Homeless, Migrants, and TikTok

~ Laura

I’ve been out of commission with that dreaded five letter virus this week. Probably picked it up by shaking hands on the campaign trail. Note to self: bring hand sanitizer everywhere. 

Stuck in the house, too tired for anything mentally or physically strenuous, I read the gossip blogs and looked at TikTok videos — the intellectual equivalent of Oreos and bacon — but when you’re sick, it’s okay. 

The TikTok algorithm immediately picked up on my OCD tendencies and started sending me radical cleaning videos. Yes, there are videos of people cleaning filthy rugs with power washers, scrubbing the sinks of hoarders, and mowing the lawns of shut-ins. I found those videos deeply satisfying. 

After an hour of watching dirty things become clean, the TikTok genii decided that I would also be interested in interviews with homeless people, which is an entire genre of videos of TikTok.

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Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “Homeless, Migrants, and TikTok”

  1. “Note to self: bring hand sanitizer everywhere. ”

    Covid is airborne, not spread through liquids.

    I love those rug-cleaning videos.

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    1. Covid is airborne. Hundreds of other viral diseases aren’t. Most candidates for higher office have used hand sanitizer for well over a decade.

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    2. Washing your hands after you poop is a CDC rule too. Though no one has made a political point of flouting that rule, I don’t think it is follow much more closely than the mask one was.

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    3. Will also chime in on the airborne thing.

      I too have just had a bout of the dreaded virus; my first time that I am aware of. It has been icky. I’ve been traveling and been mostly unmasked and we are in the middle of another surge.

      Hope you’re out there again soon but hope folks will have more outdoor events.

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  2. Ann from NZ
    My Mum (over 80) has come down with a really nasty viral chest infection (seems to be going the rounds here in NZ)

    She’s been rigorously testing for Covid – but it’s not that (so far she’s not had Covid, touch wood).

    It seems as though the ‘ordinary’ respiratory viruses are the worst they’ve been for some time. Lots of people off work, really sick, with something that is not Covid.

    IDK if our immune systems got weakened; or, conversely, the ordinary respiratory infestions mutated to become nastier during the years that we we isolating-because-of-Covid and so didn’t catch anything.

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  4. When I had the flu last year (not Covid, actual flu) I watched hundreds of squirrel videos. Either people building obstacle courses for them or attempting to foil the squirrel efforts to reach the bird feeder. I think the best way to keep squirrels from the bird feeder is to attract blue jays and let them do it.

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