I suppose so, but sometimes it gets it too on the money and then you're just being fed everything exactly that you want to see. It makes me feel like a good little sludge piggie. I want to see some curious little oddities and things I might not be interested in that somehow lead me back round to something I am interested in, or finding a new interest or something like that.

Also, I've felt like there's so much recycled 'factoid' pop-knowledge content on there like how the smell of the earth after rain is called petrichor or how there's an unexplained disappearance of the Scythians or whatever. There's a group of people in my circles who sometimes bring a topic up and I can smell it's from trending tiktok content a mile away.

With short form content also comes more seemingly on the go lower effort content, and simplified/streamlined content. I think it can be good as a starting point for people to find new stuff I guess, because you get the short form and then decide if you want the long form.

I got rid of tiktok quite some time ago now, and it's lead to me finding some really cool stuff just by searching random keywords into Google and finding a video on it. Stuff about my local area, or some folklore, or machines, or animals, or anything at all really. Whatever pops into my head. I feel so much more rewarded. Yeah it's still slop sometimes but I've found so much stuff that the tiktok algorithm never even got me close to and I can feel my attention span lengthening again.

Sorry for the text wall, I don't mean it in a put-down way. Just an alternative for those who might feel like I do.

Note: this method could make you feel alienated from everyone around you