#cataloguetok

[facelessoldgargoyle]

The FYP: Sides, Trends, & You

Ok so I started out describing transition videos and realized I needed to start farther back. In order to talk about what defines genres and subgenres, I need to talk about sides and trends. I did this a little in the original Willy Wonka post, but I need to elaborate a.

What Side Are You On?

This question implies the appropriate amount of antagonism between the different sides of tiktok. Much like tumblr, your experience on tiktok varies greatly based on who you follow and what content you see. Unlike tumblr, you have 2 tabs you can access: the feed from people you follow, and the feed that’s the For You Page. This is governed by The Algorithm. The algorithm is spookily good at predicting what content you want to see, and the fact that it’s not directly curated by you (only indirectly) gives it sort of a mystical reputation. People will make videos saying “There are no hashtags on this video, so this is a sign meant for you: get your nipples pierced.”

Ahem. For example.

This means that instead of the side of tiktok you’re on being a choice you have deliberately made, it’s treated a more like an astrology sign. It predicts something about you as a person. The fact that the side of tiktok you’re on is only partially determined by what you like, comment, and follow and partially determined by what the audience of your videos watches gives it an extra “out of control fate” feeling. Sometimes you see videos from people saying, “Help, straight tiktok found my last video and now I’m only seeing their videos, if you’re lgbt, alt, goth, etc. please interact and get me back to Alt Tiktok.”

There’s some animosity between sides, mostly because Hipsters and Fandom Blogs Don’t Get Along, but also because gay people love making fun of straight people. One of the most famous users (the fame making him definitionally on straight tiktok) tweeted:

Lmao.

I would be interested in seeing a cloud of how different content is related on Tiktok. No one person could make it though, because everyone’s FYP is so personal. Here’s how I’ve seen it generally described, though, in the order of when each side starts appearing on your FYP if you’re queer: Straight -> Alt -> Lesbian -> More Gay Content -> Punk or Goth -> Trans -> Nonbinary -> Frog -> Synth Rat -> more and more niche content.

Trends

A trend is an action paired with an audio. A trend is showing off your side profile using a particular Avril Lavigne profile. A trend is doing a dance making fun of tiktok dances to a Phoebe Bridgers song. A trend is the equivalent of a meme, and it’s what makes tiktok fun, because trends give you a template for making videos. You try to do your own twist on the trend, because people will see several videos for one audio, and it sucks to see the same thing over and over again, so if yours is interesting and different, yours will get popular.

The combination of trends and sides are what define genre and subgenre.

Genre and Subgenre

Okay, so if you’re a tall white boy with floppy brown hair and abs, you can make a career off of doing thirst trap videos. If you’re a tall white girl with long straight hair and a big smile, you can make a career off of 15-second dance videos that are easy to copy. These are tiktok’s verified users, and these are the people who make enough money to rent houses so these 16-20 year olds can live together and make content together. Hype House is the most famous of these. This is Straight Tiktok.

If you’re a Onceler cosplayer, where the whole joke is about how horny people are for this weird cursed character, you do a video using the same audio that the professional fuckboys do as a joke. Instead of trying to sincerely attract people, you make fun of the fuckboys for doing what they do. Enough people have made videos mocking fuckboys that it’s its own thing. Eventually, you get a fuckboy making cursed thirsttraps sincerely. Not to be a philosophy fuckboi, but look! It’s thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

I’ll elaborate on the difference between genre and subgenre in the post about transition videos, but this is the foundation I need.

[tricky-pockets]

heads up @cataloguetok , today’s the day, i’m about to binge this whole blog in one sitting because I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I’m terrified 💗💜💗💜💗💜

[terminally-sly]

I’ve recently been exposed to tiktok fuckboys thanks to @cataloguetok, and sometimes I can’t help but think “yeah, you’re hot and Very Masculine, but doesn’t that get exhausting?”

because I’ve seen those guys melt into a puddle at the first safe opportunity to drop the projection of dominance. which I fully support. I mean, it can liberating to at least have the option.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Transition Videos: Genre and Subgenre

The idea of a transition video is a little hard to explain. The essential component is the creative use of video cuts. If the purpose of a video is to showcase a cut between shots, then it’s in the transition genre. There are lots of ways to do it, and lots subgenres within the transition genre.

Here’s how to do the classic transition: place the camera on steady location so it doesn’t move between shots. Record the first part of the video in one outfit. On the beat drop of the song, stop recording (with the help of a timer) while you’re in the middle of a fast movement, like waving your hand over your face, or spinning, or falling into a chair. Change clothes, do your makeup, spike your hair. Start recording again while you complete the end of the fast movement, and when the video is played over again, it looks like you magically transformed. The Willy Wonka shirt pull is a transition video, because he didn’t rip his shirt off, he had the shit on, paused the camera, took his shirt off, and while filming in fast forward so he’s moving very quickly, rips the shirt down in front of him as if it was never attached to him. The closer aligned the before and after shot are, the faster you’re moving, the better it looks.

