More on Society & Culture
Isaiah McCall
3 years ago
Is TikTok slowly destroying a new generation?
It's kids' digital crack
TikTok is a destructive social media platform.
The interface shortens attention spans and dopamine receptors.
TikTok shares more data than other apps.
Seeing an endless stream of dancing teens on my glowing box makes me feel like a Blade Runner extra.
TikTok did in one year what MTV, Hollywood, and Warner Music tried to do in 20 years. TikTok has psychotized the two-thirds of society Aldous Huxley said were hypnotizable.
Millions of people, mostly kids, are addicted to learning a new dance, lip-sync, or prank, and those who best dramatize this collective improvisation get likes, comments, and shares.
TikTok is a great app. So what?
The Commercial Magnifying Glass TikTok made me realize my generation's time was up and the teenage Zoomers were the target.
I told my 14-year-old sister, "Enjoy your time under the commercial magnifying glass."
TikTok sells your every move, gesture, and thought. Data is the new oil. If you tell someone, they'll say, "Yeah, they collect data, but who cares? I have nothing to hide."
It's a George Orwell novel's beginning. Look up Big Brother Award winners to see if TikTok won.
TikTok shares your data more than any other social media app, and where it goes is unclear. TikTok uses third-party trackers to monitor your activity after you leave the app.
Consumers can't see what data is shared or how it will be used. — Genius URL
32.5 percent of Tiktok's users are 10 to 19 and 29.5% are 20 to 29.
TikTok is the greatest digital marketing opportunity in history, and they'll use it to sell you things, track you, and control your thoughts. Any of its users will tell you, "I don't care, I just want to be famous."
TikTok manufactures mental illness
TikTok's effect on dopamine and the brain is absurd. Dopamine controls the brain's pleasure and reward centers. It's like a switch that tells your brain "this feels good, repeat."
Dr. Julie Albright, a digital culture and communication sociologist, said TikTok users are "carried away by dopamine." It's hypnotic, you'll keep watching."
TikTok constantly releases dopamine. A guy on TikTok recently said he didn't like books because they were slow and boring.
The US didn't ban Tiktok.
Biden and Trump agree on bad things. Both agree that TikTok threatens national security and children's mental health.
The Chinese Communist Party owns and operates TikTok, but that's not its only problem.
There’s borderline child porn on TikTok
It's unsafe for children and violated COPPA.
It's also Chinese spyware. I'm not a Trump supporter, but I was glad he wanted TikTok regulated and disappointed when he failed.
Full-on internet censorship is rare outside of China, so banning it may be excessive. US should regulate TikTok more.
We must reject a low-quality present for a high-quality future.
TikTok vs YouTube
People got mad when I wrote about YouTube's death.
They didn't like when I said TikTok was YouTube's first real challenger.
Indeed. TikTok is the fastest-growing social network. In three years, the Chinese social media app TikTok has gained over 1 billion active users. In the first quarter of 2020, it had the most downloads of any app in a single quarter.
TikTok is the perfect social media app in many ways. It's brief and direct.
Can you believe they had a YouTube vs TikTok boxing match? We are doomed as a species.
YouTube hosts my favorite videos. That’s why I use it. That’s why you use it. New users expect more. They want something quicker, more addictive.
TikTok's impact on other social media platforms frustrates me. YouTube copied TikTok to compete.
It's all about short, addictive content.
I'll admit I'm probably wrong about TikTok. My friend says his feed is full of videos about food, cute animals, book recommendations, and hot lesbians.
Whatever.
TikTok makes us bad
TikTok is the opposite of what the Ancient Greeks believed about wisdom.
It encourages people to be fake. It's like a never-ending costume party where everyone competes.
It does not mean that Gen Z is doomed.
They could be the saviors of the world for all I know.
TikTok feels like a step towards Mike Judge's "Idiocracy," where the average person is a pleasure-seeking moron.
Charlie Brown
3 years ago
What Happens When You Sell Your House, Never Buying It Again, Reverse the American Dream
Homeownership isn't the only life pattern.
