Zoë Schiffer: Booktok got me fully immersed in the romantasy world. Now I’m incapable of reading normal literature. Thank you.

Lauren Goode: I’m going to assume that romantasy is romance and fantasy?

Zoë Schiffer: Oh, yes it is. Dragons. There’s fairies, there’s dragons. I’m not proud of this, but I guess I’m not not proud of it either.

Lauren Goode: Wild.

Michael Calore: Lauren, you have to spend more time on TikTok.

Lauren Goode: I know. Zoe, this is a whole side of you that I was not aware of as my podcast cohost. Respect.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I generally don’t lead with it, I’ll be real.

Michael Calore: Lauren, what’s your favorite video?

Lauren Goode: A friend sent me the Moth Girl.

Moth Girl [Archival audio]: Two years ago, I found this giant moth sitting on my driveway.

Lauren Goode: Her handle on TikTok is talalovesyouart. But she’s the moth girl.

Moth Girl [Archival audio]: … with wings scared the hell out of me.

Lauren Goode: Actually, as TikTok was about to be banned and my friend was sort of freaking out. She was like, “Beautiful creators like this aren’t going to be able to reach audiences.”

Moth Girl [Archival audio]: But I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.

Lauren Goode: I was tearing up a little bit. There were onions in the room. It was really beautiful. What about you, Mike?

Michael Calore: My favorite TikTok personality is Smac, S-M-A-C.

Sarah McCreanor [Archival audio]: I don’t know why you followed me, it was probably for dance or whatever.

Michael Calore: Sarah Mccreanor, she’s an Australian interpretive dancer, and comedian, and creative person. She’s also known as Hydraulic Press Girl because she took the viral hydraulic press crushing things videos and did interpretive dances of them-

Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh.

Michael Calore: With costumes that are amazing.

Lauren Goode: Wow.

Michael Calore: She’s great.

Zoë Schiffer: Honestly, the creativity on TikTok is pretty unmatched.

Lauren Goode: It really is.

Michael Calore: Too bad it’s all going away.

Zoë Schiffer: Aw.

Michael Calore: This is WIRED’s Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. I’m Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture here at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: I’m Lauren Goode, I’m a senior writer at WIRED.

Zoë Schiffer: I’m Zoe Schiffer, WIRED’s director of business and industry.

Michael Calore: Today we are talking about TikTok. What makes this app so unique and so uniquely vulnerable? We all have our favorite TikTok personalities, and our favorite videos, and our favorite subsections. But what is TikTok, really? Where does it come from? When did we first start getting obsessed with it? And why are we so obsessed with it?

Zoë Schiffer: The short answer is TikTok is a Chinese social media app that has about 170 million monthly active users in the United States. And specifically, a ton of young people. It’s really got a choke hold on Gen Z specifically.