Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Taking Stock of TikTok Shop

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Taking Stock of TikTok Shop · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Adie and Samantha and welcome stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I've never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and we
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: are once again thrilled to be joined by the wonderful,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the magnificent.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: The majestic Bridget Todd. Welcome Bridget, Thank you for having
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: me back. So excited to chat with you all today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Happy holiday season, kind of sort of, I guess we're
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: sort of getting.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: There, kind of getting there yet we are we are.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I have that weird feeling of like before you get
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: on like a school break or something.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: Today, right, we are trying to like get together and
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: do all the things very quickly.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, so we can actually maybe take a break. How
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: have you been, Bridget do you have? Have you had
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: any breaks or any breaks coming up?
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Not really breaks. I did spend a nice weekend in
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: one of my favorite places, Woodstock, New York. I don't
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: know if anyone has been to that area, like upstate
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: New York, Catskills, Woodstock. It's so lovely. I try to
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: get up there once a fall season to like look
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: at the leaves. It's so nice. Yeah, I'm also looking
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: forward to Thanksgiving. I am also in that vibe where
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: you know when you officially start being like, let's circle
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: back in January, let's talk about it in the new year.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I'm in that vibe. I'm like, if it wasn't on
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: my radar by now, it's certainly not going on my radar.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Now, right.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, I am with you, although we might be circling
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: back with you about coming back and talking about more
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Scream stuff because that was so fun.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I saw you did the Scream six episode and I
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: watched the Scream version that you said was like Harvey
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Weinstein esque. I thought that was a really inspired tick.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I don't want to give anything away, but I would
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: never have if you had not said that, I would
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: not have been watching with an eye for that. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, what an inspired take.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you you are now my breast friend. Get out. No,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. No, we might be doing some more
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: content around.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: That, so you know, yeah, we're still looking at it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's yes. But in the meantime, speaking of
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the holidays, this is a topic I know nothing about.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I am very excited to learn about it, and it
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: does relate. So can you tell us what are we
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: talking about today, Bridget.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, So with the holiday season, sort of being here.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: It always makes me think of my least favorite activity,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: which is holiday shopping. I hate holiday shopping. I don't
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: like doing it. It's such a pain in the butt.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: But I have a question, kind of a related question
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: for both of you. Have you ever watched QVC or
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: the Home Shopping Network?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I think I have in sort of the parody, like
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I've seen parodies of it more than i've watched it.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I will say though, I worked for what was probably
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: not a great company when I was in high school
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: selling knives.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: That was a big brand.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know how I got involved in it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Like, looking back, I'm confused at how it happens, but
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I remember kind of saying the things that I would
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: hear on like QBC to try to sell these knives
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: to older women that were like, how old are you do?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Why is there a high schooler trying to sell me
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: kitchen knives.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: I took a lot of college students did this because
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: I had several friends in my college days doing that
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: and the guarantee of they will always sharpen it for
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: the rest of your life, guaranteed sharp knives.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they do.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I don't need to ask my friends. If they actually
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: did do that anymore, it should.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: A QVC. They can't for the QVC.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: I feel like you're dating me a little bit, but
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: mainly because my mother went in on the QVC, and
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: I know there was one year, one Christmas year where
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: everything as where previously when we were children, it was
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: from the Seers Catalog Christmas Catalog, which everybody looked forward to.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Then it went to the QVC.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: And everything came from QVC, and I was like, what
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: the hell.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Is this uven e meant for?
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Essentially, and coming into the house and seeing QBC going
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Marie Osmond was the spokes person during that timeframe, I
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: want to say, and my mother was all in.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time watching QVC
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: in my life. It was like, I don't really know
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: how this started, but like you know, when you're in
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: college and you and your friends are getting stoned and
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: maybe you have a specific thing that you watched for
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: a laugh. Ours was QVC and Home Shopping Network. I
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: don't know why, and it had this like like we
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: did it as a joke, but I actually did quite
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: enjoy the spectacle of it. There's a kind of like
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: grotesque kind of spectacle to watching somebody in an over
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: the top way, like try to sell you a pantsuit
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: at two am on live television. But here's the thing
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: that I wanted to talk about today. As much as
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed being stoned and watching QVC when I was
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: in college, it feels like scrolling TikTok these days feels
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: a lot more like scrolling a virtual version of QBC
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: or the Home Shopping Network. More over the top ads
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: than ever, and the whole thing feels a little bit
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: like dystopian. Annie. I know that you're not big on
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: scrolling TikTok, but Sam, you are on TikTok. Have you
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: noticed this? Have you seen more ads on the platform? Well?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Weirdly, like the things that I've seen are live videos
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: for shops, which really threw me Offcach, I don't like
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: lives anyway. I'm like, I don't want to do this
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: because oftentimes lives, Annie, are just like people sitting. I
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: stumbled onto a gamer who pretending to sleep apparently for
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: like an hour to get likes, Like that's the way
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: they have to wake him up, And these like awards
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: and such gives them actual money. And I didn't know
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: that I was like, why is he pretending to sleep?
