#20. The CEO of TikTok and You

I promise I am mining very little data here.

Hi Everyone,

Before we get started, just a little business up top! I was on the most recent episode of The Bugle making about the news with Andy Zaltzman and Tiffany Stevenson, which was a lot of fun as always! Also, since I sent out last week’s newsletter, I have acquired ticket links for tour dates in Tulsa (6/20), Oklahoma City (6/21), Dallas (6/23-6/24), San Diego (7/13), Chandler, AZ (7/21-7/22), and Nashville (8/8)! Plus, there are links for the other dates I’ve previously mentioned with a few still to come! I’d love to see you at a show!!!

Okay here comes the good(?) stuff! Thanks as always for reading!

PEP TALK FOR TIKTOK CEO SHOU ZI CHEW

PHOTO: NATHAN POSNER/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY

Good morning, Shou Zi Chew! Last week you were called in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which seems like enough stuff to spread out across two committees, but I’m just one man, not an entire House, so what do I know) to testify. Many members of Congress want to ban TikTok outright, and President Biden apparently wants to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell the app, raising questions such as: “Can he do that?” and “Does he think he can do that? And if so…why?” Come on, Joe! We can’t even make American companies act in the best interest of the American people. They’re straight up driving trains into lakes and shit. Why would Chinese companies follow your instructions?

So, to you, the CEO of TikTok I say…you’re going to be fine! Mark Zuckerberg has been called before Congress to testify, and he’s still allowed to run a company that has apparently pivoted to selling imaginary real estate in a technicolor hell that makes me nauseous in concept and in practice. Elon Musk has become a darling of conservative politicians for turning Twitter into a wasteland with less security than a Dollar Store in the middle of a liquidation sale. It’s not fair that you’d face more scrutiny just for being from another country. You’re not the problem. You’re just part of the problem.

Is your app being used for nefarious purposes? I don’t know. My guess is almost definitely yes. Is it a waste of your time to be called in front of politicians who will ask you things like “How come your application is called TikTok when it doesn’t even tell me what time it is?” and “Why are all the viral dance challenges so hard to do?” and “Why did Charlie Demillions have her own signature drink at Dunkin’?”? Also yes.

Sure, you are harvesting data from users all across the world, an ethically dubious endeavor. Honestly, though, if a company is going to know everything about me, I’d rather them be as far away as possible. It’s why people tell bartenders their deepest secrets; they’re more impartial than the people closer to us, or at least they seem to be. Recently, you claimed that TikTok has 150 million users in the U.S. That’s way more people than vote in our elections. So it’s likely you have a better chance at becoming our government than being destroyed by it. Good for you! (And probably bad for us, but that’s the case with our homegrown tech overlords as well.)

PEP TALKS FOR READERS

Here are the reader pep talks I didn’t have the chance to get to last week. Perhaps things have already improved and the folks who requested them don’t want to hear from me anymore! (No one has reached out to tell me that is the case.) As usual I’ve condensed some of these for clarity and conciseness.

Could I request a pep talk to read to my son? He’s three and we had a new baby a few months ago and he’s having a bit of a tough time adjusting. He loves his new brother, but is struggling with not getting as much attention as before and having to not be the baby anymore. Thanks!
- requested on behalf of Miles, age 3

Miles! Big guy! You are in a tough spot right now! You didn’t ask to be a big brother, but here you are, sharing your time and space with a baby who doesn’t know how to play trucks and can’t name a single dinosaur. Fortunately, this new baby has you to help him figure out what’s cool and what’s not. He’s going to see you and learn how to be a smart and strong and sensitive big kid. He won’t be exactly like you (that would be boring), but you’re going to be the first person to show him lots of the things that are good to do and be. Sometimes it will feel hard, but sometimes it’s hard to be the only kid too! And you can’t be the baby forever. The cost of diapers alone makes that a bad plan.

Your parents love you so much! If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have had a new baby! They’d have called it quits after one. And soon, when this baby gets a little bigger, you’ll have a new friend to hang out with, or at least someone to distract your parents while you do big kid stuff in peace.

I work at a museum up here in Canada and recently got promoted to a lead position for community engagement. Which is good, though I struggle with doing this kind of trust building work  within communities while, in general, museums are problematic and complicated colonial institutions, and our museum in particular has been a fairly toxic workplace over the last few years. It’s getting better of late, but still. I just need a little pep talk on how to stay true to good work, while surrounded by these circumstances.
- Chris from Victoria BC

I am deeply unqualified to answer this question (as I am with many questions). I do love museums, but I must admit that I am the guy who looks at an exhibit and thinks: “What’s so special about that? I could do that. (Become a skeleton someday.)”

It really sounds like you’re conscious of the ways your position and institution are fraught both internally and in terms of community relations. And being a leader in a situation like this is so tricky because not only are you responsible for doing your best, you’ve got to make the situation as good as possible for other people too! You can’t complain because you’re the person people are complaining to and sometimes about. What the hell, right?

