Like many of us, I discovered TikTok during lockdown.
It is what a friend of mine would refer to as “a time-sink”. You sit on the sofa with the full intention of merely taking a five-minute rest and, suddenly, you find that two hours have completely drained away.
You might have heard the same five or six songs 25 times in that period. You’re left with a feeling of being both fulfilled and wholly unfulfilled at the same time, because you’ve lost all discipline.
Every video on the “For You” page is a new adventure – an addictive, never-repeating screed that means you have to double-tap every video you like. It might never reappear.
It’s so much fun; the algorithm in perfect rhythm with your expectations – a cat video here, a memorable piece of footballing skill there. Until now.
Using TikTok to right historical wrongs
Nadine Dorries, our UK secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, has been handily combining the different facets of her title into a hyperactive TikTok account.
Mostly, the account is used to demonstrate that Dorries is, for the lack of a better expression, “hip”, but there are also flags and attempts to correct what Nadine clearly sees as historical wrongs – her former and repeated opposition to same-sex marriage, for example, over which she now presents herself as reformed.
“This is a country where we celebrate gay marriage,” Nadine Dorries tells Sky News. pic.twitter.com/zn26NqdJPq
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) August 8, 2018
It’s an unfortunate reality that politicians will come for our new, cool, social media platforms eventually. I still remember Twitter before it became the ongoing battlefield that it is, now and forever more. Dorries was an early adopter there, too, trolling the “liberal left” with continual attempts to restrict access to abortion services.
You may remember she ran a blog, which, after she found herself in a spot of bother, she claimed was 70% fiction. “I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place/name/event/fact with another,” she wrote in 2010. (A policy the Conservative Party have continued to adopt through partygate…)
Dorries has really upped her game recently, with TikTok promotion of the Online Safety Bill, in which she raps about the new law. If only it could have protected us from this.
Who is Nadine Dorries’ favourite member of Public Enemy?
She begins: “The UK is passing some new legislation, to make the internet safer for the younger generation.” It is, as the kids say, cringe, and has already spawned a few imitators, although I’d advise anyone else against trying, lest they prompt the same result as journalist, Andrew Neil.
It’s OK to rap terribly when you know some of the lyrics to Anaconda
Dorries spits another couplet: “But is it true it will impact freedom of expression? No, we put in legal protections in the 19th section.” Maybe the 19th section should be adjusted, limiting the number of UK politicians allowed to perform a rap that may ruin both a popular social media platform and an entire genre of music in one fell swoop.
TikTok and hip-hop are both left lying in Dorries’ wake as she literally drops the mic.
After Channel 4 tweeted Andrew Neil’s parody effort, Dorries quipped: “Nicki Minaj won’t be losing any sleep tonight.” See? She knows. It’s OK to rap terribly when you know some of the lyrics to Anaconda.
Someone should ask her who her favourite rapper of all time is. Which of the post-Illmatic Nas albums comes closest to recapturing the magic of that debut? Who is her favourite member of Public Enemy?
Rap is yet another distraction
It’s all fun and games, of course, until you remember that this is the culture secretary who, while exploring plans to sell off publicly-owned Channel 4, made it quite clear that she didn’t understand how the channel was funded. Who thinks the youth are “downstreaming” films, whatever that means. Who continues to support the prime minister through a never-slowing tide of revelations of parties throughout lockdown.
TikTok may be one option for rebranding, but Dorries’ parliamentary voting record will always exist for all to see.
The rap also exists – like the recently announced return of imperial measurements, or Jacob Rees Mogg’s “Brexit opportunities” job title – as a good old “dead cat” strategy. Give them something else to speak about while you get off scot-free.
I’ll have to take a hard look at myself for joining in and giving it air.
It does, however, give me the chance to say that, underneath the deliberately divisive policies and posturing, this is a UK Government that is tired and out of ideas. It will surely be punished at the next general election, by a public who will simply require change, rather than any more distractions or deceit.
Colin Farquhar is head of cinema operations for Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen
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