Want to irritate people?
My party trick is to say I used to own a house but no longer do.
I no longer wish to own a home, not because I lost it or because I'm moving.
It was a long-term plan. It was more deliberate than buying a home. Many people are committed for this reason.
Poppycock.
Anyone who told me that owning a house (or striving to do so) is a must is wrong.
Because, URGH.
One pattern for life is to own a home, but there are millions of others.
You can afford to buy a home? Go, buddy.
You think you need 1,000 square feet (or more)? You think it's non-negotiable in life?
Nope.
It's insane that society forces everyone to own real estate, regardless of income, wants, requirements, or situation. As if this trade brings happiness, stability, and contentment.
Take it from someone who thought this for years: drywall isn't happy. Living your way brings contentment.
That's in real estate. It may also be renting a small apartment in a city that makes your soul sing, but you can't afford the downpayment or mortgage payments.
Living or traveling abroad is difficult when your life savings are connected to something that eats your money the moment you sign.
#vanlife, which seems like torment to me, makes some people feel alive.
I've seen co-living, vacation rental after holiday rental, living with family, and more work.
Insisting that home ownership is the only path in life is foolish and reduces alternative options.
How little we question homeownership is a disgrace.
No one challenges a homebuyer's motives. We congratulate them, then that's it.
When you offload one, you must answer every question, even if you have a loose screw.
Why do you want to sell?
Do you have any concerns about leaving the market?
Why would you want to renounce what everyone strives for?
Why would you want to abandon a beautiful place like that?
Why would you mismanage your cash in such a way?
But surely it's only temporary? RIGHT??
Incorrect questions. Buying a property requires several inquiries.
The typical American has $4500 saved up. When something goes wrong with the house (not if, it’s never if), can you actually afford the repairs?
Are you certain that you can examine a home in less than 15 minutes before committing to buying it outright and promising to pay more than twice the asking price on a 30-year 7% mortgage?
Are you certain you're ready to leave behind friends, family, and the services you depend on in order to acquire something?
Have you thought about the connotation that moving to a suburb, which more than half of Americans do, means you will be dependent on a car for the rest of your life?
Plus:
Are you sure you want to prioritize home ownership over debt, employment, travel, raising kids, and daily routines?
Homeownership entails that. This ex-homeowner says it will rule your life from the time you put the key in the door.
This isn't questioned. We don't question enough. The holy home-ownership grail was set long ago, and we don't challenge it.
Many people question after signing the deeds. 70% of homeowners had at least one regret about buying a property, including the expense.
Exactly. Tragic.
Homes are different from houses
We've been fooled into thinking home ownership will make us happy.
Some may agree. No one.
Bricks and brick hindered me from living the version of my life that made me most comfortable, happy, and steady.
I'm spending the next month in a modest apartment in southern Spain. Even though it's late November, today will be 68 degrees. My spouse and I will soon meet his visiting parents. We'll visit a Sherry store. We'll eat, nap, walk, and drink Sherry. Writing. Jerez means flamenco.
That's my home. This is such a privilege. Living a fulfilling life brings me the contentment that buying a home never did.
I'm happy and comfortable knowing I can make almost all of my days good. Rejecting home ownership is partly to blame.
I'm broke like most folks. I had to choose between home ownership and comfort. I said, I didn't find them together.
Feeling at home trumps owning brick-and-mortar every day.
The following is the reality of what it's like to turn the American Dream around.
Leaving the housing market.
Sometimes I wish I owned a home.
I miss having my own yard and bed. My kitchen, cookbooks, and pizza oven are missed.
But I rarely do.
Someone else's life plan pushed home ownership on me. I'm grateful I figured it out at 35. Many take much longer, and some never understand homeownership stinks (for them).
It's confusing. People will think you're dumb or suicidal.
If you read what I write, you'll know. You'll realize that all you've done is choose to live intentionally. Find a home beyond four walls and a picket fence.
Miss? As I said, they're not home. If it were, a pizza oven, a good mattress, and a well-stocked kitchen would bring happiness.
