A eulogy for TikTok

Saying goodbye (we think) to the place that brought me to where I am

So today is January 18, 2025, the day before TikTok is banned in the US.

Nobody is totally sure what is going to happen tomorrow. At first we thought we would still be able to use the app, but that it just wouldn’t be available in the app store and we wouldn’t be able to get updates. But recently TikTok has implied that they are shutting the app down and we won’t even be able to open it tomorrow. I spent the morning downloading my last three years of work on that app, almost 300 videos. I only downloaded the full length music stories. I left behind dozens of stitches and duets and replies to comments and videos with trending sounds. All of the things that made TikTok such a great community but that wouldn’t translate to other platforms. And I gotta say, I am sadder about it than I thought I would be.

In a lot of ways TikTok was already not the same as the app I started using for fun back in 2019. It was plagued with ads lately, every other video was for somebody hawking something in the TikTok shop. Lots of my favorite creators had gotten disillusioned and moved on already. But there still wasn’t anything like it. Just the memes this week alone have been gold– people saying goodbye to their Chinese spies, people putting together compilations of their favorite TikTok moments over the years. I’ve been laughing and on the verge of tears all week.

If you were never on TikTok I want to try to explain what was so special about it. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. That it’s for kids, that it’s for people with no attention spans, that it’s just a way to waste time. I have learned more on TikTok in the last few years than I’ve ever learned in my life. I’ve watched videos that have changed my perspective and opened my eyes to so many things. From pop culture – I’ll never forget the video essay on why the TV show Golden Girls meant so much to the gay community (the theory being that gay people who didn’t have any representation in media gravitated to a show about people that were also “othered” by society) – to parenting to politics.

The beautiful thing about TikTok was that I actually got to hear from different people and see what other people’s lives were like. I’ve read a lot of true crime books and articles – on TikTok I’ve seen people talk about what it’s like to live through it. People with disabilities, people in different countries, people with totally different backgrounds than me. I went down rabbit holes watching a bunch of videos from a girl just trying to explain what it’s like to live life with a giant mole on your face. People with missing limbs. People living through wars. Things I never even thought there was a different perspective on. My wife and I were both blown away watching videos from people who had been adopted, talking about the trauma of adoption. I’d always just assumed every adoption was a good thing, a noble sacrifice. But on TikTok there were videos of adopted children explaining that there is another side to it. People talking about how their adopted parents spent tons of money to adopt them, when the only reason they were put up for adoption was because their birth parents didn’t have any money. Why not just give the money to the birth parents and let the children stay with their family? I’m not commenting on the validity of that argument, I’m just saying that’s a perspective I never even considered. And there are so many examples of videos like that on TikTok that forced me to challenge my own beliefs and look at the world in a different way.

I mention my wife Ellie in that adoption example because she is the one that sent me those videos. In fact so much of the great content I’ve watched on TikTok has come from her. We still, right up to the bitter end of the app, have been sending each other videos back and forth. At the end of the night after the kids go to bed we will often do a TikTok “harvest,” talking about the videos we’d sent each other. Which ones made us laugh, which ones made us cringe, which ones fascinated us the most. That might be the thing I’m going to miss the most.

Ellie had started on TikTok first. We had just had our first daughter and we didn’t have a lot of time to watch whole movies or full episodes of TV shows. Between diaper changes and feedings and rocking back and forth begging an infant to fall asleep for just an hour or two, a short TikTok video was the perfect thing to entertain us in the few minutes of free time we had. She shared so many videos with me that I had to eventually get the app myself. I was one of those people resistant to it. I thought it was an app for dancing videos or silly disposable memes. But quickly I saw how expertly the algorithm adapted to my interests. I got videos on video games and movies and screenwriting and history and cooking and basketball and of course, music.

The music content was some of my favorite. Not only did I discover tons of awesome bands, but there were people talking about music with the same passion I had for it. There was a ska musician named Jer who did a great video essay about his conspiracy theory that cheesy third wave ska like Reel Big Fish was orchestrated by the government to discredit a genre that had previously been about class consciousness and fighting racism. There was this guy Jacob Givens who made little sketches that perfectly encapsulated what it was like to hear certain songs from the 90s. My wife and I both sent each other his video on Temple of the Dog’s “Hunger Strike” at the same time.

Now never in a million years did I think I would make any videos on TikTok, music content or otherwise. I had made a couple for fun – a video of our 1 year old dancing to the Tiger King parody of Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage. “Carol Baskin. Killed her husband, whacked him.” But they were private. If I knew I was going to make public content one day I probably wouldn’t have named my account PatrickHicks82. But then in April of 2022 Ellie said I needed a new creative challenge.

