If you’ve been on TikTok long enough, you can track the patterns of a rise and fall. Most people get about a month of concentrated attention. If it’s not concentrated or necessarily negative, they can go on longer, but that's best case scenario. Others are dealt with and disposed of within the week, when we want to be merciful. Jake Novak, this month’s victim, is a textbook case of a TikTok personality of the month. There was the rise, the fall, and finally the third stage, discourse.
Jake Novak got to say his piece in a Vulture article, in which he said the experience of being ruthlessly made fun of, publicly shamed, and even followed to work was awful and hard. This has caused a lot of people to take to TikTok and scold us for our behavior that they definitely also engaged in. Now everyone is pointing fingers and trying to come up with the correct Jake Novak take. Kind of almost completely divorced from Jake Novak himself. We’re not considering his needs or even apologizing, we’re planning on how to be better for next time. We want to make Jake Novak a cautionary tale but we’re not sure what the lesson should be.
The point of this discourse I think we can all agree on is that we went too far. We should not know where this man works. We should not post videos of him at work for the entire internet to see. From there, paths diverge. One side believes we shouldn’t make fun of anyone who puts things on the internet in good faith. Others believe everything was justified up until following him to work.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Kate Lindsay, I admire for falling on her sword and being willing to show her own embarrassing video.
I believe there are intricacies to the Jake Novak case that need to be considered. I believe we need to treat this as a somewhat special case. We can’t use him as an example until we examine all the reasons we hated him. Anyone who goes viral in a negative way is a mirror for what we don’t like about ourselves. I believe we’re not examining the reflection close enough. Here’s what I’ve found in my analysis of our reaction to Jake Novak.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Everyone posts on the internet for attention. That’s a given. Some people post on the internet trying to get attention from the kids at their school, or people in their town. Some want to be told they are beautiful or raise awareness or be congratulated for their fanfic. Some try to find community and friends. Then there’s people like Jake Novak who do it for a career in the entertainment industry.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
We’re very familiar with these people. Sometimes the story is heartwarming and we get to celebrate the people we, the general public made famous. Finally, the Hollywood executives are listening to the hoi polloi and we’re getting what we want! A few success stories have inspired many others and now we are inundated with people trying to sky rocket themselves to fame by posting a few youtube videos. When these are bad they leave a bad taste in all of our mouths. Not only are they not funny but they thought they could cheat the system. Most of these videos are boring and desperate. A combination that makes all of us recoil.
Jake Novak committed these unforgivable internet sins with his videos. They weren’t that funny and they wanted to be so bad. Of course, the audience responded. Not only by making fun of them but by saying they were outright bad. We don’t take kindly to people wanting in these parts. A blatant desire to be famous never causes the audience to react well. Especially when the author views TikTok as a stepping stone. For all of the faults of TikTok, the user base has a high level of respect for the app ecosystem itself. TikTok business should stay on TikTok and all videos made on the platform should be intended for the platform. Except for podcast clips, which we’re more or less fine with. We want our front facing camera comedians to live and exist on this app, first and foremost.
I believe the audience is allowed to respond to people who view them as a stepping stone to their goal. I believe a week or so of stitching someones bad song to say this is bad and this guy doesn’t genuinely want to participate in the world of tiktok, is allowed and justified. This guy wanted TikTok fame to be part of his gimmick without spending hours on the For You page learning our ways first. He wasn’t willing to meet TikTok at its level and Tiktok wasn’t willing to be used in that way. Jake Novak posted and we responded. He got what he asked for but he didn’t like our answer.
Jake Novak wanted this but not like this, which is not a condition he gets to set. It is a cruel curl of the monkey's paw. This is not kids posting on the internet for a little attention. This is a man trying to be famous. When you put “art” or content out into the world, people are going to pass judgment on it. If you want to circumvent the traditional routes to fame and recognition, you have to understand that it could go sour as well.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Of course, part of the Jake Novak hate is not justified. The part that is hating him for the crime of liking Lin Manuel Miranda and SNL. Jake Novak’s schtick is very 2013. He would have done well then. The earnestness of the Obama era would have been perfect for him but the internet, and the world, has changed. We prefer a lot more irony now. We hate SNL and We hate Lin Manuel Miranda. Even though every time LMM releases something, it creates 1 to 3 very popular sounds on TikTok and SNL sketches tend to do well when they’re posted to the platform the next day. He admitted to liking the things we say we hate. He admitted what we all deny and for that he must be punished. That’s what I believe is a bridge too far.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
When making fun of Jake Novak was in its heyday (four weeks ago), some of the jokes were good. Some people were adding to the discourse. Others were not. Others were people simply stitching the video saying, can you believe this guy? They weren’t cleverly crafted insults or riffs on the original work. They were just pointing and laughing at someone admitting to liking Lin Manuel Miranda in 2022. Something they themselves probably only recently learned to stop admitting in public. They hated him because he wanted to be famous and they hated him because he wasn’t cool.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
So my grand point about Jake Novak is that we were allowed to make fun of Jake Novak but only for a little bit and only for the right reasons. Most importantly, only if it was clever. It’s the age old rule of you can get away with saying anything mean as long as it’s funnier than it is mean. I believe the take away from the Jake Novak situation is we need to ask ourselves two questions. Is it clever? If it’s not clever, Is it kind? If it doesn’t meet those two requirements, maybe sit this one out.
I had to look up up what "stitch" meant in this context. Every time I think I'm in step, something like this proves me wrong. lol.