Entertainment is a facet of society. Since the dawn of human civilization, we’ve been using it to free our minds of the world around us. It, love, and success have been the three main components of our happiness for the entirety of our existence. But, like any other important aspect of society, it evolves. We’ve moved from jesters and plays to books and sporting events to movies and shows to social media and VR. Let’s get something straight: evolution and change of the large facets of society is helpful. But too little or too much of it is not. Since the dawn of social media, entertainment’s evolution rate has rapidly increased speed, and the consequences of this are large. The rapid generational demise of popular media length is destroying our attention spans, capacity for in-depth artwork, and our entertainment industry, and it must be slowed down before most entertainment becomes meaningless.
Above all else, the most important effect of this problem is what it can do to the human brain. And it doesn’t take a neurologist to see it. In this day and age, humans follow what is popular. It’s not our fault- we fear being left out of discussions with our peers, classmates, friends, coworkers, or family, so we try to stay in the know on what’s popular. But since popular media length has shortened so rapidly in just the last few years, we're subconsciously training our brains to take in less information that has less substance to it each day. I’ve watched kids at my high school lose focus more and more over each year, which is largely due to time spent on social media, and getting themselves used to tiny bits of information at a time. A recent study published by medical journal JAMA states that “The more that teens check social media and stream video, the more likely they might develop symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD”, which can shorten attention spans in humans under 18. This trap of social media decreasing our ability to pay attention and our brains wanting to keep up with popular media has created one final boss: Tiktok. That app has dumbed down information and entertainment as much as is humanly possible with the shortening of content, and it has to stop. We can’t keep letting ourselves get sucked into virtual holes filled with thousands of tiny pieces of insignificant information before we permanently train our brains to only accept that type of sensory input. It’s detrimental to our personal lives and society as a whole.
Now, I’m not saying that social media is entirely a bad thing- it definitely has some good aspects. I mean, way less people would see my writing without it. But social media’s capacity to be meaningless is much higher than other forms of entertainment, and that’s a big reason why it’s bad for the industry. In 2013, rapper/actor/writer/comedian/singer/genius Donald Glover(stage name Childish Gambino) coined the term “Roscoe’s Wetsuit” for his album and accompanying screenplay, Because The Internet. In the screenplay, a man in his 20s struggles to find the meaning of this term as him and his friends venture throughout Southern California. The man sees and hears this everywhere throughout the screenplay- spray painted on walls, written in the sand on beaches, tweeted and posted, and he even has an angry outburst towards a teenager in an Oakland diner when he hears it said aloud. He later goes on to find out that the term he’s been hearing and seeing all over social media for the entirety of the story is truly meaningless, and that’s the point of it. This was a dominant theme in both the album and the screenplay that painted a picture of society at the time and its susceptibility to popularizing meaningless things through social media. Coming from one of the world’s most prominent entertainers who has experience in multiple fields of media and entertainment, this was an assessment and a warning from Glover. A constant existentialist, he was showing us that if we give too much attention to societal trends popularized by an army of anonymity, we’ll lose sight of the things that really mean something. Fast forward 7 and ¼ years later, and he was 100% right. Social media has not only gone from larger and longer sizes of media such as YouTube and Facebook to tiny, bite sized videos on tiktok, but it’s also become even more meaningless. Think about it: 90% of TikTok and it’s top “creators” are all different versions of Roscoe’s wetsuit- they contribute nothing to society intellectually, comedically, or entertainment wise, but they’re still extremely famous because they’ve been promoted by an audience of people who can’t find meaning in entertainment. Creators with actual skills such as artists, filmmakers, and more are having trouble catching traction with this generation, and even the ones with those skills and more on the same app don’t even hold a candle to the untalented ones who can nod their head to a terrible remix of a song for 10 seconds. All of you probably know who Addison Rae is purely because of her dancing skills, but when was the last time you heard of someone like Kota the Friend, a rapper who’s lyrics explore important topics of self-love and independence from societal norms? And even though both look for publicity, there is a huge difference between the way they do it. In entertainment, media creates demand, but it's vice versa with social media. Influencers have to post daily to keep their audience engaged, which just goes to show once again how much less value social media has than actual entertainment. To be fair, society has been popularizing the wrong things forever; but never to this scale. The combination of maximum accessibility and increasingly susceptible audiences primed by years of even creating platforms has made clapping for the wrong reasons easier than ever. The real issue begins when that clapping turns to a full applause, and slowly but surely becomes a roar that deafens the ears of society to meaningful artwork.
