My current theory is that these are similar to cigarettes. Nobody likes the first draft, it burns your lungs, your entire body wants to reject it. But the nicotine stimulates just the right receptors so that if you keep at it for just long enough, you'll be hooked and start disregarding the terrible taste, smell, tar in your lungs, and yellowing of your teeth.

All of this to say, if you subjected yourself to just enough TikTok scrolling on just the right topic, you might find yourself using it occasionally after that initial hump, then slightly more frequently, then daily.

You might still not "like" it, but the habit is what matters.

I have the opposite theory. I burned my self out on cheap and bad image gen meme sites like 15 years ago until the point I hated memes.

Prior exposure to worse feeds gives like an analytical look on the vids rather than emotional. I am fast scanning for the joke. Or something.

As a teenager, I tried to get addicted to cigarettes so I could stand by the cool kids and smoke with them. I started smoking 4-6 cigarettes a day but hated it so much, I couldn't continue after a week or two...