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I am so confused. But on top of that, so
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: the lives already like give me the ick because it
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: feels odd because I don't choose. It's not people you follow,
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: it's just for your for your feed essentially. And so
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: when I come into shops, I'm even more confused because
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: at the bottom it has like twenty percent off, thirty
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: percent off, and then you accidentally click the button. Then
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: you can't get out because it takes you to three
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: different sites, and you're like, what the hell am I in?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: What did I just do?
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Yes? I also don't really like lives like I love
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: to consume content on TikTok from people I don't follow,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: but something about the lives I immediately am like, no,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: it's usually sometimes split screen or people are arguing about
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: something like I just don't like it, don't want to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: see it, need it. What I like about TikTok is
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: that it's a platform that seems like it's full of
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: regular people telling like a funny or engaging story, compared
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: to a platform like Instagram that to me has always
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: felt like a polished, you know, influencer setting up an
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: unattainable or aspirational life thing, right, But on TikTok, now,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: those engaging regular people are now like selling you something.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: You know, when you scroll you get regular you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: polished professional TikTok ads and tiktoks that look like normal videos,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: but they say eligible for commission on the bottom, where
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: it's like not exactly an ad ad. But the person
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: who is talking to you like they're your friend does
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: happen to like be telling you about a product they
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: want you to buy and that they get a cut
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: of if you do TikTok or Grace Purcell actually described
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: it really well. She said that TikTok is feeling like
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Shean and Ali Express had a baby too, like fast
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: fashion retailers that y'all might be familiar with.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: All right, so I do have a question and you
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: might not know the answer to those because I've seen
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: a lot of the four eligible but it's on things
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: that are either older like have been like I might
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: not have crossed it earlier, and then you click on
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: the date and like, oh it was a month ago,
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: to things that are just fan cam videos. So I
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: am on a lot of K pop TikTok don't judge
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: or k drama TikTok and they're not really eligible to
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  Speaker 4: sell anything. It's just individuals who like to pull show
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: portions of like clips of a show or clips of
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: a performance.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And says eligible. I'm like, wait, do they.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Choose to put that on there? Or is that just
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Tiktoks like, Hey, I'm gonna put this on there.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Great question. I'm not one hundred percent sure. So if
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: anybody listening is like, that's not cracked, let me know.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: My understanding is that in order to be eligible for
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: TikTok's Affiliate creator program, you a creator has to have
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: five thousand or more followers. And so I think that
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: when it says eligible for commission, I think that that
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: is TikTok's way of saying, hey, this person it's like
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: a bad thing, Like, hey, this person has met the
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: requirements in order to be able to be part of
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: TikTok's affiliate program. That's what I think. Oh, don't one
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: hundred percent quote me on.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: That, yeah, because that the scares me and makes me
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: like I don't want to buy anything from you.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You get away from me immediately run.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Well, that's kind of the thing that I that I
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: want to talk about today is that I feel like
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: something about the experience of being on TikTok which previously
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: had been this platform to like consume, whether it's your
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: K pop fan cams or whatever, now having everything feel
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: like kind of spammy just feels kind of sus like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: it just feels scammy. It feels weird, and I don't
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: know that it's really lending itself to an experience. It
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: feels like a place where you would want to enter
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: your financial information for instance, you.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: Know, right, I think a lot of it feels like
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I'm being like, like you said, I feel like I'm
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: being scammed, which I'm already like very overly cautious of
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: because it's constant as it is, whether it's misinformation from
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: some things, because we know a lot of things are
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: happening TikTok uh in Instagram and Twitter, all the things
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: that I've decided to be similar things to show the
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: stories or the whatever whatnot, and a lot of activists
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: and people who have been censored are able to come
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: on to there, to be able to do a lot
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: more content. But it makes me worry that I'm like,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: is this all a lie? And is this for money?
