I have a specific instance in mind, but I'm open to more general conversations as well.

Specifics:
I am a very curious person and want to experience what TikTok is like both from a creator stand point and consumer standpoint. Prior to this I have had no engagement with it other than people sending me videos that I somehow still watch without having an account. But I want to be able to "see" what happens from the inside, so to speak.

Concerns:

• I don't want to be doxxed.

• I don't like my privacy being invaded, so I generally do not like making accounts or linking or sharing personal information.

• Addiction to social media - I understand that being aware that addiction can happen does not prevent addiction from happening.

So my question is how can I actually do this and engage in my curiosity, safely? Basically, are there sandbox situations for TikTok?

Generalized question. How do you assess your threat/risk levels and then proceed with caution?

I've had some ideas for a game simmering for a while now and I've finally committed to learning Godot to see what I can put together. I'm still in need of some inspiration, though, and I know there's a few folks around here who have made games. Complete, polished, sketchy, half-baked - doesn't matter! - I'd love to see what people here have come up with!

The word "content" in this text means works that you can consume for knowledge or for entertainment, e.g. books, films, TV-shows, video games, scientific articles, podcasts, poems, music, all of those Youtube-videos you have saved for later never to be watched again, etc...

With streaming services, apps and tools becoming worse and harder to use while also increasing their subscription costs more often to appease investors, AI is taking over not only our future jobs but also our hobbies and passions, i.e. the very thing we were supposed to be able to make more of. Sponsored as well as subtle user-made advertisements are infesting site after site, but increasingly, the interactions these ads get also come from bots. Social media is no longer a place where I “trick” my peers into thinking I had a wonderful weekend - when in reality it was mediocre at best - but instead a battleground of different actors trying to inflate numbers for short-term gain. It feels like no film, no video game or book, no service, no image, no friend nor foe on the internet exists anymore for anything other than a fleeting moment of transactional gain. Nothing seems trustworthy anymore. Nothing seems genuine.

With the most recent YouTube video by Technology Connections (“Algorithms are breaking how we think”, 22. February 2025) that talks about “algorithmic complacency” and how people today let themselves be fed curated content instead of finding the content they are interested in, it highlights a shift I have felt the past year but never have had the words to express clearly, which is the following: People don’t care anymore.

And why should they? It’s much easier to come home from a long school or work day and just get cheap dopamine without having to put brain power into searching for entertainment. After all, I’m not trying to learn anything right now.

Now, I know I am preaching to the choir on this site. I don’t need to tell you of the bad effects today’s customs and practices on the internet will have on us and especially the next generation, both short-term and in the long run, but the worst one I can see is not back pain, short-sightedness, decline of web-searching skills or even gullibility. It is apathy.

Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, manipulation, advertising, reaching voters, gaining consumers, decreasing attention spans and a willingness to pay more as long as no additional effort is required on my part. Escaping this fate seems to require an ever-increasing supply of vigilance and effort. The thought arises: What exists behind us?

Now, this might seem nonsensical. We all love to go back to older things from time to time. Stuff from previous generations has always intrigued us. But I am asking you, have you given any thought to the mind-boggling amount of content out there that has already been made? Think about all the books, movies, music, video games - although all this most probably was made with profit in mind, it was still made by people who chose to make it because they could.

The other side of the coin is realizing how small a portion all of this represents, when compared to the amount that has been lost to time, in one way or another. Why then, does it seem like the minuscule amount of content we have left from times gone is not treated with any respect at all? Why are alternatives to modern content taken from us just because they do not entail profit? Libraries have fever books, video games are taken offline, free software starts selling your data or making the free version have big restrictions, and then there is of course the whole case of The Internet Archive. I have even had to sail the seven seas to get ahold of books that don’t come in a format that confines them to a specific, paid app. This last part is seemingly becoming the only way of accessing a whole lot of stuff nowadays, which is a shame.

In essence, as archives and physical media die, we look to the corporations of today to satiate our craving for quality content, and in so doing, we alienate ourselves from our uniqueness and our soul. Why read a boring book when this streaming service is constantly getting new movies? Why make art when AI can make it for me if I ever need it?

It is precisely for these reasons that we need to keep a steady grip of the very thing that makes us human: our interest in creating. It is good for the mind, for the body, for the personality, for the diversity.

Thus, this is an argument for - or rather, a call to action to - spending time with content that was not made for one-time use, but rather, content that respects the time you put into it, be it book, film or game, not forgetting to let yourself be inspired and expressing yourself in the process.

I remember way back in the day when YouTube was still in a Flash Player, you had the ability to dynamically overlay link buttons and clickable areas over videos at specific times/area and it was a lesser used but nice feature. There were a couple of videos that used it to sneak links to unlisted bonus content but it mostly helped when something was highlighted and clicking it would take you to relevant info. Think you could also use it for spesific playback controls.

I'm scoping out a small project and think it'd be cool to have a video with simmilar basic interactions and even fire off some scripts at different parts of the playback.

Since Flash died, I can't think of any web player that let's you create this sort of dynamic overlay/interface or implement logic to the media playback. I know Adobe Encore can be used to make this sort of stuff for DVD menus and I used to make training videos with old software that did similar things. But I don't believe those files are easily web compatible without Flash.

I'm sure a front-end wizard can layer a transparrent canvas and player and script their way to the same functionality and more. Or maybe use a web game engine and build a UI over video playback. But I'm curious if there's any service or library that does it already and saves me from another abandoned side-quest.

Unless I missed something obvisous, the only similiar functionality I've found in the common player libraries are overlaying adverts at set points in the display and you just set the scale and frequency.