History

Tessa Violet (yes, the singer) brough the single cut, steady camera transition video to general renown with her song Wishful Drinking. It follows the formula above. The motion is crossing your arms and raising them above your head and then bring them down on beat. The transition occurs when your arms are over your face. This contributed to the illusion, because your eye is drawn to the face, and since your hands remain the same between shots, the before and after look identical for a longer period of time, making transition looks smoother. It’s easy to do, the song is very catchy, and it looks cool, so E V E R Y O N E did it. There are currently a quarter million videos under Wishful Drinking. Tessa Violet was not the first to do it, but a lot of people used her song for their first transition video.

Of course, once everyone does a very simple transition, the people who want to get famous need to do it smoother, better, and more creatively.

The Proliferation of Subgenres

Ok, so if subgenre is defined by who (sides) does what (trends), the subgenres of transitions are distinguished by who is doing them and why.

1. The Über-Transitions

Accounts that only do transition have gotten really creative. They do shot, shot, shot, shot, switching prescriptive, pretending to lift their head off their shoulders, zooming into a mirror cutting to the porch reflected behind it. They’re fast paced and the ultimate of what a transition video can be. This is difficult and time intensive, so there’s not a ton of accounts like this.

2. Thirst Trapsitions

Accounts that are built around being hot will do transitions focused around starting out normally and then cutting to a shot where they’re more naked, or more done up, or domming/subbing for the camera. Don’t ask me about this, Kinktok is getting its own post.

3. Fashion/Makeup transitions

Two communities blend into this subgenre: goths and makeup artists. They do a similar sort of video, starting out barefaced and cutting to a shot where they’re heavily made up and dressed up. The difference is how much color and leather is used, basically.

4. Cosplay transitions

This is covers a couple kinds of transitions, but again, they’re all done by the same group of people. There’s a transition from your normal face into your cosplay, there’s a transition from the innocent version of the character to the corrupted/damaged/bloodied version of the character, there’s the transition from cosplay to cosplay to cosplay to show off your range.

5. Transition Transitions

Of course, people use this to show off their transgender transitions. There are a lot of “This is my voice 1 month on T, 2 months on T, 3, 4, 6, 12 months on T.” There are a lot of showing old pre-transition pictures and then cutting to them now. A lot of these don’t qualify as transition (genre) videos because they don’t involve focusing on a smooth cut between shots, but I feel obliged to bring them up.

This of course edges into the genre of progression videos, which is most popular for showing off arts and crafts, but is also used to show hair growth, increasing skill levels, and more. It’s a less interesting genre to me, and won’t be getting its own post.

These are what spring to mind, and I’m sure there are dozens more, but this gives you a taste of what’s up with transitions.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Ok I’ve been nerdsniped by describing tiktok culture so buckle down folks. I’ll tag it cataloguetok in case you don’t wanna hear about it lol, because these will be long posts

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Cheers to Cipher for tagging me.

Name: Shep, but that’s a secret

Gender: I don’t have one, but I think it’s funny to say that my gender is fuckboi

Star sign: Cancer sun, Capricorn rising, Sagittarius moon. I know because a girl made me ask my mom what time I was born.

Height: 5’8”

Favorite band/artist: oh god. Vince Staples, Ok Go, Hozier, Tove Lo, Orville Peck, Robyn, Young MA, St. Vincent, Mashrou’ Leila, Ezra Furman. Um, I’m gay.

Favorite song: right now, it’s Maraschino Red Dress 8.99 at Goodwill. The album its on, Transangelic Exodus, is a masterpiece

Song stuck in head: ¿Donde estas Maria? A band that I was in covered it once, it’s got some sick beats

Last movie: Knives Out

Last show: uhhh Watchmen (on HBO)

Last podcast, which is my own addition: Behind the Bastards (fucking excellent)

Last thing I searched: types of Marxist alienation, because I was trying to remember the word Gattungswesen

When I created this blog: this spring, as a recommendation from my therapist actually, to give myself more to do that wasn’t “ruminate on my depression”

Other blogs: cataloguetok, which I haven’t updated in ages, but I keep meaning to talk about kinktok

Do I get asks: not really. Sometimes randos run across a post I made and get mad about something.

Following: 150 some?

Why I chose this url: it’s my username on Pinterest too, which is how I first started consuming tumblr content lmao. I always wonder if someone i knew on Pinterest will recognize me here. The username is derived from Night Vale’s Faceless Old Woman

Instruments: Piano, guitar, bass, voice, and really shitty clarinet, when I was a kid

Average hours of sleep: 7h on the dot almost every day

What I’m wearing: old t shirt from the summer camp of the cult I grew up in

Dream vacation: Going to Columbia with my band mates (including my best friend who’s currently in Germany) to see the noise bands we covered

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: all the cool ones suck ass to be a normal citizen in. Uh, The Last Girl Scout, in Freeside, the anarchist community. That’d rock.

@scoliosiswidowmaker you’re up kiddo

[facelessoldgargoyle]

This is not particularly insightful so it’s not going on cataloguetok but tiktokkers are saying “big mommy milkers” now and I hate it

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Alright, I’m just making a sideblog for this Tiktok shit. Follow me @cataloguetok for essays on tiktok fuckboys and other weird shit