Staring At The Phone

A story about TikTok

I have a friend who likes to call his ideas projects. Playing music with new people—project. Learning to cook Thai food—project. Questing to visit all 50 states—project. Whatever they might be, it’s the word project which makes all the difference.

Because ideas on their own are just dreams, no better than those flitting through our minds at night and forgotten by morning. But when you call them a project . . . well now they deserve some attention. Suddenly you’ve got an exploratory committee on your hands, charged with the old let’s see where this goes, and a bit of an onus to do something about it.

Take that as preamble to a project of mine, which I refer to as “Staring at the Phone.”

It starts by accident while poking around on the phone. The camera flips on and I take an errant picture of my feet. It seems insignificant but, for a moment, it’s as if the screen isn’t there and I’m just staring at the ground. And it hits me: without this phone in my hand, what the hell would I be looking at all day? The asphalt? The countertop? My partner’s face? Tell me this: what would you be looking at right now?

the photo that started it all

It reminds me of a series by photographer Eric Pickersgill called Removed. He made pictures of people on their devices—at the backyard grill, on a park bench, lying in bed—except the phones have been removed, and all that remains are the empty hands and hollow expressions of his subjects. It must have struck a nerve, racking up a couple million views

from Eric Pickersgill’s series Removed

Maybe, I consider, Staring at the Phone is the a first-person version of Removed.

I start an album on my phone, solicit shots from my family. Then, fantasizing on the popularity of this project, I imagine a coffee table book; or better yet a bathroom book, accounting for the amount of time spent on the phone in there. But, first things first, I need to build an audience, so I do the logical thing and create a TikTok account: @staringatthephone.

Using TikTok to mock the idea of being on the phone seems hilarious, at least while lying in bed excitedly mulling it over. I go in feeling strong on the satire, the wit, the commitment to the project, except that I have never experienced TikTok and—wow—that algorithm is some powerful shit. I am immediately barrel-rolled into the scrum.

my brother at work

I’m no luddite but my brain has to perform mental gymnastics to keep up with the stimulation. The pleasure-center and rational processor fight it out while my consciousness spectates from the bleachers, awash in dopamine. I consume so much content: the guy who cleans dairy cows’ hooves with an angle grinder, the guy who cuts overgrown lawns for free, the guy who refurbished antique tools by hand, and then the smattering of fails, karens, and top talent scattershot across my feed, plus so much more—I cannot stop watching.

In lucid moments, about fifteen seconds after pulling out of a binge, I ask myself: am I interested in these things and therefore TikTok shows me videos; or does TikTok show me videos and therefore I am interested? Am I the action or the reaction? I have never been interested in rethatching cottage roofs in the English countryside. But I am now. And, actually, that might be a nice change of pace.

Just kidding, I have work to do. The project! I press on, posting daily videos of my feet in various locations, pairing them with whatever songs are trending. This makes me laugh, though no one else seems to understand the subversive humor, least of all the algorithm which immediately banishes @staringatthephone to the <50 view backchannels—no viral hits coming from this guy.

So I go back to scrolling.

#ilovemyphone

At the risk of sounding like a Millennial codger, there are two aspects of TikTok which I must highlight.

1. The duets: where someone films themselves in split-screen reacting to another video. In a way, it’s almost like having a face-to-face conversation with another human, aping the body language of actual interaction—except, of course, not. It’s voyeurism (the real gasoline for all of the socials), or rather voyeurism of the voyeur, as we react to people reacting to people. If that’s not the definition of “meta,” I don’t know what is—thanks Zuckerberg.

2. And then there is the way videos just . . . end. Half of them appear to purposefully lead to nothing. No resolution. No satisfaction. It takes at least another two videos to dissipate that feeling of frustration. Which I suppose makes you want to watch more? Darlings of the algorithm, them.

To veer philosophical for a moment, perhaps that’s exactly the point? Perhaps TikTok feels relevant to so many people right now since nothing feels concluded in our increasingly hectic times. Perhaps we are inside a society which doesn’t even want conclusion. We are focused on the present, what’s on the screen now, not worrying about the ending because—fuck it, just keep scrolling.

But end things must, and so it went with Staring at the Phone. After gaining zero traction with my “content,” along with startling screentime figures showing up on Sunday mornings, I shut it down. @staringatthephone lasted a month. (Though I’m pretty sure it’s still up on TikTok, for anyone curious. I haven’t checked in a while.)

enjoying hawaii

Realizing that mocking my phone just made me spend more time on my phone, I deleted TikTok altogether. Stopped taking pictures of my feet. Concluded the project. Not every project is meant for glory, after all. But what does it matter? Worth and success have nothing to do with each other. Even stupid ideas are worth the pursuit, sometimes. Who knows what doors they might open up?

In any case, now I’m kind of tempted to ask you to send footage of your feet so we can crowdsource that fucking coffee table book. If nothing else, it’d probably make a really popular OnlyFans account.

Here’s to staring at anything other than the phone.

Martin