Professionally Crossing the Street
“Professionally acting like I don’t need to cross the street until the cars are all gone so that I don’t trouble anyone,” was the caption I read on a TikTok video that subsequently sent me into a long and hard week of unproductivity due to my brain’s incapability to resolve the discomfort launched by the dominating platform’s intrusive algorithm.
“I’ve never had an original thought,” read one comment below it.
“I did this TODAY HAHAHA”
“Going behind the front car when they stop at a stop sign so they can go whenever and not worry about me”
“I will go blocks out of my way.”
I’ve done this many times before. The little song and dance between pedestrian and driver. The pretend checking of the phone. The crossing of the street, completely in another direction, to avoid inconveniencing a total stranger I will never, ever see again.
This weird habit is one I originally believed to be most certainly particular to me because of how dumb it inherently is. But it turns out it isn’t. In fact, I share the same inclination with 88.1 thousand people (and counting).
There’s a natural case to be made of how great a job TikTok has done at normalizing a lot of human behavior. Acting a little crazy after you get dumped. Living with an anxious-avoidant attachment style. Developing commitment problems in your mid-twenties (oh? Just me?). The will to conduct your full skin-care routine after a night of aggressive drinking. Sitting in comfortable silence with your best friend on Facetime. Leaving someone on “read” purposefully but then genuinely forgetting to reply at all. These are all topics thoroughly, and well-analyzed, on TikTok. And they are approachable. And I think believable, to be relatable to a large group of people.
“Normalizing” is an interesting word when used in a modern-day context. I think about it often, for really the term itself reflects that there does indeed exist an abnormal. It implies that there are things capable of being viewed by our society as “off,” in one way or another. I don’t think it does a great job of capturing its true motivation of an overall feeling of neutrality. Although to be honest, I don’t know if I can coin a better all-encompassing phrase.
TikTok is filled to the brim with “normalizing” content. The best and strongest examples I can think of are the videos that aim to revoke female beauty standards, like displaying stretch marks and body hair, wrinkles, and cellulite. I am absolutely certain that these images, and usually overwhelming supportive language by strangers tied to the comment section, would have had positive effects on a younger me struggling to define my body as most 13-year-old girls do.
It’s when I stumble across a video like the “crossing street” acting phenomenon that I am sent for a loop. The topic is simply too niche. More niche than the trainspotting videos. Niche in a way that I cannot imagine having been conjured up artificially at all, and therefore must have been truly experienced. Another video I saved to look back on for this post featured a nondescript shot of some man sitting with a solemn look on his face, the caption overlay reading “POV: that feeling hits after an incredible weekend with friends.” “That Funny Feeling” by Phoebe Bridgers was playing in the background.
I have never. Had. An original thought.
It’s jarring to realize those funny little perceptions you thought only you acted on are not only more commonplace than you think, but in some cases also seemingly universal. 88.1 thousand people is a lot of minds. After some TikTok viewings that fall under this hyper-specific category, I spend a good chunk of time wondering if I am at all capable of being a unique person. I then immediately feel intense shame afterward for even wanting it to be true. It feels egotistical. Self-centered without any real goal. It is an aimless thought (as most of mine tend to be).
But of course, our own consciousness is all we know. Humans believe many of our experiences are one of a kind, simply because we are unable to crawl into the mind of another. We are taught this in kindergarten when we are told to attempt a walk in someone else’s shoes when striving for empathy.
Pretending to be busy so as not to trouble a random driver is not a tendency likely to ever naturally come up in conversation as it doesn’t carry much weight or have any visible implications other than it just being a bit silly. That is why the act itself was never verbalized by me to a friend over dinner. It was never spoken into existence outside of my own mind, hence my shock when I stumbled upon it online. TikTok has memorialized the act. It now exists forever as something that does indeed happen, and quite often, apparently. It is overwhelming to me that social media has revealed so much about human behavior, its accessibility only augmenting, reinforcing, and revealing the oddities that are maybe just baselines across populations rather than things that distinguish ourselves from others. The more I age the more I realize how I am just like everyone else. I wonder if I am justified in permitting this fact to bother me.
Originally published at https://aldenterry.substack.com on December 28, 2021.
