Make Privacy Great Again

On life in a Content world

A certain viral TikTok clip recently received a lot of praise from some of my fellow conservatives. It was a clip of a black father laying down the law to his young son (maybe 10 or 11) after the boy had been rude to his mother. The father dares the son to “talk to me like you talked to your mother.” The boy looks defeated, mumbling “I don’t know” when asked why he cussed out his mom.

Black conservative politician Tony Lane shared the clip with a lengthy approving commentary about how this little scene exemplifies “what needs to be done in the black community to address crime and violence” — fathers being present in the home, nipping rebellion in the bud, training up their sons in the way they should go. White conservatives in my feed made similar comments.

In fact, I seemed to be almost the only conservative who felt differently about the whole thing. Instead of resharing it, I wanted to ask why it was filmed, why it was on TikTok, and why no one else seemed to be asking these questions.

These sorts of viral clips aren’t uncommon. An even more dramatic one was shared around earlier this summer, allegedly of a boy who had bullied a bald kid with cancer and was losing his own locks as a punishment. The boy, who looks like he might be 11 at most, is throwing a screaming fit in the barber’s chair. Presumably, his father is behind the camera. A prominent black pastor posted the clip approvingly, saying “More fathers like this will ensure fewer future criminals on the streets.”

Again, I have questions: Why was this filmed? Why was it shared?

The fact that we no longer seem to ask these questions reveals a cultural blind spot that transcends political divides. There is something our whole culture seems to have collectively lost with the rise of social media: a sense of privacy.