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Thursday, June 3, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

T

ikTok’s 
explosion 
in 

popularity in recent years 
marks a new era in Generation 

Z-dominated internet culture, and 
the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing 
down. TikTok had amassed over 689 
million active users as of January 
2021, and over 60% of them were 
people under 30 — including many 
Gen Z kids creating comedy, fashion, 
dance and beauty videos. 

TikTok is known for its pageantry 

and trendiness, with young women 
and girls posting elaborate beauty 
transformations set to viral music 
and using flattering filters. Young 
women like Loren Grey and Charli 
D’Amelio are hugely responsible for 
many of TikTok’s trends as well as its 
popularity. And for a generation of 
young people that grew up on iPods 
and iPads, social media applications 
like TikTok are nothing new. Many 
image and video-focused social 
media applications like Instagram, 
Twitter and Snapchat carry much 
of the same content. However, 
TikTok’s interface has inspired 
staggering 
fashion 
and 
beauty 

trends often led by young women 
on the platform. One common video 
trend starts with a girl lip-syncing 
to music in a shabby outfit, looking 
moderately unkempt. The next 
moment — ideally at the drop of the 
beat — the girl transforms into a 
fashion fantasy, with wild clothing, 
hair and a pleased look on her face 
as she admires herself while dancing. 

Despite its fun, the internet has 

never — and likely will never — be a 
safe place for young girls looking to 
express themselves. While scrolling, 
I often see TikToks of girls dressed 
in vibrant, show-stopping looks 
with a caption poking fun at 
potential 
conservative 
Karens 

who would disapprove. These 

bold young women echo feminist 
ideals of wearing whatever one 
wants, 
whether 
scantily-clad 

or 
conservatively 
dressed, 
no 

matter the opinions of society. I 
see their strong sense of identity 
and 
self-expression 
and 
feel 

happy that they’ve found a corner 
of the internet where they can 
confidently show off and unleash 
their creativity. At the same time, I 
feel an intuitive pull to warn them 
of their vulnerability.

Young people who routinely post 

themselves on TikTok risk exposing 
themselves 
to 
being 
digitally 

consumed, and even approached, by 
adult predators. Children ages 12 to 
15, who comprise a significant chunk 
of TikTok users, are especially at 
risk for internet sexual harassment. 
In recent years, TikTok has been 
accused of being a hub for pedophiles 
with little punishment for those 
who engage inappropriately with 
minors. Even more concerning, 
rates of femicide, sexual violence 
and harassment against women, 
both in-person and online, have 
been climbing since the start of the 
pandemic. This is part of an overall 
uptick in online harassment against 
women and girls. 

Participating in the fun of social 

media is a part of growing up in the 
digital age, and I wholeheartedly 
want to encourage the fun. And yet, 
the perspective of “I wear what I 
want, no matter the stares I get” is 
at odds with the notion that self-
expression, creativity and sensuality 
are not safe to display online. 

M

usic is considered to be a 
universal communicator 
of human emotions. This 

can be seen in the ever-present 
K-pop craze, as English-speaking 
fans rock out to hits in a completely 
different language. If 10 people 
with 10 different native tongues 
were listening to Kool & The Gang 
sing “Celebrate good times, come 
on!” together, it wouldn’t matter that 
some might not fully understand the 
lyrics — the jovial brass and funk 
guitar communicate in the same 
way that the words do. Depending 
on cultural background and life 
experience, individuals are bound 
to glean a variety of emotional 
experiences from the same piece of 
music, but there is always emotion to 
be found nonetheless. The language 
of music truly knows no bounds — 
that is, until a prospective music 
student finds out they can’t fit the 
requirements to be admitted into a 
music program.

That barrier is one I’ve given 

much thought to recently. My senior 
year of high school was the first 
time I thought of music composition 
as an actual possibility for a major, 
and I became incredibly excited at 
the idea. Some research about the 
University of Michigan’s program 
in October revealed that up to seven 
original works, scored and recorded, 
were required for the application 
due in December, plus a recording of 
the student playing their preferred 
instrument of focus. And if all that 
works out, you get the opportunity 

to interview in the spring. I did not 
end up completing a portfolio in 
time. Today I sit in musical limbo, 
wanting to compose with my entire 
heart and then some, but unable to 
get in the door.

It can be saddening to be barred 

from studying and developing 
something that feels so entwined 
with your existence. Unfortunately, 
this has been the majority of my 
music experience at the University. 
I have strong musical instincts 
and abilities in, apparently, all the 
wrong areas, like harmonizing, 
sight-reading and learning music 
by ear. I do play the violin, sing and 
read sheet music, but not to a high 
enough level that it will get me 
anywhere that I want to go here — 
including the music composition 
program. 

In the digital audio workstations 

like Logic Pro and Ableton that 
people use for music production, 
there’s a built-in tool for correcting 
any note or drum hit that doesn’t 
fall precisely on a beat. This is 
called quantization. Jacob Collier, 
a prolific musician and Grammy-
winning artist, is an advocate for 
un-quantizing music. In a January 
2020 livestream, he mentions his 
desire to “get the grid out of people’s 
psychologies,” describing the result 
of quantizing as “something which is 
… grid-based, which is not human.” He 
goes on to say that “grids are not the 
same as humans. Humans are some 
of the least grid-based creatures … in 
the world, in the universe.” Collier 

also briefly mentions how education 
accomplishes 
something 
eerily 

similar, keeping different subjects in 
neatly separate containers.

It is not a new idea that the 

separation of subjects presents a 
skewed and frankly untrue view 
of how different knowledge bases 
operate and interact. Music is a 
culmination of science and math and 
art, and oftentimes philosophy. Yet 
it is still kept quantized, even at our 
university. 

I’d like to acknowledge the 

perspective I’m writing from, which 
is that of a student in LSA who 
doesn’t have a lot of technical skill 
on the violin and has taken only a 
year of classical singing lessons. I am 
very much someone on the outside 
looking in at what I haven’t gained 
access to. This whole column could 
be seen as fist-shaking at the musical 
doors that I haven’t worked as hard as 
others to enter. The audition process 
is completely understandable for 
performance majors, and I get why 
it’s the typical mode of admission for 
music programs everywhere. There 
are people in the world who lack 
rhythm, good pitch or both, and it 
would be nearly impossible to study 
certain aspects of music without 
these qualities, let alone prepare for 
years to have other people pay for 
your skills.

Prioritizing safety over 
expression on TikTok

The un-quantization of music courses at the ‘U’

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Alexis Hancz is an Opinion Columnist and 

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