Rona Dougall: TikTok tumble is wonderland of visual treats but a rabbit hole that is so hard to leave

Like Alice in Wonderland, I tumbled into the curious world of TikTok this week. And life will never be the same again.

In case you’ve never heard of this phenomenon, it’s a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos covering every, and I mean every, topic under the sun. More of that in a minute.

It’s massively popular, with over a billion users worldwide, and is owned by Chinese-based company Bytedance. It’s the fastest-growing social media app in the country. But it’s also highly controversial and is being banned from workers’ phones in many institutions and governments, including in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The concern is that the government in Beijing may be using TikTok’s data to spy on users. The US government has been talking about outlawing the app and, last week, politicians spent hours grilling its boss over privacy and national security concerns.

For a humble app used to make silly films it’s creating quite a storm. Many loyal followers are up in arms at the prospect of it being banned, saying that would destroy their livelihoods. Some content creators have become famous and made their fortunes on it. Tracks that go viral can become mainstream music hits.

But it seems to be getting blamed for everything. Even the war in Ukraine. A Norwegian ammunition company said on Monday that plans to expand its business to keep up with orders from the war-torn country were stymied as a new TikTok data centre is using all the energy in the area. “Our future expansion is being challenged by the storage of cat videos,” the chief executive said bitterly.

Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, I thought I’d better sign up and see what all the fuss is about while I still can. I have so far resisted the lure of another social media app as I already waste quite enough time on Facebook and Instagram.

My pals and I did have a brief skirmish with Be Real recently – that’s where you post a picture of your everyday life at random points during the day. But it turned out to be too real and we got depressed at how boring and mundane our lives looked. You can only post so many snaps of rainy car parks, computer screens and supermarket trollies.

So, onwards to Tiktok. Take my hand as we venture into this brave new world and prepare to have your mind blown.

And, wow, all of life is here. It is mind-boggling and mesmerising – a smorgasbord of 21st-Century life and all its craziness right there on a little screen. I’m hooked.

A friendly NASA astronaut shows me how she washes her hair in space.

She’s floating around having a great time and her locks look wonderful, despite the complicated circumstances.

I’m sure there will be something, somewhere on going to the loo in zero gravity too, but I haven’t come across it. Yet.

Scrolling down and I’m being shown round Kris and Hillary’s $2 million motorhome. They have an en suite bathroom and all mod cons. That’s it, I’m selling up and getting an RV. Bricks and mortar are so yesterday, it’s life on the open road for me.

Wait a minute, here’s former Conservative cabinet minister Matt Hancock ironing a nice white shirt. And the video has been viewed 9,439 times. Well, 9,445 now. I couldn’t stop myself, it’s addictive.

He may have acted questionably during the Covid pandemic but, my goodness, he’s very proficient with an iron.

I type “Singing Tortoise” in the search engine just to test the limits of what is actually out there and up pops Timmy giving it laldy in a thin, reedy little voice.

He’s not great, even for a reptile, but I’ve heard worse. Poor Timmy only has nine likes, but it’s OK because he has me now.

I suspect Lewis Carroll, who captured the imagination of so many with his fantastical tales, would thoroughly approve of all of this. It’s surreal and I kind of like it. But be warned, once you fall down this particular rabbit hole it’s very, very difficult to leave.