Episode 61: Tik Tok trends & the trickle down effect: Be in the know!

Whether your kid is allowed on Tik Tok or not, the trends tend to trickle down from peers that are, so listen in today to hear more about these & be in the know!

 

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Full Transcription:

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Whether your kiddo is on Tech-Talk or a friend of theirs is the things that happen on Tik TOK are trickling out in, uh, to our children's lives. And it can be something as simple as a funny little dance move or combination of dance moves, or it can proceed into things that could be dangerous or age inappropriate for your kiddo. So today we are going to talk about some of the trends that are seen on Tik TOK and how even if your kiddo is not allowed on that app, it can trickle out to them in their peer groups. So you can be on the up and up and be that mom for your kiddo. Stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (00:39):

Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the bead that mom movement with your host Darlie Denson.

Speaker 1 (01:05):

And did you hear there is an app that will transform the safety of your kids, smartphone and technology use it is my favorite way to sleep easy at night and have peace of mind because it is monitoring my kids' activity online without me being in their business. It is the bark app and yes, bark like a dog bark bark bark. It tells you when there's something that you need to be concerned about starting at a small fee each month, you can protect your whole family across all devices. Get connected with bark today. Use code, be that mom for 20% off your subscription for life and get a seven day free trial to check it out. So if you grew up around the time I did, I may be aging myself if you're younger than me, but I grew up in the seventies, eighties and early nineties when I was getting out of high school.

Speaker 1 (01:48):

And if you grew up during those years, you'll recall that we had movies coming out on VHS tapes. I'm not sure when DVDs and things like that started to evolve and come into the picture. But I mostly remember VHS tapes and, you know, having to go check them out at the local movie place where you check out tapes and be kind and rewind and all of those things. But if you think back to pre-internet days, a lot of times we learned our trends and slang and you know, what clothes to wear fashion sense, all of that through the movies we watched or the music or bands that we listen to. The ones that I remember right off the top of my head, as far as bands and music was like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, Bon Jovi was the first concert I ever went to.

Speaker 1 (02:38):

And I was 14 years old, which was so awesome. And then I recently, a couple years ago, saw him live again. And he was just as awesome as he was way back when, but then movies that we watch, like Greece was out dirty dancing, 16 candles, the breakfast club, you know, all of these movies that for our kids seem really old. But if you think back to those days, we kind of got like some of the trends, like the way we wore our pants and, you know, whatever the different clothes that were in style. A lot of times, those trickle down from those movies that we watched in the things that we were exposed to at the time, one hour fast forward to today's day and age here we are in 2021. The internet has been out for a couple of decades now, and it has expanded exponentially.

Speaker 1 (03:24):

And if you're listening to my podcast for any length of time, you know, that we are sitting here on kind of the precipice or the brink of always kind of trying to stay ahead of what is going on in that digital world to help our kids. And my philosophy is yes, there's danger in all of these things. We need to be aware of that, but we also have to try to find the balance and the dance when it comes to them using technology appropriately and safely, and in a healthy way, along with, you know, allowing some of the exploration and the things that our technology is used for these days, like virtual school and research for projects for school and, you know, anything and everything we can think of is connected to technology today. So I personally think that it's pretty much impossible to keep our kids away from it, you know, and maybe not even the best thing to do, keeping them completely away from it, but helping them to try to navigate it.

Speaker 1 (04:22):

So what I want to talk about today is just related to tic talk in the trends that happen on tech talk and how they trickle out into the world. And as I was preparing for this episode and kind of looking at the different things that are out there and what the trends tend to be and what categories they fall into, I was thinking, well, I know that a lot of parents are aware that tick talk has some danger to it in that it's one of those apps, much like Snapchat and Instagram, that has those features that make them hard to monitor. And so I was sitting here thinking maybe most parents listening to my show, don't have kids on Tik TOK. And so then this episode is not going to be pertinent. Maybe I should do a different episode. And then I thought, Oh, wait a second.

Speaker 1 (05:03):

Tik TOK is accessible, whether you have an account or not. So even if you are not allowing it for your kiddo, if they have friends that have phones and you know, maybe their friends, parents aren't as on the, up and up on being that mom or that parent, as far as being proactive in this space and really trying to help our kids navigate it, their kid may have free reign of that app. And if that is the case and your kid has say a pinwheel phone or a gab phone, those kids can easily text your kid a link or that video, you know, or video that they've downloaded. But Tik TOK is easily accessible by anyone. And it also, even if they don't see it, if you kind of look at what's been going on with some of the trends in the last couple of weeks, you can see that it's going to trickle from those that do have it out into the general population of kids, whether they have had the app or not.

