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’t name Jeffrey Epstein if he went to sh—ier seashores.”
Nearly all 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 well-liked chocolatier Amaury Guichon, who was setting up what at first appeared to be a NSFW chocolate creation.
“What a journey! And actually, I don’t understand how 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 mainly Is it Cake? solely with considerably larger snake-on-dick accidents,” Oliver quipped.
Probably the most contentious parts of TikTok is the platform’s hyper-fast algorithm, which operates by gathering and monitoring person information: “That approach it may well shortly determine precisely what you want and feed you extra of the identical factor time and again, not in contrast to a doting grandmother or Marvel Studios,” Oliver mentioned, throwing a jab on the studio relating to shopper superhero fatigue.
Subsequent, Oliver performed a collection of TikToks that includes ladies who mentioned the platform helped them notice they had been queer, saying the platform is “speed-running folks’s sexual awakenings. Earlier than, a revelation like which may have taken years of remedy or a whole episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. I actually don’t assume a machine has been answerable for extra sexual awakenings since The Iron Big, 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 positive, 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 income off of shopper information, “its habits is fairly according to Silicon Valley’s personal very sh—y requirements. Consider TikTok as a mushy drink firm within the 1800s. Certain, 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 combating local weather change by banning the Kia Sorrento. Certain, I imply it’s technically not nothing, however it’s, in a bigger sense, mainly 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 wish to go simply sooner or later with out listening to in regards to the Depraved film. And in 2025, I’d like the ultimate Mission: Inconceivable movie to finish with Tom Cruise taking off his face masks to disclose Shelly Miscavige.”