Atomization, or the reduction of collective society to individual actors (or atoms), is a significant byproduct of capitalist society. But this… this is new.
I am going to preface this with the statement: I am fucking old. My back hurts in the morning and during the rest of the day too. I have to watch my sugar. shit sucks. That said, I literally just learned that TikTok is the apex tool of capitalist atomization.
For starters, I’ll also share that I am currently researching TikTok as a semiotic mode (see Jewitt 2016 for more) distinct from many other forms of digital communication. What I didn’t know, as an avid averter of the app, is that each user’s “For You” Page (fyp) is completely unique to that user. Determining what they see is an opaque “algorithm” that adjusts based on your interactions. While this is similar to the older person’s version of the app, In…
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