You’re Going to Be TikTok Famous

I do my best to be aware of the world around me. I don’t cross a street with my eyes buried in my phone. I always look behind me when I walk through a door to shop, making sure I don’t let the door close on a person who may be right behind me. I keep an ear open all the time, and I try to stay present in the moment. I’m not always successful. That was the case recently when I walked out of Safeway, looking at my receipt to make sure I got everything on my list, when I heard someone shout, “TikTok famous, you gonna be TikTok famous.” I looked up, trying to see who had deemed me special enough to be famous, my head filling suddenly with images of big cars, beautiful women, and free burritos. I have no idea why I would be getting free burritos, but it’s my fame fantasy, so deal with it.

My dreams were pretty much shattered instantly when I saw the person yelling wasn’t yelling at me, and my chances of being famous, TikTok or otherwise, vanished in a flash. The yeller seemed to be continuing an argument they had had with someone in Safeway, and it had spilled into the parking lot. The person yelling was filming the other person and saying they were going to be all over TikTok. The focus of this incoming fame stood with her hands on her hips, shouting back, “Film me, I don’t care, I don’t care, you can film me all you want. I don’t care.”

A couple of things struck me as I watched the argument build and the original shouter, the one promising fame, drove off in a car full of friends, leaving the object of the promised fame to laugh with her friends, get in their car, and leave. The first thing that struck me was that the person who said “film me all you want; I don’t care” actually seemed to care. I deduced this by how many times she assured the other woman that she didn’t care. Usually, when people don’t care, they don’t mention their lack of caring many times.

The second thing I noticed was that social media, once a place to connect with the world, make friends, share ideas, and connect, was now, apparently, a place used to shame people and extend arguments. A place where all were welcome was now a place where all were humiliated. How did this happen? How did we go from being on TikTok to “you’re going to be TikTok famous and does that really matter?

The Threat of Fame

It felt odd just writing that header. I never knew fame could be a threat. I mean, let’s face it, the entire genre of reality TV was built on the fact that regular people, every day ham and eggers, have a desire to be seen and, yes, become famous. 

There was a time when pretty girls would sit at Schwab’s and sip soda all day, hoping to be discovered and become famous. Fame, for most, has always been aspirational; we all wanted our fifteen minutes, but we want that fifteen minutes to stretch into a lifetime. Now, instead of sitting at a drugstore counter, social media and smartphones have given everyone their own little TV studio where they can do anything.

But the pursuit of fame has changed with the advent of the smartphone. That argument I witnessed in the Safeway parking lot a few years back would have taken place there; the parties involved have gone their separate ways, and that would be that. But now, with a smartphone in hand, the argument takes a different turn. With a phone in hand, a woman yells, ” You’re going to be TikTok famous.” What she means is I have an audience or access to an audience, and I’m going to use that audience against you. The dynamic is completely different now. Where once you’d have an argument, go home, and share it with a spouse or a cat, and that would be it, now, with smartphones and better and better cameras, the argument can last a long time and get all sorts of people involved. The person who posts the argument gets that dopamine hit when the post gets likes or comments, and the person in the video, who knows, if their crime is enough to outrage the internet, they could coud be shamed online or worse; if the netizens are motivated enough, the subject of the video could lose their job. It’s happened.

But here’s the catch: the outraged netizens and the commenters only see what the person who posted the video wants them to see. So they have created their own backup, their own support system through careful editing. But the people commenting, saying “you go girl” and offering support to the poster, don’t know the entire story, so if the argument continues online, someone is not being fair and fighting a little dirty.

The Camera Never Gets the Beginning 

Now, before you leap at me with claims of Ludditism, understand that I have no problem with smartphones and better cameras. I use mine for auditions all the time. I also love strolling the beach in the evening and taking snaps of random seaweed and the occasional seal popping his head up to watch me. But you must admit, the phone camera is making things weird for us.

I witnessed the argument live, as I was walking to my car, and I honestly have no idea what ti was about, who started it, why it started, and who was in the right. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. And that’s the problem. On social media, we’re being fed snippets of people’s lives that have been absolutely stripped of context. So this argument in the Safeway parking lot gets posted, and within seconds, thousands or even millions of strangers become judges, jurors, commentators, psychologists, and, occasionally, executioners. And they do all this without thought and without context.

Much like me, looking up from my receipt and seeing the last bits of this argument, I had no idea what was going on. Social media denizens don’t either. They see only what the person posting wants them to see. They don’t know how, why, or who started it, and so on. These armchair attackers only know what they see, and the internet and social media have taught us to believe what we see and take ti for absolute gospel.

So, not context, but still, people are making snap judgments, leaving witty barbs, and judging the situation without knowledge. Why? Because technology moves fast. We want to keep up with that speed so we gte the clicks, the likes, the comments, the dopamine rush. Move fast. Okay, but understand this: context takes time. You have to look at both sides, understand the underlying story, know the history and such; that all takes time. But judgment, well, that only takes a second.

Everybody Gets a Courtroom 

It’s not like taking pics with the old Polaroid. Point and shoot, pull the film out, shake it, wait for twenty seconds, and there you have a picture of the kid in the pool, a silly seagull on the beach or drunk Uncle Lenny looking down Nancy’s blouse. Simple single shots. Now, everyone with a smartphone is in the game, and the game has changed considerably. Now we have video capabilities.

The person holding the phone and recording video is no longer simply recording; they’re now building a case. The Safeway argument has been recorded and posted before the largest jury pool humanity has ever created. The difference now is that the jury isn’t being shown all sides. There are no rules of evidence, no defense attorney, no context requirements, and most importantly, no obligation to show the parts that make the person filming look bad. None of that goes on in this new courtroom; it’s now just look what this ass munch did to ME.

