Before the panny, I too was extremely anti-TikTok. I thought it was just another app wanting to be the next shitty Vine so bad. Oh, how judgemental and wrong I was! The TikTok algorithm could probably find a missing child within 2 seconds if it wanted to. My For You Page knows me better than I do; it’s just my id. TikTok is not just another mind-numbing infinitely scrolling social media app, okay, well it is, but it has also proven to be quite the educational platform. I can honestly say that I’ve learned more relevant adulting things on TikTok than I have in school or through my parents. I’m not just talking about taxes, TFSAs and your usual daily dose of TikTok knowledge, but more so “this doesn’t make my life better by much but it’s fun to know” knowledge.
These are some learnings I feel everyone should be aware of:
- The % in Weather Forecasts
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The percentage in weather forecasts doesn’t allude to the percent chance it’s going to rain or snow or what have you. Instead, the percentage you see is actually a calculation called the POP or probability of precipitation. It’s the percent chance it will rain multiplied by the amount of land in one area that it will rain on. Don’t ask me why this is a necessary metric, but it is and that’s what we’ve been reading. Makes no sense if you ask me.
- Feral People in National Parks
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I’m on feral people TikTok. It’s the side of the app that’s obsessed with the theory of feral people living in our national parks. This notion that there are wild people working in tribes to hunt and eat unsuspecting hikers and campers. Allegedly, they’re tied to more than a handful of missing person cases, but no one’s doing anything about it!? It’s said that the government and locals know about them and yet there’s no media coverage or actions taken to stop them. So obviously, the factualness of this one is debatable and it would be best to do your own research, but it’s really fascinating to get lost on this side of TikTok.
- Bacterial Vaginosis: a Potential Reason it Keeps Coming Back
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Okay, so we’ve all gotten BV once or twice in our lives. However, I feel like I’m not alone in this scenario: you’re doing the same person consistently, but you just can’t seem to shake the after-sex BV every single time. Multiple sex therapists on TikTok have explained that you can give your partner the BV bacteria without them realizing, therefore resulting in them not taking care of it. So, every time you guys do the nasty once again, they’re passing that same BV bacteria back to you and thus infecting you once again. Or they’re cheating on you, there’s really no in-between.
- Hibernation Isn’t Just Bears Sleeping for 4 Months Through the Winter
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I went my whole life picturing hibernation as a brown bear eating a bunch of berries and salmon (or whatever they eat) and then getting into a food coma for like 4 months. Please tell me I’m not the only one, like why were we made to believe this? Who taught us this!? Hibernation is literally just an animal’s way of conserving energy during colder months. The only thing that happens is a slower metabolism, slower heartbeat and a drop in body temperature. Where did this nice 4-month-long nap come from? Why did we all think creatures could just not eat or do things for months on end… without dying?
That’s all I’ve got for you today. Please do fact-check everything you see online, as alongside all this info there is a lot of misinformation.
Class dismissed. School’s out, scream and shout!