A forest area. A roaring fire. Some gently falling snow. This is my happy place. Except it’s not out my window; it’s on TikTok.
For months, I “taught” TikTok to provide me with this content: people, mostly boys, building shelters by hand in the wilderness. Most of these are ultra-fast time-lapse shots that start with a hole in the ground, an ax and a pile of wood. Once, me watched a guy Build a hobbit hole that looked like the entrance to one dune Sandworm. I landed Cabin in the forest TikTok, by the way Outdoor cast iron cooking TikTok, and I never want to leave. Of course, I might have to do that.
Nobody really knows what will happen to TikTok in the next few weeks. US President Joe Biden signed it in April an invoice into law, directing the app’s owner, ByteDance, to divest and sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a non-Chinese company by Jan. 19 or be blocked. TikTok has filed a lawsuit and – as of this writing – the Supreme Court plans to do so Listen to the case on Jan. 10 and potentially make a decision on whether or not the law applies violates the right to freedom of expression before the deadline expires.
So until then, I’ll be watching as many cabin building TikToks as I can.
Let’s face it, I would do this anyway. Distancing on social media is practically a holiday tradition, and with 11 days left in 2024, watching TikToks — or scrolling Bluesky or scrolling through Instagram if that’s more your thing — is pretty much the best option to reboot the brain. But TikTok rules for it. Sub-subgenres on the platform, like pet care TikTok or furniture remodeling TikTok, remain one of the most effective forms of mental calming available.
Even if TikTok catches on, there’s no guarantee my FYP will continue to provide foresty survival content. While it’s still largely a platform for pop culture junk food and lip sync videos, more and more Americans are turning to TikTok as a new source. Since 2020, the proportion of adults who regularly get news from the platform has increased from 3 percent to 17 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. “None of the social media platforms we examined experienced faster message growth,” the study authors wrote.
