Is the TikTok algorithm sending you messages from the universe? (II)

“If you came across this video, it was meant for you”

In the part of TikTok reserved for New Age followers, this idea that the algorithm is a spiritual force that delivers messages to users at the right times has become a kind of evidence. Many influencers start their video by stating: “If you came across this video, it was meant for you. Stop scrolling and listen to what I have to say.” For followers of the laws of attraction, this ideology according to which the universe bends to our thoughts, then there is a certain logic: the TikTok algorithm reflecting our personality could respond to our desires or our questions. More prosaically, the application would have a whole bunch of tools to aim correctly and give you the right information at the right time.

The algorithm that loved me...

The thing is known: all beginner users start with the same experience on TikTok. The first videos that appear come from accounts with a lot of subscribers and always presenting similar content. You have to watch videos of young women waddling or pranks filmed in time-lapse for TikTok to start offering more specific content. It is in particular the watch time (the fact of watching the video to the end) and our engagement (the fact of liking, sharing or commenting on the video) which will give clues to the algorithm. It will be able to determine what makes us stay or leave a video. If you are a long-time user, it is easy to spot the moments when the platform offers you a new type of content that you might like.

The rest also comes down to suggestions and interpretation. As in the divinatory arts, everyone can interpret chance and other coincidences as messages from the universe.

...the app that sucks up my data

It remains to be agreed that TikTok is an application literally listening to you. Since 2020, we have known that the platform can activate the microphone of smartphones even when you are not scrolling videos. iPhone users are protected, but those on Android are therefore likely to be recorded without their knowledge. And that's not all. TikTok also uses so-called third-party trackers that tell the company about your online activity outside of its app. 

According to a report from the URL Genius site, 13 trackers out of the 14 on TikTok record your Google searches, your location, etc. When we understand to what extent each user is spied on by the application, then the magic tends to disappear slightly.

Is the TikTok algorithm sending you messages from the universe? (I)

More and more users believe that the TikTok algorithm possesses a form of divinatory magic comparable to the tarot deck.

“It’s a crazy story,” says François*, 33 years old. While someone close to me underwent an operation requiring them to wear a very specific medical device for a while, my TikTok feed offered me videos of influencers who were going through the same thing and who were giving popular speeches on this ultra-specific subject. However, I have never done any research on this on the platform and I had never seen any videos on this subject before the operation. I came to wonder if the algorithm was sending me messages. »

“Doctor TikTok sees into the future and brings back your loved one”

Halfway between wonder and paranoia, it is very possible that you have already read or heard this type of testimony. In the same way that we constantly have the impression that Instagram is listening to us, TikTok leaves all its users with a strange impression; that the platform knows us better than ourselves and that its algorithm sends us content which resonates very strongly with our private lives, to the point that it would play a role of divination.

In the media, many articles echo these funny coincidences, similar to Jungian synchronicities. In June 2021, GQ journalist Louis Hanson already found it strange the fact that the platform suggested videos to him on microbehaviors that he thought he was the only one to have, such as, for example, pretending to be surprised when a waiter brings him a dish at a restaurant.

(to be continued)