Speaker 1 (05:58):

So it's good to just be kind of up on it. If you aren't on tech, talk yourself or don't allow your kid to, to be kid to be, I can't speak, but that's why I wanted to bring it up because I don't know if you heard about this, but over this weekend, before I recorded this podcast, which today is a Sunday night, and I believe it's like the 20, 25th of April, I believe it was yesterday. There was a trend that kind of emerged a couple of days ago on Tik TOK saying that yesterday was going to be national rape day or something to that effect. And it was supposedly like six guys on Tik TOK that did a video that talked about yesterday, being a day where they were encouraging people to go out and rape or sexually assault. Another person and Tik TOK has come out and spoken officially and said that they have looked through accounts and they've looked at everything and they don't see that this is something being promoted on their platform.

Speaker 1 (06:53):

But of course, if they do find anything that they would be shutting it down and making sure people are complying to their community guidelines. So as far as I know, nothing came of that, I didn't hear anything about that. So I think it was just one of those things that maybe someone said these things just to kind of see if it could be something that would spread, you know, something like that. But let's take a look at some of the trends that are seen on Tik TOK. So if you have seen videos or maybe you've done one with your kid of some dance moves, that is one that is really huge is, you know, just trend funny trends, things that are like dance or upon, or skit or some type of, you know, funny thing that they do. Some of the more specific ones that have come out recently was one about waking up in the morning and it had, let's see, what is it say when I'm looking at this one article about them, it had lyrics to a child singing a song about trying to get over a challenging time in life.

Speaker 1 (07:50):

And then it jumped cuts to a video about something from their past that was embarrassing or awkward. It tends to be one that a lot of the kids of the younger generations right now like to do, because they easily have access to videos from when they were younger, because, you know, smartphones and things have been around their entire lives. And another one that's like a funny trend was a psychedelic clown. And this, this says it was a self-deprecating trend where they incorporate a colorful, interactive clown filter with silly music, and then they use it to recount times they were a clown or they did something silly or embarrassing. So those seem pretty benign, right? Then there's some other ones that are creative trends and some of these can be kind of cool. I'm not totally knocking tick-tock. I do like to go on there and look at what's trending.

Speaker 1 (08:37):

And also it's very entertaining. I spend too much time looking at it sometimes, but it's very entertaining because people are pretty creative and pretty amazing what they can come up with on these things. But a few of the creative trends is one is a day in the life and it is talking about all the different activities that a person does in a day. So they make a mashup of their daily routine, all set to some type of, you know, upbeat tune. And then another one is a video says a video of something that lives in your head rent free. In other words, rent free means that you think about it, or you worry about it a lot for no reason. So these start out where there's a clip of a woman. So there's a clip of a woman asking for an example of a video that people love.

Speaker 1 (09:26):

And then they pick a favorite scene from a movie, a TV show, or a meme that they splice in to the video. So I think those, you know, some things can be fun and entertaining, things like that. Some other ones that another trend. So we've had funny, we've had creative. Another one is age inappropriate trends. So these are very popular with kids and popular with adults on the platform too. But sometimes they can be inappropriate for a child because they're sexually charged. One of them is a silhouette challenge and this one includes or features a red light filter. And then a quick change edit to where the user is standing provocatively in a doorway, sometimes in lingerie, sometimes with no clothes on at all. And it's mint. They said it started out as a body empowerment trend for adults, but it soon became controversial when someone was able to do an editing trick, to reverse engineer, the filter that was used.

Speaker 1 (10:27):

And that meant that it exposed these people in whatever it was they were wearing instead of having that filter, covering them up. So they were exposed so very, very dangerous if it was an underage person doing that. And you know, it got into the hands of, you know, pedophile groomer, someone that doesn't have good intentions. So definitely one to be aware of. And then another one that's kind of age inappropriate that has been popular is they call it the bus. It challenged B U S S it challenge. And it's done to a song and I don't know this song, but by Erica banks, that's the soundtrack for the challenge. And it requires users to squat down in slow motion and bounce. And it doesn't necessarily have to be suggestive like sexually, but it actually typically comes out that way. So that would be one that you probably wouldn't want your kid doing, but that silhouette challenges is the more dangerous one in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (11:23):

But now the other category of tectonic trends is dangerous. Tik TOK trends. Now, before I tell you what some of these are, I have to tell you that I don't think that this is a new thing for kids. I remember when I was a kid, there was a trend going around where you have someone else grab you from behind and squeeze your chest really hard to make you pass out. And I remember my friends and me trying that I didn't do it, you know, like I didn't pass out or anything like that, but it was something we talked about when we tried. And of course we weren't doing it right or something. Thank goodness. But I don't think things like this are necessarily something that is new. The problem is with social media, with all of these apps is they're so prevalent in so much at our kids' fingertips, which is totally the things we talk about.