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Because I know, I don't if you're gonna talk about
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: this in a minute. The STC just went after several
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: creators for not doing enough to show that they are sponsored.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Yet this is something that I could talk about all day.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: I will say this that, like I think a lot
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: of creators and also platforms have been skirting lines around
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: what is and it's not sponsored content. By law, if
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: something is an AD, you have to it has to
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: be clear. It doesn't matter if you're on social media
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: or not. And so I remember seeing that those influencers
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: had gotten popp by the FTC for not disclosing that
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: something is an AD. You see influencers doing all kinds
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: of tricks where they make the sponsored or hashtag ad
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: so tiny you can see it. Maybe they put it
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: on the on the almost Instagram story, they hide it
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: behind something, all kinds of tricks. But let me tell you,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: if you are someone who is intending to be an
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: influencer or intending to make content that is sponsored, don't
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: piss off the FDC. It's not worth it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: It's not a good idea. That's about the professionals.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, and we've we've had to have meetings about this,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Like I am terrified of it. I'm like, I will
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: say like fifteen times, like just.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: So a ad like going back to because more and
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: more I am seeing creators that I've trusted or I
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: follow having the commission being an AD for something and
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: being confused because it feels like a normal video that
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: I usually would watch with them with all of a
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: sudden insert of something and I'm like, wait, did I
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: just watch an AD? And it like like it's it's
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: odd how often it's happening. And I feel like there's
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: definitely a pointed like black Friend, as well as holidays
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: deals coming up, all of these and I get enough
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: of that with like Amazon exactly.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: And I guess that's my thing. I think that TikTok
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: is unique as a shopping platform in terms of being
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: what they call a social shopping platform, which is like
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: a mix of social media content that is user generated
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and also e commerce shopping ability. I think that exactly
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: what you said, like there is something about TikTok that
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: has primed me to think when I am scrolling that platform,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I am just in getting content from engaging people, when
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: that content is actually an AD, when that content is
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: actually trying to sell me something something about it happening
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: on a platform that I just have normalized, is like
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: where I get by my funny content or whatever. Just
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: doesn't it just doesn't. I don't know. It just feels
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: really strange. And I think that again, when I'm on
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Instagram scrolling, I'm a pretty good sense that, like I
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: am getting content from in for people who are really
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: polished and pretty. I feel like on TikTok there is
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: something that is harder for me to resist. Right on Instagram,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: it's like they're serving up ads for this aspirational version
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: of the person I want to be, right, polished and
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: pretty and effortless. On TikTok, they are speaking to the
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: person that I actually am, which is like lazy and
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: easily entertained by novelty, right, and so like something about
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: it being a more authentic space just also makes it
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: a space where it's like you're more poised to, if
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: you're me, pull the trigger on stuff that you maybe
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: don't even need.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: And this was a recent development, right, Like the things
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: that you're speaking to, the things you're seeing, that's kind
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of a new thing on TikTok.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Correct, absolutely, So what's going on is that this is
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: the rollout of TikTok Shop. TikTok's affiliate creator program that
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: was officially rolled out in September after months of testing.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: How it works is, as I said, creators that have
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: more than five thousand followers can get a cut of
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: whatever they sell on the platf TikTok takes a five
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: percent cut as well. So the rollout for this was
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: like not great in some of the ways we'll talk
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: about on this episode. But with Black Friday coming up,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: TikTok is really kind of seeing this as a big
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: way to test the platform not just to be a
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: social app, but to be a social shopping app with
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: the potential to rival other e commerce big platforms like
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: your Amazon's, your Sheian's. Things like that Black Friday officially
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: rolled out on TikTok last month. Whirired. Actually, that are
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: really great breakdown of how it works. You might see
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: stuff on TikTok for Black Friday that is like suspiciously
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: low price, or like, how does this make sense that
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: this is so cheap? Well, that's because TikTok is kind
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: of subsidizing these suspiciously low prices on this gamble that
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: they're betting that social shopping is going to be the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: next big thing. So the app sellers can pick items
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: to be discounted on their shops and then create their
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: own markdowns, which are then further subsidized by TikTok's discounts.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Kind of like how when Uber first came out, ubers
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: were like really cheap. You could get where you were
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: going for like eight dollars, and that was because Uber
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: the company was subsidizing the cost and like operating at
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: a pretty big loss in order to get us like
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: all hooks to use an Uber. And now that same
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: ride probably is thirty dollars or more because Uber is
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: no longer subsidizing the cost to get us all hooked.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: We're all hooked now, right, And so yeah, so that's
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: been happening. You're s going through TikTok, as you said,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: and you're not used to this kind of like having
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: this authentic content and then ads. So you were talking
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: about that of how it's just kind of been jarring
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and hard for you to get sus out more.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: What's an AD and what's not?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about that and why this is something
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: that we should be talking about totally.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: So I think, like you said, like there's just something
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: about this experience on TikTok that is psychologically different. You
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: go to Amazon out of utility. Right when I need
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: something on Amazon, I pull up the app, or I
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: type in Amazon dot common to the browser, and I
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: search what it is that I need, I buy it,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: and I'm done. On TikTok, it does feel more like
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: a QVC because you're just scrolling content. So some of
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: it is adds, some of it is non ad content.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: But I think that having it be this experience where
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: it's like it's just stuff being served to you at
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: least makes me a lot more eager to buy, Like
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: I find myself buying things that I just fully do
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: not need because of that scroll where I'm in the
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: mindset that I'm just looking at content. I'm not necessarily
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: trying to go shopping right now. And here's why I
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: think that people should care and why this is actually
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: really important. Everybody is always talking about how powerful TikTok's
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: algorithm is, right, it feels like it can really suss
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: out a lot about you, your needs, your insecurities, how
