I spent years dismissing social media. My working definition of it was “the illusion that someone gives a shit about you.” I wasn’t posting my meals. I wasn’t performing for strangers. I had 40 years of brand strategy behind me. I was too smart for all that.
Or was I?
TikTok crept up while I was busy being right. One day it had taken over — the culture, the music discovery, the marketing innovation, the ideas. All of it was happening there. And I wasn’t.
I’ve watched this movie before. Executives in the 80s who wouldn’t type on a PC because that was a secretary’s job. Businesses in the 90s asking why they’d ever need a website. The pattern is always the same: things are working, the learning curve was hard, why change now? Every generation has its moment of resistance. Every generation pays for it.