Speaker 1 (12:08):

Right. Totally. Why you were listening to this podcast is to stay up on all of this stuff. So this, like, you know, the thread through what I'm seeing right now is that you just have to be aware that this puts so much of this information at our kids' fingertips so much easier. And so we need to be aware of these things and be on the up and up with our kids. So a couple of these dangerous challenges would be the Benadryl challenge. I've seen this ripple through my own kids high school, where you're challenged to take large quantities of the Benadryl in order to trigger hallucinations. The problem with that, as you can, you know, it can just make you sleepy. It also can make you have hallucinations, but there have been teens that have died from this trend. I don't know if it's directly related to tick tock, but I have researched this in the past.

Speaker 1 (12:56):

And I do know kids have died from this. And then the other one is a blackout challenge, which it sounds like much like the one I mentioned that I had seen when I was a kid where one holds one's breath manually, or while using something like a belt until they pass out. And then this one I don't really get, and I hadn't heard of, but it's called the morning after pill challenge. And it says that there was a rumor that pregnancy test contained a secret plan B emergency contraception pill. And so it sounds like they were using something in the pregnancy test. They were taking apart and using as a plan B pill. It's not real specific in this thing that I'm reading, but it says that the company for the pregnancy test had to come out and talk about it is what the tests are made of.

Speaker 1 (13:42):

And that it's not something that you should be ingesting. So as you can see or hear, there's a lot of things that can be conveyed and communicated to our kids. And of course, we're not going to be aware of every single thing because we're not sitting there in their business all the time. And, you know, as they go through those middle school and early high school years, those are the years that they tend to be curious. They tend to learn about, you know, more about their bodies, maybe have shame and, you know, depending on how they're educated and what you teach them and what they're taught by the people that they're around. So it tends to be a time where they hide things from you. And aren't completely honest with everything that they are doing or, you know, experiencing. So that is why letting them be on Tik TOK or any of these apps is definitely a slippery slope that we all need to make our own decision with.

Speaker 1 (14:35):

But we also just need to be aware of the dangers and how quickly they can get ahold of some of this knowledge. And like I said, at the beginning, even if you don't allow your kiddo on there, just be aware that if there are other kids that they were around, that can access tech talk that they likely are going to about these things, because kids talk and kids share. And especially if they're in some situation like riding a bus home, or, you know, some other situation where they're with other kids in some type of extracurricular activity, they're likely going to be exposed to these things, even if you're not letting them on the app on their own device. So, as you know, I always mentioned bark as a major tool in your toolbox to help you to navigate this, help you to monitor bark monitors at a high level, still gives your kid privacy, but they also monitor conversations and can alert you with things that you likely will have missed if you don't have something like that.

Speaker 1 (15:31):

And there are other options out there, if you are not in the U S I believe right now, bark is only in, in the U S if you are not in the U S I know there are some other options. If you were like in New Zealand or Australia or, or some other country, and you do have something similar to bark, would you please email me? I would love to hear about it so I can talk about it so I can share more about those things for y'all that do listen in other places other than the United States. My email is dolly@dollydenson.com. So D O L O y@dollydenson.com. Email me, and let me know what resources you have in your country that are similar to something like bark. That's a parental control system that will help you to monitor. I do have one that I have found recently that I'm going to share in another episode soon, that I think those of you that are not in the U S and even if you are in the U S and are looking for a different option, would be another great option for you, but I cannot stress enough how much bark cares for your child and cares for the future of this generation of children that are growing up so digitally interconnected.

Speaker 1 (16:38):

And they take it personally when they detect suicidal ideas, bullying, grooming, all of those things, and they will actually follow up with you. If they detect something or alert you of something, they will follow up with you to see how your child is doing, and to see if you need other resources. So if you are in the U S please take advantage of bark and go to bark.us and use my code, be that mom for a 20% off discount that gets you that discount for the life of your subscription. And the subscription is majorly affordable, especially if you divided out as a monthly payment versus annually. Okay. But they do have a two week trial for that, too. Okay. So all in all, I just want you to be aware of those Tik TOK trends and talk to your kiddo about these things, and just keep that open line of communication with them.

Speaker 1 (17:28):

But if you, if they have a device, please get some type of parental control monitoring system on there. Last week, I mentioned Moby sip. I don't know how to pronounce it correctly. I hope that's right. And then bark, of course, we've got the pinwheel phone and a gab phone. If you want to keep the smartphone out of their hands, always remember to be the parent and take the phone away. If you have concerns until you can figure out what it is and follow your mother's intuition, when it comes to all of the things, I promise you, if you have a gut feeling about something, there is something out there that is causing that gut feeling. So trust that and follow it. Okay. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I will chat with you next time.

Speaker 2 (18:08):

Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join. Dolly's free community till next time. Hey,

Speaker 1 (18:22):

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