The name
Most usernames are attempts to describe a person. "user2" is the opposite. It's a reminder that identity is usually the least interesting part of a conversation, and that an argument should stand on its own regardless of who makes it.
Ideas over identity
About user2
Technology, communities, and human behavior. Lately, most of it through TikTok LIVE.
The principle
Strong opinions, weakly held.
Form a conclusion, defend it honestly, and change it when the evidence is better. Most of the writing here is an attempt to do exactly that, out loud, with the numbers attached.
The subject
Technology, communities, and how people behave inside systems. TikTok LIVE happens to be a very legible one: every gift is a timestamped, priced, public act. So I started counting.
Along the way one streamer ended up with 45% of everything I sent (that story is here), which says as much about how these communities work as any essay could.
Where the numbers come from
Watching and go-live history come from TikTok's data export. Gifts come from the app's own coin history, which isn't in the export, so it was captured screen by screen and reconciled against wallet totals. Nothing here is scraped from anyone else's account. If you have your own export, you can build your own atlas from it without uploading anything.
