What side of TikTok are you on? Are you on the side of TikTok that thinks it’s funny to waste food? The one that makes fun of women? Or are you on the side of TikTok that involves 40-year-olds talking about teenage drama?
Last semester in my History and Principles of Journalism class, we talked about what Professor McKeen calls “Polyester Journalism.” Essentially, it’s our modern era of journalism, which includes tabloids, sensationalization and celebrity obsession.
I’ve written about the problems with the media’s obsession with celebrities before. Still, there is no better example of the ugliness of celebrity obsession than that mediated by the rise of TikTok.
I’m not just talking about how big TikTok is and how a lot of people became famous influencers because of the app. Instead, I want to focus on something else that just doesn’t sit right with me.
TikTok opened up many opportunities for young people — especially children under the age of 18 — to create videos and potentially gain fame from them. We have some pretty prominent examples of this with the overnight rise to fame of Charli D’Amelio, Avani Gregg and Chase Hudson.
These influencers — many of whom were minors during the rise of their fame — have had to face a lot of media scrutiny. A good portion of it comes from media personalities and culture news shows trying to capitalize off of these young influencers’ teenage drama, with two prominent examples of this being Perez Hilton and DramaAlert.
Perez Hilton is a celebrity gossip blogger, known for his tabloid news site, who was banned from TikTok. Why exactly was he banned? Part of it was his behavior toward Charli D’Amelio on the app.
He criticized her for dancing to a “sexual” song with “gyrating” dance moves while in a bathing suit, and described Charli’s TikTok as “inappropriate.” He also speculated about her relationship with Chase Hudson. A petition went around to get him banned from the app, and in December 2020, Hilton was kicked off TikTok.
For me, it’s not about whether or not the criticism of a 15-year-old Charli dancing to the song was right. Instead, the problem is that a 40-year-old man took it upon himself to talk about it.
Charli is a child and so are many other social media influencers. You would think there would be laws to protect how the media portrays them. If not laws, then I would imagine 40-year-olds could find better things to write and talk about than the relationship status of adolescents.
Look at DramaAlert, a YouTube and TikTok drama page run by Daniel M. Keem — also known as Keemstar. Although Keem describes his work as news, it really is more gossip than anything else, much like Hilton. And just like Hilton, Keem has made a variety of videos on Charli D’Amelio drama.
These middle-aged men use children’s drama for clicks, and it’s disgusting.
It doesn’t just end with social media celebrities. My impetus for writing this article was actually a video I watched from the E! News show, “Daily Pop.” The show hosts — Justin Sylvester and Morgan Stewart — are both in their thirties. In one episode, they spend excessive time criticizing 20-year-old actress Rachel Zegler for doing a dramatic reading of a Britney Spears Instagram post.
I’ve talked about significant age gaps in celebrity relationships before, but now it’s time we talk about age gaps in coverage. I may not know specifically how to work around this issue, but I do know the obvious — adults should not be exploiting children for their own success.
I love pop culture and the entertainment industry, but none of these gossip shows or blogs seem to add any valuable news or information. Especially not when headlines demean teenagers and capitalize off their personal lives.
So, if there is any way to fix this issue, please let’s get on it.