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: you live your life, all of that. So when you
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: add in that hyper targeted feel to shopping, it can
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: feel like it creates the conditions for folks to just
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: buy bye bye without really thinking right. Changes to the
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: way that we shop digitally that reduce what they call
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: friction just make it really easy, easier than ever to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: just click buy on something you might not even really want.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: And as we're all thinking about doing our holiday shopping,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: we should really also be having critical conversations about the
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: way that shopping is showing up in our lives on
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: social media platforms and who all of those changes really benefit,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: because I would argue is not benefiting us the person
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: who is like just trying to look at TikTok content
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: without being surfaced up as every third TikTok.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: And one of the big questions as I'm looking at this,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: because they have added I feel like so many different
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: ways to shop, like we have that now the targeted
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Hey we have a sale, you should go this where
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: the shop to people who are influencers saying I found
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: this hack, go to this place. Or the one that
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: drives me crazy is the Amazon Finds or Amazon Deals
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: of the Day and then you go to their link
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: and it has it on their link and you go
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: through their site and they get a cost of money.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: There's so many different things like that, where it feels
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: like it's just a consumer mechanism now exactly.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: So, I did an interview with Pretty Critical. She's a
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: TikTok content creator who uses her platform to really have
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: frank conversations about shopping and financial, health and wellness and
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: beauty and consumerism. And she basically said the whole thing
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: right that, like it feels like a cycle. There's just
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: so many different things on the platform that are telling
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: you bye bye, bye bye bye, that it really normalizes
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: consumption without critical thought. It makes it seem like it
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: is totally normal to have an entire display of Stanley
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: water tumblers of every different color of the rainbow when
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: you cannot possibly use all of them. It makes you
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: think like, hey, this is normal. Everybody is doing this.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: And another thing that she pointed out in our interview,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: which you could listen to on my podcast, There Are
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: No Girls on the Internet, is that you don't necessarily
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: know the financial situation of either of the people that
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: you're seeing on tikto and so like this TikTok creator
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: might be making content that feels really authentic that makes
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: you think like, oh, we're really similar, we're living similar
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: kinds of lives, but you don't know that to be true.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: She might have a trust fund, she might have a
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: rich partner, right like, she might be in a totally
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: different financial situation than you and be financially incentivized through
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: making money in getting you to feel the connection to
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: be like, yeah, I have a million water tumblers. You
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: can too, That's a totally normal thing to do. And
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: so I think all of that leads to folks feeling
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: more and more like these platforms are just I don't know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: dystopian digital malls rather than platforms to really have conversation
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: and connection and learn things. Amanda Mall is this journalist
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: at The Atlantic who has been doing a lot of
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: great coverage about how we shop online. I'll be citing
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: a few of her pieces in this conversation, but in
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: her piece, It's too easy to buy stuff you don't want,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: she points out that retailers online have really made some
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: intentional changes to get us to do exactly what you
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: just said, Samanthah, but just really easily click by. Amanda writes,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: over time those changes have become really commonplace, Like you
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: don't have to type in a password or your credit
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: card information every single time you shop online. Like, I
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: was really surprised when I bought something on TikTok. I
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: bought one thing on TikTok shop once when I want
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: to buy something else, I was really surprised that they
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: just saved all of my information and it was just like, oh,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: you want to buy something else, well, all you got
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: to do is click here, one click right. I was like, Oh,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I don't think they asked for my permission to do this,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: that I remember. I don't think like I told them
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: to do this. It was a little sus to me
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: how easy the platform had made it by saving all
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: of my information. And so retailers really refer to this
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: as friction. Friction is anything that might present a barrier
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: between you actually making that purchase. You know, I can't
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: tell you how many times I click buy on something
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: only to leave it in my online cart and then
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: like just abandon it for whatever reason. Is that something
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: that you've ever done.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: All the time. I love that when I go though
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: it first and foremost. At one point, TikTok people so
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: were like, hey, this is a good way to stop
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: stop spending money. Think about it. Just keep it in
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: your in your car for a little while, and then
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: if you still need it or think about it a
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: week later, come back to it, like if you if
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: you wait, you might find out that you.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Actually don't need it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: So I did this because I am easily influenced, apparently
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: by TikTok, And yes, I leave things for a year
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: until is like unavailable, and then I'm like, I guess I.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Didn't need that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I once after I broke up with my ex, Oh,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I used to put I would I would lie awake
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: at night and I couldn't sleep, and I would put
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: these cookies in my cart bridge. I would put this
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: dozen cookies in my cart from this place in Atlanta
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that delivers hot cookies all night. And one time I
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: finally would like, I left them there, left them there.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: One time I finally I was like, all right, I'm
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: going to do it. This woman shows up and she
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: looks like, oh, you didn't mean to order this many cookies,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: because all the times I had put the cookies in
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: the cart they were so I spent seventy five dollars
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: cookies for one person.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: What'd you do with those cookies?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Though?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I took them outside and then destroyed them with a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: baseball bat because I was a really dramatic part of.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: My life, the part of the breakup that gets dramatic.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It was raining outside. Yeah, it was the whole thing.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't eat any of the cookies.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Which made that's tragic to me, and I felt offended
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: by that not eating the cookie, at least one one
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: warm cookie. I would eat the MOOKI yeah, and crying them.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: That's obviously a part of that. But I will say
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: I think another part that bothers me about this new
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: incentive and new ideal is that one of the reasons
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I did like and I did start shopping with TikTok
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: was that you could find independent stores, small shops, small
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: shops created by marginalized people, and you kind of had
