Tag Archives: TikTok

What would happen if all social media was gone in a day?

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The temporary loss of TikTok in the United States a few days ago was a sort of natural experiment and it did make me wonder: what if social media was gone tomorrow?

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Numerous areas of life would be affected. Here are just a few:

  1. People and companies making money. Whether through ads or selling things or streaming, money flows through social media.
  2. How people use their time. What would people do instead? Watch more TV (this was a primary activity before social media existed)? Talk to the people around them? Go outside?
  3. Where people get information, whether about people they know or the news or the standard information people today are supposed to know (ranging from viral videos to celebrity updates to conflict on the other side of the world).
  4. Connections to people. The easy access to people through posts and profiles and social media interactions would be gone. Could the connections happen through other mediums?
  5. A whole set of rituals, norms, and discussions would be lost. They could not be accessed or scrolled through. All that time managing images and interactions goes away.

Even with all these changes (which would take some time to get used to), this question might be most important: would life be better?

Looking at creepy abandoned McMansions on TikTok

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Empty McMansions that were intended to be part of a resort in Missouri have caught the attention of TikTok users:

As @carriejernigan1 explains in her video, the Indian Ridge Resort was meant to be a $1.6 billion development, complete with a wild amount of luxurious amenities. According to Missouri’s KYTV-TV, developers wanted Indian Ridge Resort to feature a shopping mall, a marina, a golf course, a 390-room hotel, a museum and the world’s second-largest indoor water park.

Many of those projects never got off the ground, as @carriejernigan1’s video shows. TikTok users were naturally creeped out by her clip, which shows decaying McMansions amid a sea of overgrown plants. Some called the ghost town “scary” or “nightmare-inducing.”…

This is not the first time I have run across creepy McMansions in Missouri. I recall the presence of McMansions in Gone Girl. Perhaps McMansions make some sense here: it is a conservative state in the middle of the country where people might be more willing to purchase such homes.

At the same time, the connection to a resort near Branson is an interesting twist. This is not just a normal suburban neighborhood of McMansions occupied by crass suburbanites in the Midwest. These homes were part of a larger luxurious project. From the TikTok video, the homes themselves seem to be larger than a typical suburban McMansion. The McMansions themselves are not meant to on their own impress people visiting or driving by; the whole resort community would help do that.

This also offers intriguing possibilities for how these McMansions might be reused. It may not be worth it for another developer to come in and finish off these homes. Could the materials be repurposed? Could the homes be completed but subdivided to create smaller units? Could this be some sort of weird theme park involving these homes (think Halloween where abandoned McMansions become haunted houses)?

Bringing McMansion critique to TikTok

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McMansionHell was a web favorite when it launched. Now criticizing McMansions works on TikTok:

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TikTok user @cyberexboyfriend is every realtor’s worst nightmare.

On his account, which boasts 32,000 followers and counting, he hosts a popular series in which he tears apart random McMansions he finds on Zillow.

It all started on Nov. 3, when @cyberexboyfriend posted a video captioned “roasting homes on Zillow.”…

Easily the funniest and most viral video in the series to date is the one in which @cyberexboyfriend critiques a $675,000 four-bedroom home, also located in Mckinney, Texas.

It is easy to criticize McMansions. They can have cartoonish features, ranging from turrets to garish facades to oversized garages to odd proportions. Much effort is put into their facades with less attention paid to other sides of the home. The interior may have some questionable choices. In an era of hot takes, social media, and concerns about housing and inequality, a quick skewering of a McMansion draws attention.

On the other hand, these real estate listings are for real homes. Numerous American communities, often wealthier suburbs, have McMansions. And at least a few people are willing to buy them.

Does this approach to McMansions help more people avoid purchasing such homes, either because the social stigma is potentially higher or because they are alerted to the problems with McMansions? Or, does it reinforce existing views people have about McMansions?

I have suggested before that if people had to choose between modernist homes and McMansions, they might choose McMansions. Those who criticize McMansions publicly are not likely to live in or near such homes. If you are against McMansions, you might also have concerns about sprawling suburbs and instead prefer denser suburban communities and cool styles like midcentury modern, interesting ranch homes, or older more traditional styles.

This may ultimately come down to taste in single-family homes based on social class, access to resources, and experiences with different kinds of communities. While political polarization in the suburbs is real, polarization by home style could be present alongside it.