TikTok

Internet coelacanths like @documentally remember a different era. We remember internet video communities in the early days of Seesmic and Qik. Seesmic was a video instant messaging platform. We could either post disconnected videos about anything, or we could reply to each other and have converssations. KDFA had “Le Bar est ouvert”, Documentally had the English language equivalent. We had conversations on a daily basis.

Every week, if I remember the frequency correctly we had Seesmix, a summary of the top videos either from that day or that week. The conversation was strong. We had the “London” group, we had the Francofous/French group and more.

Threads, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are social media sites and apps rather than social networks. Their aim is not to promote conversations but rather to encourage likes, re-sharing and the cult of personality. It is for this reason that they have become less ‘sticky’ for normal ‘users’.

In the era of Seesmic around 2007 we had video conversations, and parties, and we met up at LeWeb in Paris and other events. We were a network of friends of friends who kept contact for years afterwards.

Over the years I have subscribed to hundreds of podcasts, YouTube channels, people on Instagram TikTok and more. I then stopped subscribing, and sometimes like, but never when I’m asked to by the content creators. The short reason for not liking and subscribing now is that if I subscribe I usually grow tired with the content and stop watching, so my subscription is an illusion. The reason I don’t “like” plenty of videos is simply that the videos are not worth a like.

In the past if you wanted to be a video editor you also needed to be a camera operator, and to be a camera operator you needed to be a video editor. By knowing both skills you shot good material because you knew how hard bad material was to use. As a result of this videos were worth watching with all of our attention.

In recent years, there has been a move towards multimedia editing, where you don’t expect people to watch the video while sitting in front of a TV. You expect them to be looking at a mobile phone while commuting, or scrolling through a social media feed. Job offers reflect this. You often see jobs that required perfect spelling and grammar, Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects. The need for an editor to be a camera operator is gone. We have gone from videos being made by camera operators and video editors who love their medium, to graphists, who overlay graphics over video. They’re making slideshows, rather than video content.

Last week it was comfortable and warm so it was tempting to go cycling. This week it has gone back to being cold. Yesterday it was cold and windy and today was cold but sunny. I went for my usual walk but rather than listen to a podcast I watched TikTok videos as I walked at full speed. I am so used to the paths that I do not always need to pay attention.

Today I went in to a shop without knowing that the limit was two people at a time. Paradoxically there were not two but five people in the shop because if you’re a parent with a child you’re allowed to be two, so there were four people. I saw no sign on the door because the door was open so I didn’t know. The shop in my village doesn’t have that rule.

Yesterday I went for a walk in the rain. I walked for two hours, took pictures and listened to Echo Der Zeit and this episode of the Thru-Hiking podcast. Gretel Scarlet was the interviewee. She talked about South Bound (SOBO) hiking the PCT.

It’s interesting to see how different her attitude was to most people’s, how being a dancer, and someone who considers nutrition, speaks differently of food and injuries.

Thanks to the rain most people stayed indoors. This was a good opportunity to walk along routes that I have been avoiding for weeks due to the pandemic. In the process, my trousers and shoes got soaked so I was squelching along. Even cars were not that frequent. I crossed two people during my ten-kilometre walk.

This aftrnoon reminded me of the need for outdoor exercise. I was feeling lazy and unmotivated to go outdoors. I thought that the rain would come back during my walk, as it did during my scooter ride, and as it did yesterday. I checked the weather app and I saw that we should have good weather until tomorrow so I took advantage to go for my walk.

This time I was light. I went with my AirPods, my phone, and money just in case. I walked the usual route but this time I think I saw farmers and their child, and plenty of people on bikes. It would be interesting to see how important a role physical exercise played in Switzerland managing to flatten the curve for now. With so much sunshine and exercise you’d expect the Swiss to be primed for coping with such a virus.

By May we may be able to go back to doing sports in groups as long as they are not “contact sports” in Switzerland. For me this means hiking, running cycling and other related sports. For me climbing is a contact sport because we touch the same hand holds as everyone else climbing the routes, we use the same ropes and we share quickdraws and belay devices.

This being said I also have no desire to do sports like climbing at the moment because they require us to stand around and socialise and I haven’t really socialised in at least 38 days. I need to ease back into the world of the extrovert. Hiking is a good way to do that.