With the impending ban looming overhead, I’ve been thinking a lot about TikTok lately.

Brain rot, doomscrolling, a massive waste of time; those are the things that come to mind when I hear the name. It’s the same with just about any other social media app though. They’re all designed to keep you engaged as long as possible so they can collect more data and serve you more ads.

That’s actually one thing I think TikTok got absolutely perfect though. What’s the biggest competitor, YouTube?

YouTube bombards you with more unskippable ads than cable TV unless you pay for Premium. I don’t disagree with a paid model for something I use all the time, but holy shit is the free plan insufferable. And if I’ve learned anything from any other big streaming service, it’s only a matter of time before even the paid tiers get pause screen ads and just slightly less unskippable ads than the free plan anyway.

TikTok, on the other hand, got it so fucking right. You’re swiping through videos like you’re looking for a Tinder date; you’re skipping over most of them until something catches your eye. The ads are mixed in with regular posts, but you can clearly see the big Sponsored label on the bottom of the screen and instantly yeet it into oblivion and move on to the next video.

That’s it. It’s so simple and effective and it doesn’t feel any different than skipping over any other video you don’t want to watch.

It’s the only place where advertising has ever worked on me. Never in my life have I clicked on an ad and bought something until I started using TikTok.

Maybe that’s a bad thing though?

It’s so goddamn insidious and I know it’s tracking what I do outside of the app. But so is Facebook and Google and every other tech monopoly. Hell, even Apple just got called out for recording and selling iPhone conversations to advertisers.

Misinformation, rage baiting and every other foundational pillar of social media aside, the thing that makes TikTok’s method okay to me is the fact that I’m not forced to watch their ads with my eyes pried open like that guy in A Clockwork Orange.