The following is just an essay disguised as a poem. I sometimes have the suspicion that most of my poems are just essays in disguise. I’m just writing sentences and then breaking them into lines. It looks like a duck, but it doesn’t walk or quack like a duck. It doesn’t smell like a duck.
On the Impending TikTok Ban
No one can explain the danger.
Is it propaganda or the spreading
of misinformation from shifty sources,
some of which could be “foreign”?
Is it the mining of user data?
Is it that somehow the platform
is actually spying on Americans,
is somehow looking into our eyes while
we look into our phones
to discover national secrets?
I googled this shit and found an
article from CBS News that catalogued
a list of potential nefarious
uses of the app by the Chinese
against the Americans, at least,
according to American legislators.
I really don’t see how any of the things
they’re worried about are not
things already being done
to Americans–by Americans–
whose interests are no less
nefarious. What’s Facebook and
Instagram doing if not, even
unwittingly (I’m certain it’s wittingly)
spreading propaganda and
misinformation, mining data,
spying on me, always trying to
sell me something and sometimes
successfully, giving me more of what
I want all the livelong day?
Do you mean to tell me that on TikTok
the Chinese are forcing me to watch
Sam Harris debate Jordan Peterson?
They’re shoving down my throat
videos of Christopher
Hitchens and Richard Dawkins,
John and Hank Green, talks by
the No Nonsense Spirituality lady, clips from
Seinfeld, trailers for the new Dune
movie, live music from Coachella,
funny dog videos, clips of stand up comics
and from podcasts by Eva Oh
the dominatrix? For what purpose?
To make me more of a lefty than I already am?
Do I pose a threat, now, to my government?
The way I see it, many Americans rely
on TikTok for their livelihood, and
I learn things and am entertained.
I even post a poetry performance
from time to time and create blurbs
to promote my music, none of which
poses any threat to anyone, as far as I know.
I think the would-be banners of TikTok
are barking up the wrong tree.
There are bigger fish to fry,
more immediate and existential dangers
than an entertainment app
that happens to be owned by a
Chinese company. Ultimately, the
absence of TikTok will just be filled
by some other platform designed by
some other engineer from some other
scary place, likely, your own back yard.
michael jarmer 