As someone interests in recommendation systems I really need to spend some time with Tiktok fans and understand this. I spent about three weeks with the app and did not find almost any engaging content. The first week was just quickly scrolling past what looked like highschool girls dancing, then eventually I found some political content I was interested in watching to get a sense of the zeitgeist and tried engaging with that but it was buried again by reaction videos and more dances.
I’ve seen TikTok content I am interested in show up recycled as YouTube shorts so I know it exists, but I was never able to find it on the platform. Universally I hear this recommendation engine is the best in the business. Is there some social signal they aren’t getting from my setup, is a few weeks just too short of a time to build up what they need, or am I just a weirdo?
> Is there some social signal they aren’t getting from my setup
Honestly from the description you wrote it just does not seem like TikTok is the right platform for you.
What I like about it is the light-heartedness of it, I don't see political content at all and I wouldn't really be interested if I got any as it's a pretty terrible platform for news and hot takes. Instead, I get cooking/funny/cute/surreal meme videos that match the Gen Z humor. It distracts me from gloomy Twitter/Facebook feeds.
It's not an app for serious content, it's a dopamine treadmill.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I like surreal gen z humor videos I’ve seen recycled as YouTube shorts. I just can’t get the TikTok algorithm to match me with them? It basically just shows an endless stream of young women lip syncing (not that there is anything wrong with that in the abstract, just definitely not personalized to me)
Hmmm interesting, make sure to like more than once when some content is interesting to you. Additionally, follow and bookmark stuff that you enjoyed (that seems to play some role in the recommendation).
TikTok also seems to do on-the-fly recommendation to match your mood, so for example if I take my girlfriend's account to browse it, I will usually have to spend 5 minutes skipping dance/hair tutorials before getting to the content I like. It seems similar to Spotify's random mode, where it is random but only to some extent within a genre and will "find" the genre that matches your current mood.
The engine can only do so much. Obviously dances and reactions are going to be more voluminous, and the # of unique political content is going to be less.
Also, unlike YouTube where once it decides it learns what you like, it will recommend ONLY content it thinks you will like, the TikTok Recommendation engine tries to be more egalitarian:
* It will highlight random new creators with very few likes or comments or engagement - arbitrarily. A lot of these will be misses, but you're helping train it and get in on the virality early on. The key with those is either to have an open mind and try them or a closed mind and scroll away immediately from anything that has a single digit like/comment count, but not be surprised or disappointed by it.
* It will highlight random viral content even ones that you expressly do not have signals for liking just so you can stay on top of trends and popular memes. In that sense, TikTOk is the absolute best way to stay connected to latest musical and internet trends of the youths, because it's not hidden to their circles but exposed to everyone.
To me, these are both features. Even though I am an aging techie, who primarily likes more engaging content (politics, philosophy, film analysis). I get those TOO and when I want ONLY that content, I switch to my "Following" page to see only the stuff I explicitly signed up for. But I toggle back and forth because I like seeing what "the kids" are into. It doesn't matter if I agree. I think it's helpful to be aware of generational trends. The kids will grow up and will shape the culture. Since I exist in society, I want to know what that's going to look like, even if I plan to stick to my 90's rock musical taste into my own 90's.
(Plus you get to discover that The Kids Are Alright, and are themselves influenced by my own musical genre preferences even today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGUy2UmRxJ0)
> It will highlight random viral content even ones that you expressly do not have signals for liking just so you can stay on top of trends
I am not so sure it really accomplishes this. There are trend bubbles that I’ve never seen organically via the app, but have seen via friends or link aggregators.
I’ve seen TikTok content I am interested in show up recycled as YouTube shorts so I know it exists, but I was never able to find it on the platform. Universally I hear this recommendation engine is the best in the business. Is there some social signal they aren’t getting from my setup, is a few weeks just too short of a time to build up what they need, or am I just a weirdo?