Dear TikTok

I originally wrote this essay as part of a job application, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. So, I decided to post it here. I think it’s too good to go unnoticed.

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Dear TikTok,

I don’t even know how to start this without smiling a little. Because honestly, you’ve been that app for me. The fun one. The one I’d turn to when everything else felt too loud. You made me laugh. You made me feel seen. You knew just what to say, be it a random meme, a girl ranting about the same thing I was going through, or a stranger dancing in their kitchen to a sound I’d end up hearing in my dreams.

You felt easy. Familiar. Like home.

But I think that’s how most toxic relationships begin, right?

At first, it was harmless. A five-minute scroll while I eat. A quick check before bed. A little laughter when I needed it most. But slowly, without even realizing, you became the first thing I reached for in the morning and the last thing I saw before I slept.

 

I started sharing more with you than with my friends.

Started letting your voice get louder than mine.

Started thinking, “Just one more video,” until it was 2am and I hadn’t done any of the things I said I would.

 

You made me forget myself.

 

Not in the romantic, swept-off-my-feet way. In the slow, invisible way where your world starts revolving around someone who doesn’t even know your name.

 

I’d come to you when I was low, hoping for comfort, and leave feeling worse.

Like I wasn’t doing enough. Like I wasn’t enough.

While you showed me everyone else’s highlight reels, you made me question my own worth.

 

I hate that I love you. That even now, I’m hesitating. That part of me wants to go back, just for a second, just to feel the high of your attention again.

 

But this isn’t healthy. I can’t keep losing hours of my life to your scroll.

I can’t keep comparing my behind-the-scenes to someone else’s curated feed.

I can’t keep putting my dreams on pause because I’m lost in someone else’s.

 

You were my escape, but now you’re my cage.

 

And I want more.

More peace. More focus. More time for the things I say matter to me.

 

I wish I could love you and still be okay. I wish I could stay and not get sucked in. But I know myself. And loving you means losing myself.

 So this is me choosing myself.

It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I care too much and that’s why this hurts. But sometimes, love isn’t enough. Especially when it keeps me from being who I’m meant to be.

 

I hope someday we can reconnect—maybe when I’ve learned balance. When I’ve learned how to have you in my life and still live for myself.

 But for now, I need distance. I need space to become again.

Goodbye, TikTok.

Love always,

Someone who really did.