No.
If you can afford a house and desire one, more power to you.
There are other ways to discover home. Find calm and happiness. For fun.
For it, look deeper than your home's foundation.
Hudson Rennie
3 years ago
Meet the $5 million monthly controversy-selling King of Toxic Masculinity.
Trigger warning — Andrew Tate is running a genius marketing campaign
Andrew Tate is a 2022 internet celebrity.
Kickboxing world champion became rich playboy with controversial views on gender roles.
Andrew's get-rich-quick scheme isn't new. His social media popularity is impressive.
He’s currently running one of the most genius marketing campaigns in history.
He pulls society's pendulum away from diversity and inclusion and toward diversion and exclusion. He's unstoppable.
Here’s everything you need to know about Andrew Tate. And how he’s playing chess while the world plays checkers.
Cobra Tate is the name he goes by.
American-born, English-raised entrepreneur Andrew Tate lives in Romania.
Romania? Says Andrew,
“I prefer a country in which corruption is available to everyone.”
Andrew was a professional kickboxer with the ring moniker Cobra before starting Hustlers University.
Before that, he liked chess and worshipped his father.
Emory Andrew Tate III is named after his grandmaster chess player father.
Emory was the first black-American chess champion. He was military, martial arts-trained, and multilingual. A superhuman.
He lived in his car to make ends meet.
Andrew and Tristan relocated to England with their mother when their parents split.
It was there that Andrew began his climb toward becoming one of the internet’s greatest villains.
Andrew fell in love with kickboxing.
Andrew spent his 20s as a professional kickboxer and reality TV star, featuring on Big Brother UK and The Ultimate Traveller.
These 3 incidents, along with a chip on his shoulder, foreshadowed Andrews' social media breakthrough.
Chess
Combat sports
Reality television
A dangerous trio.
Andrew started making money online after quitting kickboxing in 2017 due to an eye issue.
Andrew didn't suddenly become popular.
Andrew's web work started going viral in 2022.
Due to his contentious views on patriarchy and gender norms, he's labeled the King of Toxic Masculinity. His most contentious views (trigger warning):
“Women are intrinsically lazy.”
“Female promiscuity is disgusting.”
“Women shouldn’t drive cars or fly planes.”
“A lot of the world’s problems would be solved if women had their body count tattooed on their foreheads.”
Andrew's two main beliefs are:
“These are my personal opinions based on my experiences.”
2. “I believe men are better at some things and women are better at some things. We are not equal.”
Andrew intentionally offends.
Andrew's thoughts began circulating online in 2022.
In July 2022, he was one of the most Googled humans, surpassing:
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
Kim Kardashian
Andrews' rise is a mystery since no one can censure or suppress him. This is largely because Andrew nor his team post his clips.
But more on that later.
Andrew's path to wealth.
Andrew Tate is a self-made millionaire. His morality is uncertain.
Andrew and Tristan needed money soon after retiring from kickboxing.
“I owed some money to some dangerous people. I had $70K and needed $100K to stay alive.”
Andrews lost $20K on roulette at a local casino.
Andrew had one week to make $50,000, so he started planning. Andrew locked himself in a chamber like Thomas Edison to solve an energy dilemma.
He listed his assets.
Physical strength (but couldn’t fight)
a BMW (worth around $20K)
Intelligence (but no outlet)
A lightbulb.
He had an epiphany after viewing a webcam ad. He sought aid from women, ironically. His 5 international girlfriends are assets.
Then, a lightbulb.
Andrew and Tristan messaged and flew 7 women to a posh restaurant. Selling desperation masked as opportunity, Andrew pitched his master plan:
A webcam business — with a 50/50 revenue split.
5 women left.
2 stayed.
Andrew Tate, a broke kickboxer, became Top G, Cobra Tate.
The business model was simple — yet sad.
Andrew's girlfriends moved in with him and spoke online for 15+ hours a day. Andrew handled ads and equipment as the women posed.
Andrew eventually took over their keyboards, believing he knew what men wanted more than women.
