Earlier this year the Scottish Socialist Youth (SSY) held their National Conference. While the organisation is quite small, their event highlights a growing trend amongst young people not just in Scotland, but all over the western world.
Young people veering to the left is not a new phenomenon. It has long been the status quo that young people go politically left, and older people right.
With the current rent crisis and the emergence of social media, young people are exposed to more and more left-wing ideologies.
TikTok is unlike most social media in the fact that the majority of users spend their time browsing the For You page on the app, designed to tailor its content to the user. If you like or comment on a video, the algorithm recommends similar content. This has led to the development of communities such as BookTok, MusicTok and FilmTok.
It also tries to guess what viewers want to see. So, people stumble over videos that they would have never normally watched.
This stumbling is what introduces new ideas.
Creators like @edwardmliger (aka “Midwestern Marx”) have over 200,000 followers, his most popular video sitting at 1.8 million views. @edwardmliger makes videos from book recommendations to the history of communist countries and current events like the Palestine/Israel conflict. Many young people feel very strongly about what is happening in Palestine, and so do many left-wing creators. A common ground, so the algorithm can do the rest.
It’s not just overtly left-wing creators like @edwardmliger that introduce young people to these ideologies. It can also be creators like @daveo2real, a TikTok creator with over 300,000 followers and millions of views. @daveo2real does not disclose his political leanings; instead, most of his videos centre around gentrification and rent increases in New York.
While Brig’s readers probably won’t be able to relate to New York, we can relate to rising rent prices.
Young people who are affected by the housing crisis will be brought to a creator like @daveo2real, sympathise, and engage. TikTok’s algorithm will then show creators with solutions to this relatable struggle.
TikTok has clearly evolved and can be a place for young people to find new interests and ways of thinking.
