Bad habits from Covid Lockdowns – my little Tiktok problem

My name is Karen and I have a little Tiktok problem.

When the first Covid Lockdown hit, in March 2020, one thing the husband and I swore we wouldn’t do was get into more social media habits than we already had.

Then we fell into the black hole that is Tiktok.

Not everyone’s favourite and often a very controversial social media platform.

But ideal for someone like me with a short attention span, who doesn’t enjoy long and rambling YouTube videos.

It can be fun. There are a lot of very creative people who use the site for business. During the first lockdown, we downloaded the app and I found some great accounts sharing all sorts of things that appealed to me. Cooking, crafts, some home education, humour, politics, in short bursts that my brain could process.

Of course, there is a darker side to Tiktok like there is to any social media, and my children do not have access to it alone, they don’t have the apps on their devices and they are only allowed to watch with us, or things I download and share with them. But this post isn’t about that. Maybe some other time.

Whilst I was enjoying Tiktok, distracting me from the fear and worry of life in the middle of a world pandemic, I fell down the rabbit hole that is people sharing clips from movies, and shows and I happened on an account that shares Turkish soap drama clips.

Bear in mind I don’t speak Turkish. She does subtitle her videos though.

I am a bit of a secret fan of Bollywood and telenovela tv dramas from South America, so it probably wasn’t that surprising that I found a whole new thing to distract me from bread making and trying to make sure two children got all their schoolwork done whilst we were all staying at home.

Honestly, it’s ridiculously addictive. They are cheesy, dramatic, ridiculously unrealistic, glamorous and I have been hooked ever since.

The husband rolls his eyes at me, when I spend a few minutes getting my fix of the current drama series I am watching. I showed him an episode or two and if he didn’t think I was probably past the point of loosing my marbles, before, he definitely does now. I guess he figures there could be worse things to be addicted to, though and at least it’s not Love Island.

Sadly, this week, one of the series that I have been keeping tabs on came to a dramatic and complicated end. if I said I was very sad about this, I wouldn’t be joking. I have binge watched from the start and now it’s over. And it didn’t end how I expected either. It’s called Sadakatsiz and it’s basically one glorious messy family drama with affairs, financial misdeeds, attempted murder, and very glamorous people acting up hard. Even the “ugly” plain geeky characters are beautiful and we have all been watching as it unfolded. I wasn’t quite as gutted at this ending as I was when the American tv medical series ER finished (that’s another blog post for another day too)

Fortunately the account that got me hooked on this drama still shares other series so I don’t need to despair entirely.

So, if you want to know what I watch on Tiktok, as someone who in theory, according to my children, is really too old to be on there, then you will find me adding to my Turkish vocabulary and getting my fix of drama.

Or you can always follow me there, too. If you are on there. Our life isn’t a Turkish tv drama but we always like new friends there.

Did lockdown foster any habits or secret addictions that you feel you can share, I won’t tell anyone, I promise… 😉