Andrew detailed on the Full Send Podcast how he emotionally manipulated men for millions. They sold houses, automobiles, and life savings to fuel their companionship addiction.
When asked if he felt bad, Andrew said,
“F*ck no.“
Andrew and Tristan wiped off debts, hired workers, and diversified.
Tristan supervised OnlyFans models.
Andrew bought Romanian casinos and MMA league RXF (Real Xtreme Fighting).
Pandemic struck suddenly.
Andrew couldn't run his 2 businesses without a plan. Another easy moneymaker.
He banked on Hustlers University.
The actual cause of Andrew's ubiquity.
On a Your Mom’s House episode Andrew's 4 main revenue sources:
Hustler’s University
2. Owning casinos in Romania
3. Owning 10% of the Romanian MMA league “RXF”
4. “The War Room” — a society of rich and powerful men
When the pandemic hit, 3/4 became inoperable.
So he expanded Hustlers University.
But what is Hustler’s University?
Andrew says Hustlers University teaches 18 wealth-building tactics online. Examples:
Real estate
Copywriting
Amazon FBA
Dropshipping
Flipping Cryptos
How to swiftly become wealthy.
Lessons are imprecise, rudimentary, and macro-focused, say reviews. Invest wisely, etc. Everything is free online.
You pay for community. One unique income stream.
The only money-making mechanism that keeps the course from being a scam.
The truth is, many of Andrew’s students are actually making money. Maybe not from the free YouTube knowledge Andrew and his professors teach in the course, but through Hustler’s University’s affiliate program.
Affiliates earn 10% commission for each new student = $5.
Students can earn $10 for each new referral in the first two months.
Andrew earns $50 per membership per month.
This affiliate program isn’t anything special — in fact, it’s on the lower end of affiliate payouts. Normally, it wouldn’t be very lucrative.
But it has one secret weapon— Andrew and his viral opinions.
Andrew is viral. Andrew went on a media tour in January 2022 after appearing on Your Mom's House.
And many, many more…
He chatted with Twitch streamers. Hustlers University wanted more controversy (and clips).
Here’s the strategy behind Hustler’s University that has (allegedly) earned students upwards of $10K per month:
Make a social media profile with Andrew Tates' name and photo.
Post any of the online videos of Andrews that have gone viral.
Include a referral link in your bio.
Effectively simple.
Andrew's controversy attracts additional students. More student clips circulate as more join. Andrew's students earn more and promote the product as he goes viral.
A brilliant plan that's functioning.
At the beginning of his media tour, Hustler’s University had 5,000 students. 6 months in, and he now has over 100,000.
One income stream generates $5 million every month.
Andrew's approach is not new.
But it is different.
In the early 2010s, Tai Lopez dominated the internet.
His viral video showed his house.
“Here in my garage. Just bought this new Lamborghini.”
Tais' marketing focused on intellect, not strength, power, and wealth to attract women.
How reading quicker leads to financial freedom in 67 steps.
Years later, it was revealed that Tai Lopez rented the mansion and Lamborghini as a marketing ploy to build social proof. Meanwhile, he was living in his friend’s trailer.
Faked success is an old tactic.
Andrew is doing something similar. But with one major distinction.
Andrew outsources his virality — making him nearly impossible to cancel.
In 2022, authorities searched Andrews' estate over human trafficking suspicions. Investigation continues despite withdrawn charges.
Andrew's divisive nature would normally get him fired. Andrew's enterprises and celebrity don't rely on social media.
He doesn't promote or pay for ads. Instead, he encourages his students and anyone wishing to get rich quick to advertise his work.
Because everything goes through his affiliate program. Old saying:
“All publicity is good publicity.”
Final thoughts: it’s ok to feel triggered.
Tate is divisive.
His emotionally charged words are human nature. Andrews created the controversy.
It's non-personal.
His opinions are those of one person. Not world nor generational opinion.
Briefly:
It's easy to understand why Andrews' face is ubiquitous. Money.
The world wide web is a chessboard. Misdirection is part of it.