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: a better Maybe I was being tricked, I don't know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: but a better understanding of where these products were coming
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: from and who it was benefiting. I've done Christmas presents
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: through that. I think I bought a shirt from Mahogany
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: t Shirts, which has you know, I loved her company
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: and I love what she represented, and I really wanted
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: to do that. So I found her on TikTok and
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: I loved everything about that. Found other shops similar to
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: that that I'm like, I want to support this creator,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: and now it's kind of feeling like it's getting toppled
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: by these other bigger content and bigger corporations.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what I have seen. I want to be
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: clear that it is not all bad. Wire reports that
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: small businesses can really see a boost from social selling
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: on TikTok, like shops can see a flood of interest
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: on their products that they take off or go viral
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: on TikTok. So I want to be clear that I'm
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: not trying to demonize small businesses. I think that small
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: businesses and artisans should be able to have platforms. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: because of the way that TikTok shop has been rolled out,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: you have small business and like artisan goods also alongside
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: goods made by like big box retailers whose names you
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: would recognize, like I think pac Son is on there,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Zara is on there. Then you have like basically mass
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: produced junk, like crap that is going to break immediately.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: You have all of that vying on the same platform.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: And so I think it's great the idea that small
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: businesses or small artists or artisans can go viral or
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: really you know, have a boost in sales and visibility
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: by using a platform. I don't know that it's necessarily
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: fair to have those small creators in small shops competing
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: with Zara and pac Son and then also competing with
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: like name unknown mass produced item that costs a nickel
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: to make or something like. I almost feel like it
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily create fair conditions for those small businesses and
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: artisans to thrive.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Right, And I think one of the things that I'm
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: hearing through this conversation as someone who doesn't use TikTok
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: that much, is that this sounds like a lot of
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: other things that I have used. Though It's like the
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: idea of making it easier to pay, of storing your
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: payment information, of removing this friction, as you say, removing
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: these barriers, of offering these deals.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It's almost.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Kind of heartbreaking.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It feels like it's kind of following these other patterns
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: but perfecting on it, or like making it more difficult.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, And so I guess that's one of the things
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: that I really want to point out in this episode
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: is that we should just be aware of how all
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: of these changes and tweaks incentivize us to buy, makes
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: it seamless to do so, and benefits platforms and retailers.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: So if you have a little bit of a shopping problem,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: which if you do, you should definitely talk to somebody
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: about that. But like you are, not just it's not
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: just happens dance. All of these digital changes make it
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: very very easy to buy, even when you don't want
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: the thing. Amanda Mall writes, a handful of small changes
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: to the mechanics of online shopping had begun to accumulate
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: into something meaningful. Advertisers were amassing stores of personal data
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: with which to tailor they're to ad targeting retailers were
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: offering free shipping and free returns on anything. Buy now,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: decide later. Browsers and operating systems were urging users to
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: save login credentials and financial details with their software. The
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: expanded use of payment shortcuts like Apple Pay and Shopify
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: shop pay were circumventing the need to create a new
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: account or log into an old one. Buy now, pay
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: later services including Klarna and a firm were beginning to
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: pop up at more retailers to soften the blow of spending.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: In the intervening five years, these changes have become the
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: default infrastructure of online shopping, maximizing convenience over all else
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: in an effort to make buying things as effortless as possible,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: as retailers are all too eager to tell everyone, buying
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: things online has never been so simple, so seamless, so easy,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: so easy in fact, that we might all be better
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: off with a few more speed bumps. And I mean
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: it sounds counterfintuitive, but I agree ease and convenience is great.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Like I am not above being taken in by convenience,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: but when it comes to technology, convenience always comes at
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: a cost. And so the cost is that like maybe
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: we're all buying more junk than we actually mean to
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: buy because it is so easy and that ease. It
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: may seem convenient to us, but actually we're losing out,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: and it's platforms and retailers who are benefiting.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of a joke that
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of us have said. That started with in
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: my opinion, Amazon, but it was like, to get the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: free shipping, I need to spend a little bit more
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: on something else. But ultimately, are you saving more money
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: if you're buying something you didn't really want or need?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Just to get the free shipping. It's just like they've
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: convinced us, Oh, this is a deal though, this is
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: a deal.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, And it's so effective. Like the psychology
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: of how we spend is fascinating, like and we've all
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: felt it where you're like, oh, well, like when you
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: put here in DC, we're having a big conversation about
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: tipping and like how much you should tip if they
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: do an automatic tip whatever, And there's something about it,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: like if you went to a restaurant and the hamburger
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: was ten dollars and you were like, okay, that's fine,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: and then at the end of the meal it's like,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: oh well, a twenty five percent service fee that's mandatory.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: You're like, whoa, what is this? What is this like
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: aftermarket fee that I did not know about the psychology
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: of that is different than if the price of that
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: hamburger was twenty five percent. More like the way that
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: our brains work around prices and what's too high and
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: what's like you know, what is like a ceiling you
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: will not cross. It's so fascinating, but we've all experienced it, right,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and so part of me can't even blame the retailers
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: for taking advantage of these these quirks to our psychology.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is fascinating because it's I think it's like
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: you feel when you feel like you're getting scammed as
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you say, or or you're getting the deal, Like are
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: you coming out on top of this thing? Are you
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: coming out on bottom when all of it's kind of
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: capitalism that is screwing us all over exactly.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: That's like if there was like a tagline to every
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: piece of content I make is that it's capitalism's fault,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Like that's the real the real enemy here. And something
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: else to note is that kind of like what you
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: were talking about, Samantha of you know, are you getting
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: something that is made lovingly by an artisan? Are you
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: getting like a piece of crap that's going to fall apart?
