Of the many things that bother me in the present moment, at the top of my list is TikTok “poetry” slideshows. I use the term “poetry” lightly because there are never complete poems in these depressing compilations. If you don’t have TikTok, you are fortunate. But if you’re like me and can’t escape from its firm grasp on your short attention span, then you’ve probably had at least one of these corrupt your feed.
As of right now, I am tired of being tormented with flowery language, lines taken wildly out of context and gut-wrenching drawings (all to the tune of “Scott Street” by Phoebe Bridgers or some other equally-melodramatic indie song). For those of you who haven’t encountered these before, rest assured that there are also optimistic “hopecore” poetry slideshows with quotes about things like summer and friends and joyous stuff of the sort. Still, they are far outnumbered by the sheer number of Ocean Vuong quotes and excerpts from Franz Kafka’s diary, often coupled with hand drawings of tiny animals.
If you’re still not picking up what I’m putting down, here are some examples. And here. And here, too.
Proof that I’m not alone in this:
@iamnotsavannahh the ones under this sound have made me uncontrollably sob #fyp #fypシ ♬ Jacob and the Stone – Emile Mosseri
See what I mean?
(WARNING: CONTENT IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS IS SUPER NERDY)
Now, as an average enjoyer of poetry (who also has not one but two poetry classes under her belt), what bothers me the most about these is that they take lines of poetry out of their original context. For example, take “I Had a Dream About You” by Richard Siken. This poem is heavy, incredibly textured, sporadic and difficult to parse through on a first read. However, as seen in the second example TikTok, people love to quote the line:
Is that line on its own incredibly painful? Yes, of course.
But taking this line out of its original context without displaying how it engages with the other lines of the poem removes the line’s intended purpose of portraying the complex relationship between the speaker (a.k.a. the person who is the voice of the poem) and their lover.
To be transparent, I understand that the argument could be made that poetry is meant to be interpreted and utilized by the audience and that placing these excerpts in such a themed digital repository falls along these lines. However, I still believe that doing so is an utter disservice because it takes masterful writing and places it in a vehicle for easy consumption rather than appreciation.
But apart from the technical literary stuff, what really annoys me is the fact that I do not know why people create these. Maybe I am just an emotional and sappy person, but they are SO SAD. I found one the other night that was, and I am not exaggerating when I say this, thirty slides long. Thirty. And it covered every single sad topic imaginable. I’m sorry, but WHY? What do people get out of making these? I suppose it is to get likes or views or whatever. In that case, all I can say is that’s CRAZY, because not only are you capitalizing off people’s emotions, but you’re also literally stealing art that others have created. And just frankly, why do I have to see them???????
Even beyond the question of, “Why do these exist?” in general, another question remains: Why do I fall for them every time?
Maybe it’s the way I am a glutton for heartbreaking romance movies (hence the reason that the last time I watched Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” I had to pause every 20 minutes so I could sit in silence), or that fact that I am overcome with curiosity every time I see one of these slideshows. But overall, this is my formal announcement that I am done with these slideshows because they introduce nothing new to the world other than perpetual anguish.
See, I have TikTok to soothe my little pea brain when I am not cramming it with readings about democratic peace theory in case I get cold-called in Dr. Grimm’s class or trying to read Anglo-Saxon literature (two things I have done in the past week if you couldn’t tell). I don’t want to have a crisis at the long tables on Lau 5 at 3:00 PM on a Tuesday when I simply logged onto TikTok to get a mid-study dopamine fix and possibly watch some videos about Taylor Swift. And if your response to this is, “yOur fOr yOu pAgE iS wHaT YoU eNgAgE wItH,” please know that I click “not interested” every single time I see one of these videos. And then what happens? Next time I open the app, BOOM. TikTok throws me a daily dose of existential dread.
And on that note, I will leave you with a poem of my own as a form of retaliation:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
Stop showing me sad TikToks,
These are not “for you.”
PS: If you have ever made one of these videos, you owe me a formal apology via email or LinkedIn DMs A.S.A.P.