It’s not personal, it’s business.
Controversy sells
Sometimes understanding the ‘why’, can help you deal with the ‘what.’
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Tim Denning
3 years ago
I gave up climbing the corporate ladder once I realized how deeply unhappy everyone at the top was.
Restructuring and layoffs cause career reevaluation. Your career can benefit.
Once you become institutionalized, the corporate ladder is all you know.
You're bubbled. Extremists term it the corporate Matrix. I'm not so severe because the business world brainwashed me, too.
This boosted my corporate career.
Until I hit bottom.
15 months later, I view my corporate life differently. You may wish to advance professionally. Read this before you do.
Your happiness in the workplace may be deceptive.
I've been fortunate to spend time with corporate aces.
Working for 2.5 years in banking social media gave me some of these experiences. Earlier in my career, I recorded interviews with business leaders.
These people have titles like Chief General Manager and Head Of. New titles brought life-changing salaries.
They seemed happy.
I’d pass them in the hallway and they’d smile or shake my hand. I dreamt of having their life.
The ominous pattern
Unfiltered talks with some of them revealed a different world.
They acted well. They were skilled at smiling and saying the correct things. All had the same dark pattern, though.
Something felt off.
I found my conversations with them were generally for their benefit. They hoped my online antics as a writer/coach would shed light on their dilemma.
They'd tell me they wanted more. When you're one position away from CEO, it's hard not to wonder if this next move will matter.
What really displeased corporate ladder chasers
Before ascending further, consider these.
Zero autonomy
As you rise in a company, your days get busier.
Many people and initiatives need supervision. Everyone expects you to know business details. Weak when you don't. A poor leader is fired during the next restructuring and left to pursue their corporate ambition.
Full calendars leave no time for reflection. You can't have a coffee with a friend or waste a day.
You’re always on call. It’s a roll call kinda life.
Unable to express oneself freely
My 8 years of LinkedIn writing helped me meet these leaders.
I didn't think they'd care. Mistake.
Corporate leaders envied me because they wanted to talk freely again without corporate comms or a PR firm directing them what to say.
They couldn't share their flaws or inspiring experiences.
They wanted to.
Every day they were muzzled eroded by their business dream.
Limited family time
Top leaders had families.
They've climbed the corporate ladder. Nothing excellent happens overnight.
Corporate dreamers rarely saw their families.
Late meetings, customer functions, expos, training, leadership days, team days, town halls, and product demos regularly occurred after work.
Or they had to travel interstate or internationally for work events. They used bags and motel showers.
Initially, they said business class flights and hotels were nice. They'd get bored. 5-star hotels become monotonous.
No hotel beats home.
One leader said he hadn't seen his daughter much. They used to Facetime, but now that he's been gone so long, she rarely wants to talk to him.
So they iPad-parented.
You're miserable without your family.
Held captive by other job titles
Going up the business ladder seems like a battle.
Leaders compete for business gains and corporate advancement.
I saw shocking filthy tricks. Leaders would lie to seem nice.
Captives included top officials.
A different section every week. If they ran technology, the Head of Sales would argue their CRM cost millions. Or an Operations chief would battle a product team over support requests.
After one conflict, another began.
Corporate echelons are antagonistic. Huge pay and bonuses guarantee bad behavior.
Overly centered on revenue
As you rise, revenue becomes more prevalent. Most days, you'd believe revenue was everything. Here’s the problem…
Numbers drain us.
Unless you're a closet math nerd, contemplating and talking about numbers drains your creativity.
Revenue will never substitute impact.
Incapable of taking risks
Corporate success requires taking fewer risks.
Risks can cause dismissal. Risks can interrupt business. Keep things moving so you may keep getting paid your enormous salary and bonus.
Restructuring or layoffs are inevitable. All corporate climbers experience it.
On this fateful day, a small few realize the game they’ve been trapped in and escape. Most return to play for a new company, but it takes time.
Addiction keeps them trapped. You know nothing else. The rest is strange.
