TikTok killed Hollywood, and I watched it die,
in a dim-lit bar on the 3rd street promenade
where ghosts from the golden age
whispered eulogies into cheap whiskey glasses
that shattered just as the silver screen cracked,
like brittle, glass bones under the weight of 30 frames….
and in one second, just like that, there were filters that washed away the grit.
I saw the stars fade,
one by one,
replaced by brats in their bedrooms,
dancing to bullshit algorithm’s,
lined up one after the other to join the pixelated parade of fleeting faces.
there were no more dream factories,
only copycat hackers of distraction,
likes and follows replacements for a deflated currency,
every scroll, heroine at the end of a billion thumb prints
the old guard, lost in digital dust,
while new idols born without a single talent
pushed trends of bite-sized dopamine
compressing all creativity into an offensive nothingness
Hollywood and its lost souls echoed the silence of unread scripts,
rejected Oscar winning directors
and queers being canceled for being queer
blown away by the winds of virality.
the city’s neon lights flickered,
as if to signal the end of an era,
a final curtain call for the grand illusion,
now reduced to a series of swipes.
so here’s to you, TikTok,
the swift assassin,
the desensitized dream killer, you paralyzed and buried a behemoth,
leaving us to mourn the magic,
lost in the endless scroll.
