It’s been said before that TikTok is a gross platform for smutty pop-culture fads and immoral or unintelligent trends. The Cut has detailed the trend du jour: TikTok influencers are teaching viewers how to marry rich through viral “relationship coaching” videos. Katrina, a 31-year-old marketing professional, used to “walk into bars looking for love.” Thanks to TikTok, she now looks only for Rolexes. Katrina has spent so much time hanging out at “swanky bars” instead of her former stomping grounds, the Cheesecake Factory, that men are lining up to CashApp her hundreds of dollars — all for her company!
“You don’t have to say anything, you don’t have to help him apply for jobs. Just show up, look beautiful, and his worth shoots up,” she said.
I reviewed Jon Haidt’s Anxious Generation for the Washington Free Beacon this weekend — and have recommended the book to everyone with a device, and anyone whose child might one day be exposed to social media. A preview:
Coddle-culture stunted children’s growth, forced them to become fragile, and stopped them from becoming resilient. The shift away from freedom-driven parenting styles of past generations, and toward a helicopter-parent style, somewhat explained the rise in anxiety and depression.
Such “defense-mode” parenting, Haidt now suggests, coincided with the advent of technology to create the perfect storm. Parents in the 1980s raised their children in a cautious manner due to rising crime rates and stories about deranged serial killers. And while more protective parenting methods might’ve been justified at the time, Haidt explains, their effects were disastrous. In protecting children from the supposed physical dangers of the outside world, parents also deprived children of real-world experiences. Kids no longer had freedom to grow up around other kids, wander neighborhoods, or fall without a parent to pick them up.
Lucky for parents who now needed something to do with their children, and children who needed something to do during childhood, a virtual playground replaced almost every hallmark of a “normal” childhood.
Haidt argues that social media and devices weren’t simply time-suckers that inconvenienced otherwise “normal” childhoods. Devices changed the way children learned how to emote, form and continue relationships, and resolve conflicts. Devices changed the way kids learn everything — virtual connectivity is great for adults who know how to use it correctly, but kids rarely do. And, children today still have the same emotional and physical highs and lows as they always did. Social media now provide wildly effective ways to magnify and publicize each defeat, each victory, each heartbreak.
I think back to high school. We all had more or less social-media Batman signals. Meaning, I guess, that when Jessica bugged us at lunch, or when Jake flirted with Maddy in second period, we’d respond online — “subtweeting” our enemies with stock quotes posted to Instagram stories, or with a photo of “the girls” at the gym, so as not to alert Jake to the fact that we were devastated. It’s embarrassing now to admit the shallow way social media encouraged many of us to act (and still does, in some cases). But I often wonder if parents think about the small, maybe insignificant, ways kids use social media. An Instagram story, to you, is the zinger of the century to a high-schooler. A fun vacation post, to you, is a damaging opportunity for vanity to a child.
The Cut‘s relationship coaches say that some of the advice is satirical (coaches are not serious about giving up on love; money would just be nice as well, some say). Can girls tell the difference? Kids see “sugar daddy” glorification and “free” Chanel bags. Girls see idyllic female influencers who don’t have to exercise brain muscles to get oodles of cash — and, even if it’s subconscious, girls are attracted to that lifestyle when it’s promoted so glamorously on social media.
I’m glad social-media trends are reported on, silly as Cut articles may be — for the same reason I’m glad Haidt wrote his latest: Parents should know what foolish garbage social media introduces to their children.