You start to think “I’m getting old” or “it’s nearly retirement.” So you settle yet again for the trappings of the corporate ladder game to nowhere.
Should you climb the corporate ladder?
Let me end on a surprising note.
Young people should ascend the corporate ladder. It teaches you business skills and helps support your side gig and (potential) online business.
Don't get trapped, shackled, or muzzled.
Your ideas and creativity become stifled after too much gaming play.
Corporate success won't bring happiness.
Find fulfilling employment that matters. That's it.
Boris Müller
2 years ago
Why Do Websites Have the Same Design?
My kids redesigned the internet because it lacks inventiveness.
Internet today is bland. Everything is generic: fonts, layouts, pages, and visual language. Microtypography is messy.
Web design today seems dictated by technical and ideological constraints rather than creativity and ideas. Text and graphics are in containers on every page. All design is assumed.
Ironically, web technologies can design a lot. We can execute most designs. We make shocking, evocative websites. Experimental typography, generating graphics, and interactive experiences are possible.
Even designer websites use containers in containers. Dribbble and Behance, the two most popular creative websites, are boring. Lead image.
How did this happen?
Several reasons. WordPress and other blogging platforms use templates. These frameworks build web pages by combining graphics, headlines, body content, and videos. Not designs, templates. These rules combine related data types. These platforms don't let users customize pages beyond the template. You filled the template.
Templates are content-neutral. Thus, the issue.
Form should reflect and shape content, which is a design principle. Separating them produces content containers. Templates have no design value.
One of the fundamental principles of design is a deep and meaningful connection between form and content.
Web design lacks imagination for many reasons. Most are pragmatic and economic. Page design takes time. Large websites lack the resources to create a page from scratch due to the speed of internet news and the frequency of new items. HTML, JavaScript, and CSS continue to challenge web designers. Web design can't match desktop publishing's straightforward operations.
Designers may also be lazy. Mobile-first, generic, framework-driven development tends to ignore web page visual and contextual integrity.
How can we overcome this? How might expressive and avant-garde websites look today?
Rediscovering the past helps design the future.
'90s-era web design
At the University of the Arts Bremen's research and development group, I created my first website 23 years ago. Web design was trendy. Young web. Pages inspired me.
We struggled with HTML in the mid-1990s. Arial, Times, and Verdana were the only web-safe fonts. Anything exciting required table layouts, monospaced fonts, or GIFs. HTML was originally content-driven, thus we had to work against it to create a page.
Experimental typography was booming. Designers challenged the established quo from Jan Tschichold's Die Neue Typographie in the twenties to April Greiman's computer-driven layouts in the eighties. By the mid-1990s, an uncommon confluence of technological and cultural breakthroughs enabled radical graphic design. Irma Boom, David Carson, Paula Scher, Neville Brody, and others showed it.
Early web pages were dull compared to graphic design's aesthetic explosion. The Web Design Museum shows this.
Nobody knew how to conduct browser-based graphic design. Web page design was undefined. No standards. No CMS (nearly), CSS, JS, video, animation.
Now is as good a time as any to challenge the internet’s visual conformity.
In 2018, everything is browser-based. Massive layouts to micro-typography, animation, and video. How do we use these great possibilities? Containerized containers. JavaScript-contaminated mobile-first pages. Visually uniform templates. Web design 23 years later would disappoint my younger self.
Our imagination, not technology, restricts web design. We're too conformist to aesthetics, economics, and expectations.
Crisis generates opportunity. Challenge online visual conformity now. I'm too old and bourgeois to develop a radical, experimental, and cutting-edge website. I can ask my students.
I taught web design at the Potsdam Interface Design Programme in 2017. Each team has to redesign a website. Create expressive, inventive visual experiences on the browser. Create with contemporary web technologies. Avoid usability, readability, and flexibility concerns. Act. Ignore Erwartungskonformität.
The class outcome pleased me. This overview page shows all results. Four diverse projects address the challenge.
1. ZKM by Frederic Haase and Jonas Köpfer
Frederic and Jonas began their experiments on the ZKM website. The ZKM is Germany's leading media art exhibition location, but its website remains conventional. It's useful but not avant-garde like the shows' art.
