Tick Tock on the Clock

I love the idea of beautiful, fancifully laid out planners with lots of colors and plan details. It’s something I have aspired to in the past, but the desire to consistently create such a weekly spread doesn’t come naturally to me. Though, not many things stay consistent in my life. I get distracted by new shiny ideas and objects and leave once-new-shiny things in the dust. 

For some reason, this does not apply to operating systems and computer programs. At least, not anymore. I remember when Windows 95 came out and my mom refused to upgrade our Hewlett-Packard from Windows 3.11. To be fair, it probably wouldn’t have been able to handle the new system with its 66MHz processor. I remember being upset with her because I was getting used to the new system during my few computer hours in elementary school, but she didn’t “like the way it looks.” 

Cut to 2021 Andrea attempting to learn new programs—err, applications—and finding her way around new system updates. If future Andrea is reading this, Windows 11 just came out, but no, you did not upgrade because you haven’t turned on your Windows PC in well over six months. It’s about to go back into the closet and be replaced by a FireStick because the only thing you used it for was watching YouTube on the office TV. You have, however, been complaining about all the changes Apple is making to MacOS and iOS because you’re tired of learning new features. 

This is all to say that I feel like a curmudgeon for putting off learning TikTok for as long as it’s been out (Wikipedia says that it came out 3.5 years ago). Today, after receiving the repeated advice to “just try it, it’s easy” from annoyed fellow creatives for the past three months, I finally went for it. It only took two attempts to learn how to insert videos from my camera roll, rearrange them, edit them down, record a voiceover, and to have my first official TikTok to share with the world. It took two attempts because I went too far in the editing process, saved a draft, and then discovered that it was too late to trim and add clips.

I was reminded of being annoyed at having to learn Instagram stories after having finally learned Snapchat because that’s where everyone was migrating. And how many changes has The Facebook been through? Yes, I joined when a .edu was required. It’s at the point where it’s just a watered down angry op-ed playground for the elderly and middle aged. 90% of what I do on Facebook now is contained to groups specific to topics of interest. I have removed all family members, mine and Mike’s, from my friends list, because I would much rather not know their shitty opinions about what they saw on Faux News. 

But I digress. TikTok has become a fast-paced marketing tool, which is something I need if I’m going to sell any copies of this book that I keep putting off for new shiny things like TikTok. There is also the hope that people will search for me across other platforms like YouTube and Instagram the way I do. Though, I do that because I’ve been a curmudgeon about learning this new executable—err, app. Here’s to hoping there are more like me out there.