To my eternal discredit I spent upwards of two hours early this morning trolling TikTok. As the saying goes, “It’s a hard act to follow; but so are most dog acts!” Literally!

TikTok, known in China as Douyin, is a video-focused social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts a variety of short-form user videos, from genres like pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and entertainment with durations from 15 seconds to three minutes. TikTok is an international version of Douyin, which was originally released in the Chinese market in September 2016.

As of October 2020, TikTok surpassed over 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide.

Its addictive diversion arises from its premeditated superlatives fuelled by youthful vanity, pretty boys and wanna-bees, prurient sexuality, acknowledged physical strengths and skills, abbreviated cooking and contractual narratives, abridged legal and medical advice, foolish encounters or productions and retail advertisements.  It is in my estimation a collection of Kansas City faggots and inadequate jokes and repetitive videos.  Reportedly its widest audience (41%) is youth from India.

If I were to say anything good about it, it is that it promotes exercise and travel. Otherwise it is a complete and embarrassing waste of time – like eating a full bag of potato chips while watching afternoon television. And as improving. I am certain the many available porn sites on the internet fulfill the same and more acute objective though admittedly without the sense of cheap curiosity. If parents have somehow blocked their children from trolling porn sites, TikTok is but a suggestive invitation to the real stuff. Meanwhile youngsters are afforded lethal ingredients of modern day Howdy Doody and Clarabell at exponential and excessive levels.

Upon withdrawing myself, bitten and diminished from this so-called social media, I sought to revive my energy and inner imperative with an improving bicycle ride about the neighbourhood. It worked. The fresh air today was the proverbial clarity after the storm.  The sky was an azure dome.  The temperature was below freezing.  There were plates of thin ice on the roadways following yesterday’s mixture of rain and snow. We spun our way down the hilly incline of Church Street and High Street to the trail along the former railway line.  Along the way we passed but few people walking their dogs. We returned home with rosy cheeks and frozen limbs.

it is impossible not to rejoice upon such magnificent weather as we have today!