Frederic and Jonas designed the ZKM site's concept, aesthetic language, and technical configuration to reflect the museum's progressive approach. A generative design engine generates new layouts for each page load.
ZKM redesign.
2. Streem by Daria Thies, Bela Kurek, and Lucas Vogel
Street art magazine Streem. It promotes new artists and societal topics. Streem includes artwork, painting, photography, design, writing, and journalism. Daria, Bela, and Lucas used these influences to develop a conceptual metropolis. They designed four neighborhoods to reflect magazine sections for their prototype. For a legible city, they use powerful illustrative styles and spatial typography.
Streem makeover.
3. Medium by Amelie Kirchmeyer and Fabian Schultz
Amelie and Fabian structured. Instead of developing a form for a tale, they dissolved a web page into semantic, syntactical, and statistical aspects. HTML's flexibility was their goal. They broke Medium posts into experimental typographic space.
Medium revamp.
4. Hacker News by Fabian Dinklage and Florian Zia
Florian and Fabian made Hacker News interactive. The social networking site aggregates computer science and IT news. Its voting and debate features are extensive despite its simple style. Fabian and Florian transformed the structure into a typographic timeline and network area. News and comments sequence and connect the visuals. To read Hacker News, they connected their design to the API. Hacker News makeover.
Communication is not legibility, said Carson. Apply this to web design today. Modern websites must be legible, usable, responsive, and accessible. They shouldn't limit its visual palette. Visual and human-centered design are not stereotypes.
I want radical, generative, evocative, insightful, adequate, content-specific, and intelligent site design. I want to rediscover web design experimentation. More surprises please. I hope the web will appear different in 23 years.
Update: this essay has sparked a lively discussion! I wrote a brief response to the debate's most common points: Creativity vs. Usability
Ashraful Islam
4 years ago
Clean API Call With React Hooks
| Photo by Juanjo Jaramillo on Unsplash |
Calling APIs is the most common thing to do in any modern web application. When it comes to talking with an API then most of the time we need to do a lot of repetitive things like getting data from an API call, handling the success or error case, and so on.
When calling tens of hundreds of API calls we always have to do those tedious tasks. We can handle those things efficiently by putting a higher level of abstraction over those barebone API calls, whereas in some small applications, sometimes we don’t even care.
The problem comes when we start adding new features on top of the existing features without handling the API calls in an efficient and reusable manner. In that case for all of those API calls related repetitions, we end up with a lot of repetitive code across the whole application.
In React, we have different approaches for calling an API. Nowadays mostly we use React hooks. With React hooks, it’s possible to handle API calls in a very clean and consistent way throughout the application in spite of whatever the application size is. So let’s see how we can make a clean and reusable API calling layer using React hooks for a simple web application.
I’m using a code sandbox for this blog which you can get here.
import "./styles.css";
import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import axios from "axios";
export default function App() {
const [posts, setPosts] = useState(null);
const [error, setError] = useState("");
const [loading, setLoading] = useState(false);
useEffect(() => {
handlePosts();
}, []);
const handlePosts = async () => {
setLoading(true);
try {
const result = await axios.get(
"https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts"
);
setPosts(result.data);
} catch (err) {
setError(err.message || "Unexpected Error!");
} finally {
setLoading(false);
}
};
return (
<div className="App">
<div>
<h1>Posts</h1>
{loading && <p>Posts are loading!</p>}
{error && <p>{error}</p>}
<ul>
{posts?.map((post) => (
<li key={post.id}>{post.title}</li>
))}
</ul>
</div>
</div>
);
}
I know the example above isn’t the best code but at least it’s working and it’s valid code. I will try to improve that later. For now, we can just focus on the bare minimum things for calling an API.
Here, you can try to get posts data from JsonPlaceholer. Those are the most common steps we follow for calling an API like requesting data, handling loading, success, and error cases.
If we try to call another API from the same component then how that would gonna look? Let’s see.
