Scott Hanselman

Last year kind sucked, and the end of last year was particularly lame. I got off Twitter for a while and discovered TikTok. I went there as a creative outlet. If you choose to sign up you may get inundated with a bunch of stuff that makes no sense or has no relevance. However, within just a few days by searching for an “liking” topics that I wanted to hear about, I found a wonderful, joyful, diverse TikTok and have learned about everything from Sea Shanties to Indigenous Dances to Woodworking. It’s a lovely little community and I’ve enjoyed my week on it.

I've been trying out video lately, during these trying times, and have very much enjoyed both TikTok and YouTube as creative outlets. I sent out some of my favorite TikTok videos in my occasional newsletter this week.

Here’s some highlights of lovely things on TikTok I’ve found:

• An example of some fun tiny film making from Seth Worley and his son as well as one from Ryan Mitchell, and Karen X. Making small films is a great weekend activity for the family and it costs you nothing!

• Scottish people are having a blast on TikTok and it’s quite creative.

• There’s also a massive reintroduction of Sea Shanties to the world and it all started on TikTok. Polygon has a fascinating article on ShantyTok. Here’s The Fresh Prince, as a Sea Shanty.

• People in support roles for famous people have also taken to TikTok to talk about their experiences. We learn that some of our favs are not super nice, but it’s also lovely to hear when a favorite actor is even nicer in person than we’d guess.

• I’ve found TikTok to also be an endless source of inspiration - particularly as a middle age person who is always trying to get into, and maintain, shape. Folks like Darryll keep me moving!

• Linguistic TikTok is also fun with educational skits like this one on French and this one on Chinese.

• There’s so much fun on TikTok with music as well, folks are creating and dueting music.

I also recently hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube which is fun. Apparently they are sending me a plaque, so more on that soon. My most recent video is here What happens when you type a URL in the browser and press enter? I encourage you to go subscribe. You can get to my main playlist with the alias http://www.computerstufftheydidntteachyou.com

What kinds of creative outlets have you been exploring (to stay sane or otherwise) last year, and what are your plans for this year?

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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