LUKE MARSDEN - App’s not Tikking the boxes

Isolation reached a new low this week when I jumped on the millennial bandwagon and joined TikTok.

If you’ve no idea what this app is then join the club.

In a search for a lockdown boredom cure I’d noticed a lot of people I follow on Instagram posting videos of themselves swinging their hips to well-known songs. As though as I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (loved Quiz by the way!) I phoned my friend to get the lowdown on getting my throwdown on.

She laughed out loud when I told her I was considering opening a TikTok account as she said “it didn’t seem like my sort of thing”. Well, neither does being locked in my house for three weeks (at least back in 2008 I was with 16 other people).

So if not now, when do you try something different?

The verdict though: utter disappointment.

The TikTok videos I’ve seen are flawless, as though rehearsed, choreographed and professional, so either people really have got too much time on their hands to continue to practise complex dance moves (completely plausible given the situation) or TikTok isn’t for me. I think I built it up to be some sort of transformative app that would turn me from Luke to Louie Spence, but in truth it was yet another app that let me put a funky glasses filter on my face.

When we eventually return to normality, I won’t be a fully-fledged TikTok pro. Instead I’ll head for a karaoke bar to sing my heart out to Bonnie Tyler. At least in a karaoke bar we get the lyrics: TikTok just provided a backing track.

Maybe I’ll stick to doing laps of my garden for exercise, although I think at 99-years-old Capt Tom Moore could do more than me.

To be honest he could probably perfect his moves and become a TikTok pro too!