The 2021 Olympics may be cursed, but on TikTok, they’re fun as hell.
The Summer Olympics are underway, but according to a great many people, including nearly 80 percent of polled Japanese residents, they shouldn’t even be happening at all. After being postponed from 2020 — the first time in Olympic history — citizens of Japan have urged the 2021 events to be rescheduled until cases are under control. At least two dozen athletes have been forced to drop out due to Covid-19 diagnoses, and those that remain virus-free are still subject to temperatures in the 90s with “air so thick it felt as if you had to chew it before you could breathe it.” Oh, and now there’s a possible tropical storm headed toward Tokyo. There is still one part of the 2021 Olympics that is just as delightful as we all wish all of it could be: athletes on TikTok. These are the first Games during which TikTok has existed, so naturally, a bunch of the athletes are making the most of it. Take Team USA rugby player Ilona Maher, who’s built a 300,000-strong following showing the intricacies of the Olympic dining hall trash system, being horny for all the “tall foreign demigod lookin athletes,” and testing the durability of the infamous cardboard beds with “various activities .” Then there’s Kendall Chase, whose video on the OlympiGays of the USA women’s rowing team has gone very viral, and Erik Shoji, the American volleyball player who’s been documenting his Olympic-level meals. As social media has done for celebrities before them, TikTok is helping audiences put faces to the names and teams on their TV screens for the next few weeks.
