If you're under 30 (or happen to live with someone under 30), TikTok seems inescapable, with the For You Page holding the American psyche in an iron grip despite efforts to outright ban the app. Somewhat interestingly, however, TikTok is actually an international offshoot of an otherwise identical Chinese app called Douyin (onomatopoeia for shaking), with the only functional difference being that they're walled off from each other. Unfortunately, this means you're cut off from 1.5 billion people, any of whom could potentially become your next favorite creator, unless you decide to use third-party aggregators.
One of my favorites is this Tumblr blog run by a student learning Mandarin, who selects the very best of the best from Douyin and captions it in English for maximum accessibility.
Douyin's users trend heavily towards the kind of absurdist humor I tend to enjoy, complete with plenty of snark in the comments sections. It's heartwarming to see people all the way across the world make the same kind of dumb jokes my friends would- humor really is a universal language.