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Some of the stuff that you can buy on TikTok
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: shop is not on the level right, Like this is
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: really speaking to when they first rolled out. I think
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: that they've kind of maybe normalized some of this now,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: But when TikTok Shop first rolled out, the platform just
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: felt like you were getting served up ads for junk essentially.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Amanda mall That and a journalist I talked about earlier
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: She talked about TikTok spokesperson who said that their algorithm
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: plus human moderation was supposed to weed out bad products,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: like if a product didn't match the item that was shipped,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: or if like something was wrong with it. It used a
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: different image that a human plus an algorithm was supposed
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: to weed that out, but that sometimes it just didn't
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: work that effectively. Amanda writes, sometimes problems go unnoticed until
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: people start reporting issues, like the listing will use stock
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: images that don't depict the products they're actually selling, omit
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: important details on sizing or material or composition, or offer
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: counterfeit and potentially unsafe products. Even legitimate listings from scrupulous
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: sellers can make for a confusing or scammy feeling shopping
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: experience because sellers create a lot of duplicate listings for
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: the same products. That's especially common on TikTok, where sellers
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: rush to meet demand for the handful of products that
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: have captivated the platform at any particular moment, And I
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: think that's like why it can feel so scammy. When
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I was doing my recent for the episode I did
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: with that influencer Pretty Critical, numerous people I talked to
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: said that they would never buy anything on TikTok. They
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: would never put their financial information into TikTok because something
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: about it just made it seem like you were gonna
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: get scammed if you did.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, we definitely had money of stories.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the pink sauce? Lady?
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, the pink ye'all? I tried the pink sauce. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: did not. I did not buy on TikTok. I bought
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: it omar. I wouldn't buy a food product on TikTok,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: although more on that later. But did anyone try it?
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what this is.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Pink food weirds me on anyway like that, But I'm like, no,
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: I'm good. Yeah, you were more adventurous.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pink sauce was this condiment that I just got
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: a random lady on TikTok was making in her house
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: and it ret viral. You could buy it on TikTok.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: It was bright pink. But then sometimes people would buy
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: it and they were like, oh, it was more like brown.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Like it was like there was clearly not a lot
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: of like no, because this is yeah, not a lot
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: of consistency happening, and people were like, oh, don't. Like
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: people would get the bottles and they would be like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: it's like you know when a bottle, like something is
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: going wrong with the product, and the bottle was like inflated,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: people would be like, Oh, something's up with this. But
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: it was actually ended up being a situation where because
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: it went so viral, I think, like a legitimate food
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: retailer bought it and that's why I was able to
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: like buy a legitimate bottle of it in walmartket.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for the longest time, she had to stop production
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: because she got FDA coming on to her and they're like,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: is this even tested? And like she would not talk
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: about what the ingredients were. There was milk involved and
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: it wasn't being like ice or anything. When it was
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: sent down and everybody was like okay, and everybody's bottle
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: had different colors.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, I this is like such an aside.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I remember when that was happening. She went on TikTok
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Live and she was like, people are making fun of
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: my pink sauce of this that FDA approved. I don't
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: make medicine. I don't make a drug. Why would it
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: have to be FDA approved? And it was like, honey,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: the first fic food though literally get it.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, you get people you're screwed. There's a lot
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: of building but yeah, like stuff like that.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: I know, there was a big conversation like who is
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: actually testing these things?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Who can say?
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: And like because she was getting big endorsements from people
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: like this is tasty, from people who had millions of
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: followers because she would just send them out for free,
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: and people were like the pickle lady. There's a pickled
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: person too who did the same thing. It was a
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: similar situation that everybody and then everybody had a backtrack
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: and then TikTok had a kind of backtrack and be
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: like okay, okay, calm down, everybody.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: So this actually that's actually a good segue into another
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: issue with like TikTok shop feeling a little bit scammy
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: is the issue of like what happens when a product
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: on there is not just a dupe or like a
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: counterfeit product, but it's actually harmful because some of the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: stuff that you get on TikTok, particularly stuff that you're consuming,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: could be harmful if it's not actually being regulated. So
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: TikTok says that they ban the advertising and sale of
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: all counterfeit products quote. By ensuring the safety and authenticity
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: of products sold on our platform, we create a positive
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: shopping experience that users can have confidence in their policy says. However,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: a guardian of report back in April suggests that these
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: rules were not being effectively enforced, with illicit beauty products
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: routinely being promoted to users via their content feeds and
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: search results. TikTok again takes a cut, so that means
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: that the platform was effectively profiting off of the sale
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: of illegal and or counterfeit goods. And so again it's
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: not just that this is like can be scammy, or
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: can be like counterfeit or whatever. It can be harmful.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: TikTok bans the sale of prescription only medicines such as
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: acne skin cream or skin whitening creams that contain certain
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: band ingredients. But if you're on skincare TikTok, when the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: skin product tretton Noen was taking off on the platform,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: which you need a prescription for, you could buy it
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: easily on TikTok shop. So there's a reason and why
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: that skincare product is prescription only. It can lead to
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: interactions with other medications and calls fetal abnormalities have taken
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: while you're pregnant, and so it is recommended that you
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: use it under a doctor supervision. But if you're just
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: buying it on TikTok, you're obviously not using it under
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: a doctor supervision. The Guardian actually spoke to doctor Jane
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Ravenscroft of the British Association of Dermatologists, who said that
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: the sale of illicit skincare creams was a major concern
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: and a major public health risk. She says, unfortunately, people