Now here’s the really interesting thing: the audience participates willingly. Comments, shares, stitches, duets, reaction videos. A private disagreement becomes public entertainment, and every interaction spreads it farther. But the viewers, the jury, never get the full story unless people decide to follow up, and that’s what the person posting hopes for. The jury will find in their favor and destroy someone’s life. This happens from time to time, and I’m not 100% sure it’s a bad thing.

For example, there is a YouTube video of a young woman at Burger King. She is upset and slams an unwrapped burger onto the counter, declaring that there is so much ketchup on it. She also says, “I ordered extra ketchup, but look at this, I can’t eat this.” Now, I have no idea why she didn’t just make a complaint at a normal volume, without dance moves and demands, but she didn’t, and, of course, someone was there with a phone, and we all got to see what was happening. 

The complaint is fine, I suppose; the delivery could have used work, but the best part of the video is when this young woman says: “You’re making fun of me because I’m on a diet.” Now, I didn’t see what happened before the video was started, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t tell the BK workers that she was on a diet. So, she was making claims about them that just weren’t true. I bring this up because there was a follow-up video in which the woman said she didn’t do anything wrong.

The jury didn’t agree. In fact, the jury thought she was so wrong that the video went viral, it was seen by her employer, and she got fired. Judge, jury, and in this case, executioner as well. The audience/jury saw a portion of this woman’s life, saw her acting in a way they deemed irrational, and for that they sentenced her to unemployment. They willingly participated in the trial and judgment.

I don’t need to say anything more here; there is no need to get preachy or launch into a social media-destroying civilization diatribe; it’s just interesting how we’ve adapted to this new wave of jurisprudence so easily.

We Used to Walk Away 

At the Safeway, the two groups who were arguing eventually did what people have done after a stupid argument for thousands of years: they left. They got into their cars and drove away. Maybe they went home, maybe they went off to start another argument and get some more content. Who knows. But they didn’t camp out in Safeway; they left. They walked away. However, the argument didn’t leave with them. And that’s the new twist.

Before smartphones and social media, embarrassment had a natural geographic boundary. You made a complete ass of yourself at Safeway; maybe a handful of people saw it, and by dinnertime it was forgotten, and people had moved on with their lives.

Now, the moment can outlive the argument, the afternoon, the people involved, and perhaps even the explanation. That, if you think about it, is equal parts wonderful and terrifying. We can no longer walk away, eat Mom’s tuna casserole, and focus on better things. Now the argument follows you online, potentially forever.

When Attention Became Power 

Attention has become one of the most valuable currencies in the world. Brands compete desperately for it. Platforms engineer themselves around capturing it. Creators build careers from it. And if you’re not aware, you could end up in someone’s attention-getting plan. Attention, you may think,  isn’t inherently bad, but the situation in the Safeway parking lot reveals another side, and that side is: attention is not inherently good.

Being noticed isn’t necessarily valuable. Going viral isn’t necessarily success. Reach without context can be destructive. Visibility without control can become vulnerability. And, if you think about it,  that has a direct connection to brands. For years, marketing has treated attention as an unquestioned good: more impressions, more views, more engagement, more followers, more reach. More, more, more. It’s the “If one is good, then two is much better” mindset.

But it’s not. Not really. The question driving a lot of this massive jury and judgment is: how many people saw this? How many likes did we get, how many thumbs up, kiss emojis, and comments did we get? Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. The right questions should be: what did they see? Why did they care? And what will they believe afterward? 

That last question may be the most important because attention without understanding isn’t worth much. You can get a million people to look at something, but if they walk away with the wrong idea, what exactly have you accomplished? The person with the phone in the Safeway parking lot wanted attention because she believed attention would prove she was right. Brands can fall into the same trap. We start believing the numbers themselves are proof that something worked. A million views must be better than a thousand. Ten thousand comments must be better than a hundred. Going viral must be better than not going viral. But attention is just amplification. It doesn’t decide whether the thing being amplified is good, bad, useful, ridiculous, meaningful, or damaging.

And maybe that’s where we’ve gotten a little confused. We’ve spent so much time figuring out how to get people to look at us that we haven’t spent enough time thinking about what happens once they do. There’s a person on the other side of every impression, view, click, like, share, and comment, and that person is going to make some kind of judgment. They may remember you. They may misunderstand you. They may trust you. They may decide you’re an ass munch. But the number itself can’t tell you any of that. Attention gets you into the room. What you do once you’re there is what matters.

The Takeaway

There’s something wonderfully strange about the fact that brands spend billions of dollars every year trying to acquire the exact thing that woman in the Safeway parking lot was threatening someone with. Attention. Look at me. Look at this. Look at what happened. Look at what we made. Look at what we sell. Look at what this person did. The technology doesn’t particularly care why people are looking. It just knows that they are.

That’s why attention can’t be the goal. At ThoughtLab, we think the more interesting question begins after you’ve earned someone’s attention. What are you going to do with it? Because getting noticed is relatively easy. People have been setting themselves on fire, yelling in grocery store parking lots, dancing in front of cameras, picking fights, making outrageous claims, and finding increasingly creative ways to get strangers to look at them for as long as there have been strangers to look. Getting someone to understand you, trust you, remember you for the right reasons, and perhaps even care about what you have to say is considerably harder.

Maybe that’s the distinction worth remembering in a world obsessed with reach. Attention is a moment. Meaning has a chance to last. The brands that understand the difference won’t have to scream quite so loudly, chase every trend, or measure their worth by how many strangers happened to look in their direction. They’ll concentrate on making sure that when people do look, there’s something there worth seeing.

Of course, if TikTok fame ever does come my way and the free burritos are part of the deal, I reserve the right to reconsider all of this.