TikTok and Critical Mass

A note to the octos in charge. What if the Gen Z crowd begins to act French?

I don’t agree with the tweeter’s reason why TikTok is under threat (third sentence), but the rest of his statements are true, especially the last: “Gen Z is fierce and unstoppable.” I don’t think they’ll go down polite. Full video below.

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I want to start writing some pieces around repair, focused on fixing what’s clearly breaking down. I’ll do this in chunks, however. Starting with this, the idea of “critical mass.”

The Virtues of Critical Mass

First, a taste of what’s needed to fix our world, or at least the American part of it. One of the absolute necessities will be critical mass, a Sixties-style revolt against “things as they are” that’s also large enough to be self-regenerating.

Think of a gas-fired motor. Before electrical starters were added to cars, the motors had to be cranked by hand to get them started, turned by hand until they “caught” and rotated automatically, each turn powering the next.

Some lawn mower motors are like that as well, or used to be. Same with public revolt expressed in demonstrations.

Between 400,000 and 500,000 protesters gathered to oppose the invasion of Iraq in New York City on Feb. 15, 2003. (Mario Tama via Getty Images)

Millions of people turned out in 650 cities to protest the Iraq War on February 15, 2003. It did no good. Not enough people, not enough disruption, no persistence at all. Result: No critical mass.

In contrast, Bernie Sanders and his crowds, in city after city, month after month, reached critical mass in both 2016 and 2020. That size and persistence almost powered him to the nomination twice.

Bernie Sanders speaks in Wisconsin in 2019

It took the combined effort of many elites to keep him from being elected.

Or consider the list of protests against the Vietnam War, hundreds in number. Those disappeared by the time Nixon was on the ropes, not for the War, but for crimes against other elites (like breaking into Democratic headquarters). But the protests did their job, first driving Johnson to retire, then keeping pressure on Nixon till he fell.

Another side of “critical mass” is disruption. Witness what the French — the derided “surrender monkeys” of Bush-era fame — are doing today:

Demonstrators holding flares invade the Euronext Paris building in protest of the pension reforms at the La Defense business district in Paris, Thursday, April 20, 2023. Union activists stage scattered actions to press France's government to scrap the new law raising the retirement age. Photo / AP

This is how people who really don’t want to be messed with show their displeasure. If they keep that disruption going and at that scale, the government will cave. If it doesn’t, it won’t be a government that’s still a republic.

So ingredient number one for successful revolt — critical mass.

Critical Mass Today

Where will critical mass come from today? A lot of places, but social media is one. Enter TikTok, to a great many people’s surprise.

Consider first the video below. If you have time, listen all the way through.

@hunteraleeceeUpdates on whats currently happening in the U.S. #americaisajokerightnow #unitedstatesofamerica #whatshappening #lgbtqtiktok

Tiktok failed to load.

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This video has 2.8 million views as of this writing. And it isn’t a political channel. She mostly “toks” (is that what they do over there?) about her personal life, like discovering that for her, “bi” could mean “gay.” It’s a fun channel, a real Gen Z mashup. But note that her few political “toks” — I’m just making words up here — get 10 times the viewage of most of her others.

Here are a few more from TikTok, courtesy of this Twitter thread. This one has three million views, and it is from a political feed:

@jrehwald15I toured a defense contractor executive’s home #entrepreneur #capitalism #imperialism #neocolonialism #business

Tiktok failed to load.

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So does this one:

@jrehwald15The US propaganda machine explained #capitalism #imperialism #neocolonialism

Tiktok failed to load.

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‘Nuff said?

Critical mass is just one of the pieces needed to spark the Next American Revolt. It's not here yet, but it’s coming.

Acting French

The people with nothing to gain from solving our problems and all their possessions to lose — the octo and nonagenarians in charge of it all (you know who I mean) — have yet to face the full anger of people with nothing to lose if they fight back hard.

The ground’s being laid.

If I were an octo in charge, I’d be concerned. What if they start to act French, these Gen Z types, while you’re still on the earth?