My wife is a big believer in 30 day challenges. There was a Ted Talk we watched that talked about how if you want to, let’s say, write a novel - challenge yourself to write 10 pages every day for 30 days. And in the end you will have a novel. Maybe not a great novel, but you’ll have done it. Then you can rewrite. The idea being that so many of us have great creative ideas but we never do anything with them. So challenge yourself to actually get it done. Ellie had recently done one herself where she designed and minted her own NFT. She listed it for sale on opensea and everything. Learned all about the world of crypto and blockchains and NFT bros. Nobody bought them but that’s OK, it was about the challenge.

And honestly the lack of success of Ellie’s NFTs wasn’t a shock to us. Both of us had done lots and lots of creative things over the years. Music and podcasts and blogs and improv and sketch comedy and scripts. None had been big successes. They were meaningful and important to us but that was about it. So we had no reason to think that whatever this next creative challenge was going to be would be any different. And I decided the 30 day challenge I would do would be to make a TikTok channel.

My wife naturally asked with some bemusement – what kind of TikTok channel would I make? I thought back to that creator Jacob Givens I liked, he seemed about my age and made videos about music history. Why couldn’t I do something like that? I told her I knew a lot about music history, so maybe I would tell music stories.

And Ellie, the wonderful supportive partner that she is, said OK - from now on you are Patrick Hicks Music Stories.

The first video was not a hit. It was short and roughly edited and I was nervous. And I had the dumb idea to overlay the song I was talking about over the story and the song was louder than my voice. Nobody watched it.

But that’s why the 30 day challenge is a challenge. I had to post every day for 30 days.

The second video, same thing. No views, no likes, no comments.

The third one did marginally better but not by much. This was getting a little embarrassing.

And then TikTok did it’s magic TikTok thing.

The great thing about the platform is that it is so democraticizing. I had no followers, no background in doing this kind of thing, I was just a guy with a regular day job talking into my phone about music. I didn’t have a fancy camera or a microphone or lights. But TikTok showed my videos to people. And enough of those people liked it that TikTok showed it to more people. My fifth video got thousands of views. Ellie was telling everyone we knew – um, 5,000 people watched Patrick tell a story about Bob Dylan. Isn’t that crazy?

My 8^th video got over 100,000 views. I kept posting every day. When my two kids were napping I would sneak into the other room to record. On April 28, just 2 weeks into my 30 day challenge I had my first video that hit 1 million views. At the end of the 30 days I had 10K followers.

I decided I should maybe keep going past the 30 days and see where this thing could go. And where it has gone has been beyond my wildest expectations. People have asked me to appear on their podcasts. I got written about in magazines I’d grown up reading. I got to work with record labels doing sponsored videos. I got to cover a music festival. I got followed by some of my childhood heroes like Pearl Jam and Green Day. Questlove from the Roots has commented and reposted my videos. I went to so many Roots shows in my life, standing in the back of crowded clubs watching them, and now Questlove knows who I am? I still can’t get over that one.

I even got contacted by a TV producer. A guy who worked on my favorite show growing up – Behind the Music. Together we developed a music history show starring me. I even got to pitch it to MTV. It was like a dream come true. Then MTV told me they were passing because they weren’t focusing on music right now. So … bad timing on that one. But other opportunities have come up that I’m still working on now.

The best part of it was the community. I connected with other content creators, some of whom are here on Substack as well, like Gabbie from New Bands for Old Heads and Chris Dalla Riva. I exchange texts and voice notes with Derrick Gee in Australia. I’ve had zoom chats with Alison Hagendorf. I’ve even met and hung out with Jacob Givens, the creator who inspired me to make music content in the first place.

Everyone knows comment sections on YouTube and Instagram are mostly wretched hellholes, full of racists and trolls. But for the most part that wasn’t the case on TikTok. The comments I would get were so positive and uplifiting. And the messages people would send me were amazing. People would tell me that they play my videos for their students. That they fall asleep listening to my voice. That – just like I do with my wife - they share my videos with their friends and family. I have a day job that I do to pay the bills – but the comments and messages on TikTok were what fed my soul. That’s the thing I definitely am going to miss the most.

Making these videos has become such an important and rewarding part of my life. And it would not have happened without TikTok. I am going to keep doing it, even if TikTok goes away. I’ll still be posting regularly here on Substack. But there was something special about that place and I have trouble imagining it will ever be replicated, even as another thing will inevitably rise up to replace it.