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: selling these prescription products illegally are preying on people's insecurities
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: and naivete. Social media adds fuel to this fire. TikTok
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: did eventually block searches for trettonoen and removed listings from
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: third party vendors that referred to that ingredient after The
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Guardian published this report. But yeah, it's not just that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: these products can be scammy or spammy or just counterfeit
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: or not at the level they could hurt you, like
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: if you take the medication the wrong way. It can
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: mess you up. If you eat something that has not
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: been FDA approved and it's a weird color and it's
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: like a dairy product that has not been kept cold,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: you can get really sick. Like this is not a game,
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: it's serious, right, Yeah.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And I think one thing about this that again I
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: find interesting about the Human Psyche is that I once
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: tried to get desperately. I wanted these contacts for cosplay.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: They're illegal in the US, and I was like, but
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I can get them, though, and I could. I found
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: a way I could buy them. But you know, this
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: should have been a part of my mind that was
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: like wait though, and I never used them. But I think,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: like it's a mistake to think that people who are
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: buying these things are stupid or they're not intelligent.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I think it's a mistake.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: If it's available and easy to buy, I totally understand it.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Like I totally get it, especially if you're seeing people
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: that you follow maybe respect relate to using a product
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, well they are using it, They're fine,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: I'll use it too. So I think that's the key
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: thing to say.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so glad you added that. I Yeah, Like,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I don't think that anybody who is buying things and
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: like diligently searching for them to buy them, even if
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: they're not like approved or whatever. If they're legal illegal here.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's on them, It is on the platform. Like,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think that a platform should be then making
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: money from that from that they don't thin they should
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: get it. I don't think that a platform should get
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: a cut from someone who has like made the decision
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: to seek out something that maybe is not legal here
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: for whatever reason. Right, Like, there's I'm big into sunscreens.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: There's all kinds of sunscreens that I like to use
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: that you can't just go into cvs in the United
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: States and buy, right, But Like, I think it's different
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: when a platform, a private company is taking a cut
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: of that illegal transaction. Right, Like, There's been a whole,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: a whole situation of like parents who unfortunately lost their
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: kids because their kids brought illegal drugs on platforms like
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: TikTok or Snapchat, which apparently is like not really that difficult.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Imagine then if TikTok or Snapchat was also taking a
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: cut of that sale, right, Like, that wouldn't be acceptable.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: And I think, I mean it's really an issue of
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: like I don't blame the individual who's making that choice,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: but I don't think that platform should be financially benefiting
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: from it because then it's incentivized absolutely.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: So, as you said, this is a pretty new thing
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: and uh TikTok shop and it's been a little bit
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: of a rough rollout. What do you think is in
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: the future for it? Is it here to stay?
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: This is a great question. I guess the answer I
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: will give is maybe tbd. We will see. I think
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: it kind of depends on how Black Friday goes for TikTok.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: This kind of shopping functionality is much more common in China,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: where TikTok is based with brands like Timu, and I
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: think that TikTok is kind of betting that will take
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: off here too. It's a lot less like Amazon. Like
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: when I first started researching this, I was like, Oh,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: they're trying to be like Amazon with content. It's more
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: like Sheian with content, right, So, like, imagine if like Amazon,
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Shean and TikTok all merged into one super app where
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: you consumed content and also made content and also shopped.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Social and live shopping is huge across Asia. Wired reports
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: that in China alone, live shopping is expected to drive
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: nearly twenty percent of online shopping this year. And I
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: think that it's when when Elon Musk decided that he
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: was going to try to change the name of Twitter
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: to X. I think that he was trying to turn
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: X into like a super app where you are having
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: making social content, talking to people, but also banking, also
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: watching video, right, Like, I don't know if that is
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: going to really take off in the United States. Like
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's a bit of a cultural shift to
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: that that sort of thing. Facebook and in both tried
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: to do live shopping functionality and then later phase them out,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: so it didn't work for them. And I just think
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: that maybe we're not really I don't know, I don't
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: know if we are really down to shop that way
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: in the United States. Like, look at Amazon when I shop. Unfortunately,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: I do use Amazon. I know. I like to buy
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: my groceries from Whole Foods when I can, which Amazon owns.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: I use One Medical as my healthcare provider. Amazon owns
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: that too. Here in DC, my local newspaper is the
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Washington Post. Well, guess who owns that Amazon. I'm not
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: thrilled about this, and I don't think that most people
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: are thrilled with the idea of one place being where
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: they get a lot of their needs met. And I
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: think that TikTok is kind of betting that this is
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: just the inevitable future of the Internet and social media
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: and commerce, and that we're all going to get used
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: to it. I saw a report that TikTok is actually
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: planning on selling and delivering groceries and the United States soon.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I haven't been able to verify that, but I did
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: see a report indicating that it might sound hard to believe,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: but in twenty twenty two, TikTok did announce that people
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: could now purchase fresh and frozen food directly from TikTok
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: shop in the UK. So it's not that far fetched
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: that they would then be like, well, we want to
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: be where you make contact, where you consume content, where
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: you get your groce fees, where you buy your novelty goods, everything.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: And I think that's kind of my point in bringing
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: this to you all today, is that, like you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: with technology like this, it may start out as convenient,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: but convenience always comes at a cost when it comes
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: to technology. If one tech company becomes the end all
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: be all of how we consume everything, how we buy everything,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: we could see a dynamic where they can really do
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: whatever they want because what are we going to do?
