Tik Tok Creator Zhang Yiming has just won the Nobel Prize in Neurology, for his app’s groundbreaking insight into the teenage brain.
The popular video-sharing app is an amazing piece of software that (totally non invasively) tracks everything you do, then delivers that data to its creator—much like other social media platforms (*cough* Facebook *cough*). The only difference is, this time, instead of using your data to send you the latest ad for that new fruit peeler they know you want, they actually use it for the good of humanity (sorta).
In a surprisingly catchy dance video, Yiming says, “It comes as no surprise that the app won the Nobel Prize. Our groundbreaking technology can tell if a person is feeling happy, sad, angry or hot just by looking at the angle you dab at.” He went on to explain how no other social media company is doing what Tik Tok is, and that people are being watched more than ever before.
But what did the app discover that made it win the Nobel Prize? Well, firstly, according to the studies conducted by some highly experienced data scientists, using the data collected from the app, teenagers have an average attention span of 7-8 seconds, which is just a little bit less than our ancestor, the chimp. So when people say that teenagers are like monkeys, they’re technically not wrong.
Doctor James Is-Smart (yes, that is his actual name) stated that “Teenagers are brainless morons, driven by attention and in constant need of validation. They would do anything just for a few more likes, no matter what, even if that means dancing to ‘Corvette Corvette…’ or supergluing fangs to their teeth.”
This brings us to our second point. Tik Tok’s data shows us that teenagers are the most susceptible to doing dumb stuff for what they call “clout” on social media; but also, because of peer pressure. Basically, if a teenager jumps off a roof and breaks their leg, then posts a video of the incident on social media, and that video gets a lot of likes, the ER will have a lot of broken legs to fix over the next few months. Stuff that teenagers do for clout ranges from dancing next to a car to a Drake song, to seeing how many pills they can swallow before… well… you get the point.
The reason why teenagers are like this is because of how their brains are structured. The diagram below, provided to us by the Tik Tok Study Institute (TTSI), shows us how an X-ray of an adult brain compares to one of a teenage brain.

We can clearly see that the teenage brain is much smaller and underdeveloped, compared to the adult brain, which explains teenagers’ behavior. The adult brain seems to expand beyond space and time, and looks like it’s connected to a higher entity which provides it with wisdom and knowledge. The teenage brain on the other hand, just looks like a bean (like seriously, look at it, it’s so small).
“All teenagers are like this,” says Dr. Ken Hurt, who was one of the judges of the Nobel Prize. “There is no way of totally avoiding them or ignoring them; but, if we are able to understand them better and explain why they are like this, we can change them and their behavior to think more like normal people. That is why Mr. Yiming’s research was so vital to us, and that is why it is worthy of a Nobel Prize.”
Great job Luca, thank you for your satirical content. TikTok is a very sad social media platform.