I always find that when circumstances are bleak, it helps to focus on how much you’ve moved things in the right direction rather than how far you currently are from the ultimate goal. But also, that means you’ll still have to take shit for not accomplishing the goals yet. Sometimes, though, when you’re in charge, doing good is more important than feeling good. You’ve got good priorities, and keeping those top of mind will help you do the best you can for your team and your community!!!

I don’t know if I’m dm-ing you (twitter reader,  not poster), but I just moved to a new state after 25 years and am lonely. I need help getting out to meet new people.
- Anonymous

First of all, great job successfully sending a DM. You nailed it! You’re batting 1.000, which looks like a small number if you aren’t a baseball fan, but trust me: it’s statistically outrageous.

I don’t mean to make too big a deal out of it, but this is exactly the kind of thing that will serve you well in your new home. You’re bold and willing to reach out to new people even across a technological chasm. That’s how friendships are built!

Here’s something that’s easy to forget when you’re the new person somewhere: Most people are happy to make new friends if they’re cool. Friendship isn’t like on Friends or Seinfeld where you hang out with the same people for a decade, and the primary exceptions are when a movie star experiencing a career doldrum shows up to date one of the core members of the friend group for a few weeks.

I don’t know what you’re into, but I’m sure in your new hometown there’s a weekly Scrabble game or book club or pickup basketball game or fight club you can join. It may be weird at first, and you may not connect right away. But remember, a lot of people are duds, and so there’s a good chance that’s their fault not yours!

Also, call your old friends on the phone! That counts too! Schedule some kind of Zoom activity with them like we were all doing in 2020 and then stopped when we were allowed to go outside again. It sounds like you’re lonelier now than you were before, which hurts, but that means you have the skills to not be lonely in the future, and you just have to activate them in a way you haven’t in a while!!! Your DM proves it!!!

i recently had a falling out with my best friend of 25 years. we always said we would be friends for life. i'm scared we won't be able to resolve this and resume our friendship. i wake up at 4am worrying and ruminating about this problem. can you give me a pep talk about maybe how friendships evolve and that everything will be alright? xx
- Loadie

Thank you for this honest and vulnerable message. And also, thank you for giving yourself a pep talk at the end of it. Friendships do evolve! It’s something I have to remind myself all the time, because I’m prone to kicking my own ass over not being exactly as good friends with everyone in my life as we were at our closest point. That’s just not possible! It’s an untenable number of slumber parties for an adult to maintain!!

I can’t promise that everything will be alright. Some things probably won’t. But that, in itself, is alright. Maybe you and your old friend will make up completely, and that will be wonderful! Or maybe you’ll find a new, healthy way to always be friends that’s different than you pictured, and that will be hard but rewarding! Or maybe you won’t talk much, which will be really rough but ultimately for the best.

Twenty-five years is so much friendship!!! You two have benefitted so much from each other’s support and companionship in that time. But sometimes a promise you made 2.5 decades ago doesn’t look the same anymore. Sometimes people vow to love each other until DEATH, and then they smush their DNA together to make NEW PEOPLE, and then they decide you know what maybe we don’t like each other that much after all. And if they can survive that, you will get through this.

There’s a real chance that you can make things okay, but if you can’t, that’s okay too.

PICK-ME-UP SONG: Flo Rida feat. T-Pain - “Low”

At my niece’s bat mitzvah last weekend (congratulations, Sydney!!!!) I was pleasantly surprised massively relieved by how many songs on the DJ’s playlist I recognized. Some of that recognition is due to my clinging to the fringes of popular culture with a rigid grip in fear of my own obsolescence. But some of it, sweetly, was that the kids of today have a fondness for the hits of my youth. There was something very sweet about hearing a room full of tweens and young teens shouting out the chorus (in fairness to them, it’s the only part of the song I know too) to this late aughts anthem about dropping your ass down to your Ugg boots.

And, crucially, as they screamed the uncensored lyrics to Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s “I’m Good,” I managed to resist oldly telling them “YOU KNOW THEY TOOK THIS TUNE FROM A DIFFERENT SONG, AND IT WAS ABOUT BEING SAD!!!” Victories all around!

UPCOMING TOUR DATES

I’m gearing up for the second leg of my 1900s Kid Tour, and the first few dates are listed here! The rest of them are of course on my website as mentioned above!

3/27 - Josh Kantor’s 7th Inning Stretch at City Winery in Boston (short set on a fun show)

4/12 - Alexandra Petri Book Launch at Symphony Space (NYC)

4/20 - Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Live Taping in Chicago (I am a panelist this time, not the host)

4/21-4/22 - Dead Crow Comedy in Wilmington, NC (Four Shows)

5/10 - Spokane Comedy Club

5/11-5/12 - Upper-Left Comedy Festival in Seattle

5/19-5/20 - Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia (Three Shows)