Welcome to our first-ever TikTok roundup.

My TikTok addiction has become a bit of a joke around here. If you’ve listened to recent episodes of our podcast, The Manqué, then this isn’t exactly news.

It all started last summer. I downloaded the app in an attempt to understand what on earth everyone who covers media was hailing as the next up-and-coming social media network actually was. I didn’t know if I’d even keep it on my phone until the end of the day. *Clears throat*: You’ll never guess what happened next.

If you haven’t caught up by now, TikTok is an app that allows you to post short videos and, like everything else, share them with your friends and feed. Originally cast as another “lip syncing app,” it’s evolved to include now not only lip syncing, but also vlogging, TikTok-oriented influencers, and — of course — more memes than you can probably keep track of.

What we’re experiencing now — I maintain — is something akin to Tumblr in its glory days. The app is unequivocally saturated with young people, many of them shitposting in a place where maybe their relatives are less likely to narc on them, and they’re speaking language that anyone over 25 years old is a little slow to catch on to.

So, what’s the appeal to a late twenty-something like me? It’s simple: these people, the TikTokers of the world, — they’re absolutely hilarious and undeniably entertaining. With some simple video recording and an array of editing tools built right into the interface, this little app on my phone has, for the time being, become my preferred way of killing brain cells on the internet.

Sure, comedy may be in the eyes of the beholder, but I’m telling you: the bulk of the trending content on this app is laugh out loud funny — or aww out loud cute. (Dogs are VERY popular on TikTok, rightfully so.)

In any event, I’ll stop trying to convince you, you unknown reader whom I have assumed has yet to be sucked in to the endless scroll of funnier-than-me content creators. Below you’ll find links to my fav videos saved from the last week.

(I wrote out this entire post planning to embed them, but it turns out WordPress, our CMS, doesn’t support TikTok embeds just yet! Shame, truly — but I’m told that the issue has been reported to their developers. For easier TikTok’n — follow us on Instagram!)

1. These cows having a good day
2. This Gatorade saga
3. This extremely popular trend with a worthy subject
4. Oh no, it’s you
5. Is it the accent or the joke that makes this one so good?
6. You’ll think this starts out bad (it does), but it’s actually…good
7. Unexpected bird truthing
8. An MLM drag
9. Watch it all the way through
10. I think about this audio every day when I put on makeup

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