I never imagined myself as an on-camera person. Then again, I hated the sound of my own voice until I had a podcast, but that’s a story for another day.
Now, as we stare down the impending TikTok ban, I find myself scrambling to write myself into whatever our next weird little corner of the internet might be.
There’s a familiarity to it, returning to my text-based Tumblr roots but not to Tumblr itself. The feed, like so many feeds, is littered with ads now. The clean, endless, dare I say original doom scroll is clunky and clogged. It’s giving Y2K internet and not in a nostalgic way.
So we flee an imperfect ship where we found community and cat videos, launched celebrity of the people, exposed evils, and did silly dances. We do so against our will, many of us losing vital income in the migration. All because our government, much like the modern Tumblr feed and the infamous TikTok algorithm, is broken.
TikTok provided connection for millions in an unprecedented time of isolation and loss. Trapped in our apartments, exhausting our streaming options, making sourdough and playing boardgames with our partners, working from home, learning Zoom, suffocating under work bleeding into every waking moment and peaceful corner of life to then collectively correct course with boundaries and balance; priorities permanently shifted.
A friend would text a video or mention it in a Zoom happy hour or birthday party. Curiosity seeped in, you didn’t post but you lurked. You didn’t comment but you liked. Until one day you saw something, a video from a stranger, someone you don’t know and will never meet, but she said something and you had a response. You had a funny addition to this sprawling conversation. So you sat in your quarantine and you hit record.
One little video.
The algorithm worked fast, delivering you to others like you and vice versa, a Katamari Damancy planet of weirdos all stuck together rolling through cyberspace. We were varying degrees of alone together. And we were sharing information.
We lived in the Bronx when lockdown hit. I worked from home, helping produce a season of television remotely–green screens and Muppets delivered to talent, computers and supplies sent to our homes. Omar became an essential worker, keeping us in groceries from Trader Joe’s while the world was otherwise shut down.
TikTok was the window that let the world sit in solitary and see each other. The beauty of opera and Broadway singers belting from their high rises. The horror of bodies filling box trucks and a mass grave 5 miles from our house. It couldn’t be packaged or spun to us; we saw it ourselves, shared it, talked about it. Like January 6th. Like Gaza.
Omar never got covid, despite being out in the city in all its I Am Legend ghost town glory. I got it enough for both of us. The worst time I had it, the time that left me with long covid and symptoms that have never cleared, I got my first episode for Elmo’s Not-Too-Late Show. Writing it was a fever dream. I was so sick, but so desperate to nail the assignment. Each episode had a celebrity, and I had Aidy Bryant. It was exhilarating and heartbreaking, writing for someone you admire then not being able to be on set for the shoot because the world is on fire.
I shared it all with Tiktok, my Gen X community expanding into Muppet territory as people realized I was serious when I said I’m a Muppet writer. They celebrated with me and the disappointment of a covid restricted set faded. The same community was there when I got my Emmy nomination, picked out dresses, flew to LA (first class on HBO!), walked the red carpet in my Docs. And they were there when we didn’t win and it kinda felt like I won just the same.
I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know if I’ll get that next script assignment. I don’t know if I’ll land a deal for the books I’m writing. I don’t know if I’ll reinvent myself in the podcast space one more time. But I do know that wherever I go, I’m taking my TikTok community with me.
Jen Capra 