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Go elsewhere their everything?
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: You know, Amazon's trying to sell cars.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Oh you rightly so much? At what point is it
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: like we don't need to get everything from you? Like
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: fair if I want to get a car, I can like,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: are you gonna sell houses? Like what's next?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: What is happening? Yeah? I will.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: I find it interesting that TikTok has got done this
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: because again we've talked about the algorithm, and so when
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: you click on something for I've done this on Facebook.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: This is where I'm like, I feel like a boomer
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: or I've accidentally clicked on a link of advertising and
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: then then from then on I just kept getting that
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: one advertising. So I'm thinking like with TikTok being the
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: way their algorithm is is kind of similar to that word.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: They just get almost obsessive, like U slaw. This is
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: one thing I'm going to show you twenty times. This
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: is the one thing. So how does that how that's
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: going to kind of break TikTok in my head because
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: that's not what like you want the algorithm, but not
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: that very specific algorithm.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to be stalked by one pair
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: of boots that I happen to click on once that
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: I might not even want, Like that's just not the
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: experience that I want for my digital ecosystem. It's like
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: I just I just think that we deserve better, Like
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: I think that, you know. It makes me feel a
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: bit sad, like the end all be all of the
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: promise of technology is like how can we get people
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: to click on stuff and sell them things? Like I
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: want to have digital media platforms where I'm learning things,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: where I'm experiencing things, where I'm having community. And it
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: just makes me sad that, like it seems like the
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: end all be all is just like how can we
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: sell more junk? I hate that right right?
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: And then talking about the fact that TikTok was originally
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: for younger generations, younger kids, and how easy it is
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: to buy this could be a parent's worst nightmare.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, NBC actually did a report all about how
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: minors like young people are selling products on TikTok shop,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: even though that is against TikTok's policies. All they have
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: to do is lie about their age. But like, just imagine,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: like me a grown woman getting sold a pair of
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: leggings by like a sixteen year old in between their classes.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: It is just dystopian. It's just very weird.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: That makes me said, yeah, I was gonna say dystopian too,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: because it feels like not only are they trying to
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: all of these tech companies are trying to take over
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: like every avenue of our lives. It's hard to imagine
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the time before something like Amazon for me, But it's
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: also they want you to spend all of your time there,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: all of your time consuming the content, buying the things,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: and it's just like a cycle where you're trapped and
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: all of your time is right there.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, and that is exactly the dynamic that I want
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: for all of us to break free from. Like we
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: already give these platforms so much, they already take so
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: much from us. They don't have to take everything. And
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: I guess I worry that we're going to get to
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: a place where this is going to be more normalized
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: that like they just they want all of your time
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: and all of your money and all of your energy,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: and I don't think we should give it to them.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: So this holiday, I really want us to make smart
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: choices about how and what and why we buy. You know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: if you're finding yourself buying stuff that you don't need
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: on social media. Ask some question, like do you really
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: need that item? Put it in your cart and see
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: how that feels for a while. Don't click buy right away.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Are you clicking this because it's easy, because you're bored,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: because it's like a dopamine hit, Like, really, ask some
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: questions about why it is you're buying things. Oh and
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: if you really hate TikTok shop and you don't want
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: to see any more of those eligible for commission videos,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: you can actually turn it off. If you go to
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: your profile on TikTok, open the menu in the top right,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: hit settings and Privacy content preferences, filter video keywords, and
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: then add hashtag TikTok shop. You will not have to
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: see those ads anymore. My holiday gift from me to you.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: You're welcome, Thank you.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I need this.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I love that. And I actually was thinking about this.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I think it'd be interesting to come back after this
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: has been around for a little bit longer. Because you
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: also did the episode bridget on de influencing on TikTok,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: so I feel likek the there's an interesting intersection there
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: of like that was happening where people were saying, okay,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: let's get de influenced to now you have TikTok shop,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: So what does that look like?
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: That's such an interesting question. I'm so curious to see because,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: like I do think that people want like more authentic
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: online experiences that are not just like bye bye bye.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: And I think that's why we saw deinfluencing pop up
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: as a trend. So how will that bump up alongside
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: TikTok shop taking off?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: We will see yes, yes, well.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much as always Bridget for taking the
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: time for breaking this down for us. We love to
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: have you. Hopefully we'll have you back for some scream
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: stuff along with the tech content that we love.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: You can find me at my podcast there are no
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: girls on the Internet. You can find me on Instagram
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: at Bridget Marie and DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you again so much, and listeners, if you would
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: like to contact us you can. You can find us
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: email us at Stephania mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter, a podcasts, or on
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Instagram and TikTok at stuff. One never told you we
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: have a book that you can get wherever you get
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: your books. We have a tea public score. Thanks as
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: always too, our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: and our contributor Joey.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: is a protection by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
• 47:17
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