Why do so many TikTok houses look the same?

Like a lot of people, I’ve been getting into TikTok lately (in fact, there’s an entire TikTok subgenre about millennials like myself stumbling onto the app). What I love most of all, though, are the regular TikTok houses, with rooms that follow rules put forth by American building practices, big-box retailers, and the app’s moderators, but that still manage to feel lived in, personal. Even when there isn’t an explicit punchline to the scene, we’re looking in on some inside joke—especially with TikToks like these, which have what commenters describe as “Vine energy,” a reference to the now-defunct video app. In March, the Intercept obtained internal documents from the company, translated from Mandarin into English for its American team, that instructed moderators to hide videos with environments that were “shabby and dilapidated,” with “crack[s] in the wall” or “old and disreputable decorations.” (The documents also trained moderators to censor “ugly” and disabled people and some political speech.) And because the content is moderated, it’s doubly predetermined: by the people who decide what surfaces, seemingly at random, onto the “For You” page, but also by American building practices and Home Depot corporate buyers.There are unspoken patterns undergirding the homes and apartments on our apps.