TikTok Is a Propaganda Tool. Anyway, Let’s Build Monsters and More with Monster City (opens in new tab)

Monsters! Let’s make some. First up though: my TikTok is excellent. My For You page is almost entirely indie makers, cool builds, half-finished prototypes, and people very clearly choosing the hard way on purpose. I keep it auto-scrolling on a nearly broken iPad parked next to where our two-month-old hangs out in the home factory. It works as ambient awareness: a low-level signal stream of what people are making & sharing right now. For the moment, it feels like my own personal public-access TV station, tuned to interesting people doing cool things. Yes, yes. TikTok is a propaganda tool. But now it’s our propaganda tool now (USA USA USA!). If you want the official word, read the TikTok USDS Joint Venture site https://usdsjv.tiktok.com/ . If you want the not-Phil hot-takes and the politics behind it, see the New York Times coverage . ByteDance still holds a minority stake and retains control of the algorithm. It is not public how much TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC paid. Totally normal. We may have to wait for an Oracle annual report. Who knows. Same feed, new landlord, rent still due. TikTok now operates as a majority U.S.-owned company after a forced deal that sliced off its American business from ByteDance, handing control to a consortium led by Oracle and other U.S.-aligned investors. The stated goal was to reduce Chinese influence, but the result is the same addictive feed, now operating under U.S. law, U.S. capital, and U.S. political gravity. TikTok remains a propaganda machine, now domesticated and officially ours. The safeguards provided by the Joint Venture also cover CapCut, Lemon8, and a “portfolio of other apps and websites” in the U.S. And yes, they’re hiring. . The “new” privacy policy (January 22, 2026) is mostly the same, but think of it as a jurisdictional swap-o-rama. The data practices are expansive, the surveillance surface is bigger (they own your drafts, keystrokes, biometrics), and the biggest change is who ultimately controls your data and can use it to sell you out, not what is being collected. As Costello would say, you don’t mess with “the chicken.” Yes, we are on Loops beta. Back to monsters, the other kind. Monster City Studios ended up on my For You, and it’s like an open-source view of how themed large-scale builds are made. Props for amusement parks, attractions, events, retail, all commission-based. There is a ton of tips and tricks on using styrofoam, concrete, fiberglass, metals, and wood ( about page on their site ). Here is one of their creations for the Alien Earth launch: “We installed a massive activation at Hollywood & Vine to promote the new show, and yes, that Xenomorph is even more insane up close.” They have an active Instagram if you want to be monetized there, a YouTube , and an X account that is not really active, probably because it does not work for them for what they need.