, interspersed with the odd spotty spike-haired dude showing you how to play the riff from a Joy Division song, and it would have been absolutely compelling. That’s what TikTok is, I reckon.

But this is my sons 1988, not mine. I'll leave it to him.