500: Internal Server Error
Now it’s going insane! For calling two simple APIs we’ve done a lot of duplication. On a top-level view, the component is doing nothing but just making two GET requests and handling the success and error cases. For each request, it’s maintaining three states which will periodically increase later if we’ve more calls.
Let’s refactor to make the code more reusable with fewer repetitions.
Step 1: Create a Hook for the Redundant API Request Codes
Most of the repetitions we have done so far are about requesting data, handing the async things, handling errors, success, and loading states. How about encapsulating those things inside a hook?
The only unique things we are doing inside handleComments and handlePosts are calling different endpoints. The rest of the things are pretty much the same. So we can create a hook that will handle the redundant works for us and from outside we’ll let it know which API to call.
500: Internal Server Error
Here, this request function is identical to what we were doing on the handlePosts and handleComments. The only difference is, it’s calling an async function apiFunc which we will provide as a parameter with this hook. This apiFunc is the only independent thing among any of the API calls we need.
With hooks in action, let’s change our old codes in App component, like this:
500: Internal Server Error
How about the current code? Isn’t it beautiful without any repetitions and duplicate API call handling things?
Let’s continue our journey from the current code. We can make App component more elegant. Now it knows a lot of details about the underlying library for the API call. It shouldn’t know that. So, here’s the next step…
Step 2: One Component Should Take Just One Responsibility
Our App component knows too much about the API calling mechanism. Its responsibility should just request the data. How the data will be requested under the hood, it shouldn’t care about that.
We will extract the API client-related codes from the App component. Also, we will group all the API request-related codes based on the API resource. Now, this is our API client:
import axios from "axios";
const apiClient = axios.create({
// Later read this URL from an environment variable
baseURL: "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com"
});
export default apiClient;
All API calls for comments resource will be in the following file:
import client from "./client";
const getComments = () => client.get("/comments");
export default {
getComments
};
All API calls for posts resource are placed in the following file:
import client from "./client";
const getPosts = () => client.get("/posts");
export default {
getPosts
};
Finally, the App component looks like the following:
import "./styles.css";
import React, { useEffect } from "react";
import commentsApi from "./api/comments";
import postsApi from "./api/posts";
import useApi from "./hooks/useApi";
export default function App() {
const getPostsApi = useApi(postsApi.getPosts);
const getCommentsApi = useApi(commentsApi.getComments);
useEffect(() => {
getPostsApi.request();
getCommentsApi.request();
}, []);
return (
<div className="App">
{/* Post List */}
<div>
<h1>Posts</h1>
{getPostsApi.loading && <p>Posts are loading!</p>}
{getPostsApi.error && <p>{getPostsApi.error}</p>}
<ul>
{getPostsApi.data?.map((post) => (
<li key={post.id}>{post.title}</li>
))}
</ul>
</div>
{/* Comment List */}
<div>
<h1>Comments</h1>
{getCommentsApi.loading && <p>Comments are loading!</p>}
{getCommentsApi.error && <p>{getCommentsApi.error}</p>}
<ul>
{getCommentsApi.data?.map((comment) => (
<li key={comment.id}>{comment.name}</li>
))}
</ul>
</div>
</div>
);
}
Now it doesn’t know anything about how the APIs get called. Tomorrow if we want to change the API calling library from axios to fetch or anything else, our App component code will not get affected. We can just change the codes form client.js This is the beauty of abstraction.
Apart from the abstraction of API calls, Appcomponent isn’t right the place to show the list of the posts and comments. It’s a high-level component. It shouldn’t handle such low-level data interpolation things.
So we should move this data display-related things to another low-level component. Here I placed those directly in the App component just for the demonstration purpose and not to distract with component composition-related things.
Final Thoughts
The React library gives the flexibility for using any kind of third-party library based on the application’s needs. As it doesn’t have any predefined architecture so different teams/developers adopted different approaches to developing applications with React. There’s nothing good or bad. We choose the development practice based on our needs/choices. One thing that is there beyond any choices is writing clean and maintainable codes.