Comment by I_DRINK_KOOLAID | Hacker News Reader

Comment by I_DRINK_KOOLAID | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I_DRINK_KOOLAID

> even as things like TikTok are percolating up into media consciousness

The problem with TikTok is that it's essentially just for actors, musicians and dancers.

On Youtube people can Vlog, it's impossible to vlog on TikTok.

I think among the many social media Facebook and Instagram manage to capture the most people.

- Facebook/Instagram everybody can take a pic or draw some art, or a video or even engage in written discussion, plus they get some officially & professionally produced content from TV (not as much as YT but they do)

- Youtube misses out on people who can take cool pics and write insightful thoughts but captures those who can take cool videos or can vlog, plus they get tons of official professionally produced content from TV

- TikTok misses out on everybody except amateurs who can act, sing or dance

- Twitter is a stadium for culture wars and breaking news

- Reddit is where you can take your time to articulate thoughts/research and link up with people who have the same interests. The news arrive just as fast as twitter without the 140 ch. limits, and it's not properly a stadium for culture wars...more like a small UFC arena

Never thought I’d be stanning for TikTok, but it’s really not just dancing and thirst traps.

There are so many excellent creators on it. Nature focused. Rare book dealers showing their wares. Medievalists. And trades, showing you how things work (herding sheep, thatching roofs, general home repairs). Not to mention all the artists (drawing, painting, sculpting, pottery, stained glass, sewing, etc).

It really excels in the area of photoshop/illustrator tutorials as well. None of the YouTube bloat, just a quick 1 minute video that shows you exactly how to do one cool thing.

Yes the cool stuff is buried under dancing teenagers spitting memes, but there’s exceptional creative stuff on there and an audience that buys that stuff.

One more: I’ve got a small print shop/publishing business. I’m interested in printing vinyl stickers but searching for “what machines should I be looking for and how should I judge them” has been an awful experience going face first into search engines.

But on TikTok, there are multiple small shops showing the machines they use, and how they use them on the daily. Talking about the problems they run into.

No doubt they are there, but they are there by chance/habit (I think) not because the platform serves them well.

TikTok has all sorts of time limits and you can't even upload professionally shot content lasting more than x seconds. It's an app which revolves around the smartphone environment. That's very limiting

Instagram allows for much more flexibility.

Current limits are 10 minutes on my account. And I upload from my computer all the time, after editing on Final Cut Pro. I'm not a "professional" by any definition.

Check this guy out for an example of TikTok excellence: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintofplane

> It's an app which revolves around the smartphone environment. That's very limiting

You see a limit, but the millions of users see a really easy way to share videos :-)

> The problem with TikTok is that it's essentially just for actors, musicians and dancers.

> On Youtube people can Vlog, it's impossible to vlog on TikTok.

I've got 40k followers mostly just ranting into the camera about politics and without any desire to do it seriously.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com