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Game changer literally an online mall with niche communities and aesthetics. Not everyoneâs favorite but undeniably addictive.
Jul 9, 2025
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đ€I, someone who grew up adjacent to a big city and have lived in that big city since, always thought of Hot Topic as a joke. What goth teenager is buying their black clothes and accessories at the mall, after all.
I have since heard from people who didnât grow up near big cities that Hot Topic was a place âweirdâ kids could feel more comfortable. It wasnâta community in the sense of people doing anything collectively, but I donât think people need to do anything to feel theyâre part of something bigger than themselves and that they arenât alone.
I think a TikTok community is like an online Hot Topic. If someone is stuck somewhere feeling different from everyone else, seeing a video someone like them made in a bedroom like theirs is going to be meaningful. And once they watch one, For You is going to keep showing them more like it.
Itâs not like a community that might grow around a YouTuber or a streamer because itâs not based on one person. Itâs based on an interest. It doesnât fit a conventional sense of community, of course, but thatâs just semantics. And since a billion people or something use tiktok there could be millions of these loose communities.
Would everyone be happier and more fulfilled by gathering with people IRL? Of course. But that doesnât mean an online community isnât valuable.
I love defending TikTok!
I have since heard from people who didnât grow up near big cities that Hot Topic was a place âweirdâ kids could feel more comfortable. It wasnâta community in the sense of people doing anything collectively, but I donât think people need to do anything to feel theyâre part of something bigger than themselves and that they arenât alone.
I think a TikTok community is like an online Hot Topic. If someone is stuck somewhere feeling different from everyone else, seeing a video someone like them made in a bedroom like theirs is going to be meaningful. And once they watch one, For You is going to keep showing them more like it.
Itâs not like a community that might grow around a YouTuber or a streamer because itâs not based on one person. Itâs based on an interest. It doesnât fit a conventional sense of community, of course, but thatâs just semantics. And since a billion people or something use tiktok there could be millions of these loose communities.
Would everyone be happier and more fulfilled by gathering with people IRL? Of course. But that doesnât mean an online community isnât valuable.
I love defending TikTok!
Rec
đ±The Tik Tok trend and the way weâve normalized scrolling the app for hours is alarming. Tik Tok videos aim to deliver little doses of dopamine or a type of virtual reality. Itâs evil and distracting. The âhighâ one feels from scrolling the app is a lie, just like doing a bit of crack or heroin. Tik Tok is more harmful to our society and our minds than Instagram, because Tik Tok distances you from reality even more. But of course, there are some people who create great art on Tik Tok and I feel proud of those people.
Sep 29, 2022
