Within the Season 11 Final Week Tonight finale, John Oliver tackled TikTok‘s ongoing litigation in opposition to the U.S. authorities’s makes an attempt to ban the platform owned by Chinese language firm ByteDance.
Oliver kicked off this system with a rundown of the “horrendous headlines” of the week, which included Mark Zuckerberg dropping a single with artist T-Ache as the 2 coated “Get Low” — a challenge the comedian-host likened to “Kidz Bop for adults, the place all of the swears are intact however there’s nonetheless a deep lingering sense that music was a mistake.”
He additionally touched briefly on Donald Trump’s flurry of cupboard picks which have sparked backlash from either side of the aisle, together with Matt Gaetz’s nomination for lawyer basic: “A person who my legal professionals insist I can not name Jeffrey Epstein if he went to sh—ier seashores.”
The vast majority of the final episode, nonetheless, coated the dueling pursuits of TikTok and the U.S. authorities. Oliver started the section by exhibiting a clip of a social media person reacting to in style chocolatier Amaury Guichon, who was developing what at first appeared to be a NSFW chocolate creation.
“What a journey! And truthfully, I don’t know the way TV is meant to compete with that. I completely would watch that man host a sport present referred to as Dick or Snake? It’s principally Is it Cake? solely with considerably increased snake-on-dick accidents,” Oliver quipped.
One of the vital contentious parts of TikTok is the platform’s hyper-fast algorithm, which operates by gathering and monitoring person knowledge: “That approach it will probably shortly determine precisely what you want and feed you extra of the identical factor again and again, not not like a doting grandmother or Marvel Studios,” Oliver mentioned, throwing a jab on the studio concerning client superhero fatigue.
Subsequent, Oliver performed a sequence of TikToks that includes ladies who mentioned the platform helped them understand they had been queer, saying the platform is “speed-running individuals’s sexual awakenings. Earlier than, a revelation like which may have taken years of remedy or a whole episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. I truthfully don’t suppose a machine has been liable for extra sexual awakenings since The Iron Large, and I’m not explaining myself to you about that. I’m not doing it. He’s an objectively sizzling robotic, he’s tall, has form eyes, is nice with children and, I’m certain, has a vibrate setting. Don’t be bizarre about this. You’re being bizarre.”
And although Oliver mentioned he’s hesitant to place his belief in a multinational company that earnings off of client knowledge, “its habits is fairly in step with Silicon Valley’s personal very sh—y requirements. Consider TikTok as a delicate drink firm within the 1800s. Positive, its product is generally cocaine, however hey, present me a toddler’s beverage that isn’t.”
He concluded, “In a world the place Instagram is aware of your location, Uber is aware of your childhood fears and DoorDash has an in depth 3D rendering of your small gut its executives use as a screensaver, claiming you’re defending People’ privateness by banning TikTok looks like claiming you’re preventing local weather change by banning the Kia Sorrento. Positive, I imply it’s technically not nothing, however it’s, in a bigger sense, principally nothing.”
In closing out the present and teeing up Season 12 in 2025, Oliver took half in a viral TikTok development of his personal, mimicking Charli XCX’s “Apple” dance.
“In 2025, I’d like Elon Musk to leap so excessive, he by no means comes again down,” he mentioned of his New Yr’s resolutions. “I’d prefer to go simply sooner or later with out listening to concerning the Depraved film. And in 2025, I’d like the ultimate Mission: Unattainable movie to finish with Tom Cruise taking off his face masks to disclose Shelly Miscavige.”
