It is the full commoditization of the content creator where they are no longer even a fake person but a 10 second gag in the app’s algorithmic control mechanism over its users.
So what if someone has 50 million followers on tiktok, they are one burst every day who can be fazed out rapidly as needed since the audience doesn’t have time to form a long form bond. The content is just as boring and forgettable as the rest of the content creators who have 10 followers.
This helps reduces rivals from poaching large content creators and solidifies control in the algorithm maintainer.
Mostly true for creators who follow a trend (be it a joke format, a sound, a dance, etc). You create parasocial bonds with trends and sounds and dances rather than individual people.
There are exceptions for creators who offer a unique experience, whose value comes from an articulation of an idea or experience or set of ideas or experiences. People who post clips of a longer video in various parts, or offer short book reviews, or cover current events or history etc.
This same pattern is also visible on YouTube though there is a larger section of the Recommended feed there that is covered by creators you are subscribed to than on TikTok.TikTok is much more focused on encountering newer people, and especially newer people covering the same trend, but there is still a segment of creators who get repeated on your For You page, that you follow, whose videos you binge etc.
The algorithm controls subscribed recommendations and promotes certain format types. Just because some types of content are more resistant to the algorithm meddling doesn’t mean it is free of it.
There's still content that's actually useful that gets through despite the algorithm of engagement. I think you have to treat the algorithm as a medium like film or oil on canvas more than anything. For example there's a really popular dude on douyin who gives really technical and phonetical advice to help native Chinese speakers of English tighten up some of their pronunciation in English and he has several million followers and none of his videos are useless clickbait.
The algorithm isn’t some neutral entity like film though. It is the mechanism that capital creates in an effort to manifest itself in this world and reiterate its power over new institutions. It’s not a comment about useful or useless content being produced but about how the technology sector is attempting very openly to reduce their dependence on individuals.
At the core, The Algorithm is a cybernetic control system with wild, individual attention(s) as input and profitable audiences as output. It seamlessly dividuates, cultivates and novelizes - audiences, creators as well as the very content itself.
It's arguably some of the most powerful social engineering technology today, able to shape public opinion without doing it overtly or even coercively, as the users interact on their own volition and actually get positive feedback out of it (enjoyable novel content and profitable audiences, for viewers and creators respectively)