While it’s tough to look past the effect on our brains and the entertainment industry, I can see a pretty easy counterpoint here. Some may ask “what’s wrong with watching harmless dance videos to take my mind off of things?” And to be honest, nothing. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to take a mental break, but there’s better and healthier ways to do it. If you’ve ever taken a high school math class you’ve garuanteeably heard the words “Your brain is a muscle, you have to use it or you lose it.” This is true, and there’s ways to still stimulate yourself while relaxing or taking a mental break. Even aside from doing anything outwardly creative, you could read, watch a movie or show, or play chess. All three of those things can take your mind off of daily stressors while also forcing you to pay attention to something for a long period or time or think critically. Other than that, social media companies try to make it nearly impossible for you to take a “short mental break” on one of their apps. Have you ever found yourself scrolling TikTok or Instagram for way longer than you intended? It’s a facet of business and advertising, they’re built to draw you in for as long as they can. If you’re looking to get away from stressors, getting sucked into TikTok is not the way to do it. That platform amplifies social media’s unrealistic beauty standards, life comparisons, superficiality, and promotion of FOMO. Especially for young kids who don’t know any better, it’s creating those stressors by enforcing a culture of unrealistic standards that some are too young to look past. Physical activity or meditation are better and healthier ways to remove yourself.
Even if you completely ignore its effects on the entertainment industry, tiktok is still feeding on the brain potential of society. One of its worst features is its ability to spread misinformation on all fronts. Before social media, idiots weren’t as able to connect their horribly incorrect theories with other idiots as they are now. Several platforms have enabled group polarization, causing social media to become plagued with imbecilic people trying to spread their virus(ideas) to those who are susceptible. Since TikTok has become hugely popular among people who share tiny bits of information to make a point on a much larger topic, it’s the app where the largest number of susceptible people are finding bad influence. From the non-censorship of neo-nazis to a congregation of anti-vaxxers, tiktok has become the internet’s stage for idiots. And this is a much larger problem than most realize, because it’s also become a stage for young people just trying to have fun and dance a little bit, just to run into horribly incorrect information sharing. But we can’t blame just the loonies- it’s a problem for those with more mainstream ideas too. In the past year, I’ve watched tiktok cultivate a large group of young minds in my community to think wildly outrageous things about the government, economy, and foreign relations. From the people who think masks don’t work to those who think that if we tag Jeff Bezos in a video we can end world hunger, this app is not only closing our minds to our own preconceived beliefs through polarization, but it’s also decreasing the value of our information. Most high schoolers I know get their news from social media, and while it is a great place to check for constant updates, it is not a sufficient news source. I barely know anyone at my school who reads print journalism or watches a daily news program. Most of what these “politically educated” kids do is find something that makes sense to them in a 30 second video on tiktok, and based on who it was created by, they start reposting change.org or turning point USA posts on their Instagram stories based on just the few sentences that they read from an unverified news source. I mean seriously, I saw kids listening to 17 year old high school dropouts on tiktok instead of ivy league educated journalists at CNN during the black lives matter movement. That kind of stuff drives me CRAZY. I actually had to stay off all social media for a few days because I kept seeing “this is what the media won’t show you” and wanting to scratch my eyes out. We’ve plunged so deep into the world of tiny bits of information that we’ve started to trust random people more than the people who actually distribute information for their job. This is a major problem with our generation, and many don’t realize it. Especially those who think they’re above it, which is usually a naive high school kid who constantly denounces the opposite side for not listening to important guidelines as they repost a random person’s TikTok about some absurd conspiracy. If you’re this person, you’re just as bad as the other side. I urge the young minds of my generation to educate themselves thoroughly before posting things, and not just throw themselves into having an opinion. One thing I like to do is only post political thoughts in my own words, so that I know I can back whatever I post, and force myself to really think the issue through before sharing my opinion on it. But the truly most important argument I could possibly make in this editorial is against the shortened news information on social media being my generation’s main educator on world affairs. If you felt offended or called out by this paragraph, I first just want to thank you for reading all the way through. But I also urge you to take a step back and analyze your information intake. It is crucial that we don’t let our information capacity evolve in the wrong direction, because if it gets out of hand, it will be the death of human intelligence.
At some point while you read this, this question probably arose to your mind “Why are you doing this? What’s your motivation?” a young Donald Glover would ironically answer “I am just a rapper, I don’t need the paper”, but mine is a little bit different. The future of the world is in my generation’s hands, and I don’t want it to be screwed over by us having shorter attention spans, trusting misinformation, and not being educated on what’s important. Aside from all that, I’m somewhat of an entertainment fanatic, and I hate to see the meaning and lessons I’ve found in so many inspiring books, movies, and shows be neglected for things that are too simple. If this editorial made even one person reading it more aware of their information and entertainment intake, I’ve accomplished my goal. I surely don’t have all the answers, and I’ll continue to search for them within in-depth media and information sources my whole life. But I do feel like I have a grasp on what the media should give us, and it sure as hell shouldn’t give us Roscoe’s Wetsuit.