By Keira Krisburg

The Beacon BEET has recently uncovered that TikTok accounts “user54670,” “user71956,” and “anonymouspug78,” aren’t run by average users but instead by US Congresspeople. We spoke to a psychologist, who confirmed that all of them have a serious addiction to the ever-growing, and widely popular, social media app. Now, for a look at how these discoveries came about:

Last week, three esteemed senators arrived at their day job on Capitol Hill for what the public thought was a normal Congressional hearing. With this group of “Congresspeople,” there had never been anything out of the ordinary in terms of their ethics, and they all had the most impressive credentials. At this hearing, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew, testified to the data privacy and overall safety that American users would have using the app. 

But this newly discovered conflict of interest in the hearing may tarnish the reputation of many Congresspeople, thanks to the discovery of one Beacon student who followed on the live stream, suspecting a deflection of responsibility from Congresspeople. To them, these representatives showed a palpable hatred towards TikTok. But why would a Congressperson express this amount of passion for these captivating short videos?

Many others across the Internet continued to hypothesize, highlighting their strange behavior in particular. A detective reported to the BEET anonymously that their “body language signaled the Congressperson was guilty.” Images were taken at the scene capturing them lashing out or “attacking” Shou Chew in an unusually unprofessional manner. It was similar to cyberbullying with the ignorance of the emotions of another person. Except, how would a Congressperson incapable of or unfamiliar with using technology be familiar with the concept?

After a week of silence, a rumor circulated at The Beacon School that Congress is “hiding fan pages.” An app that older generations had previously shamed young people for using could now have a secret addiction to it themselves, which has prevented them from effectively doing their jobs. It appears that the theory of the app using the “phone’s camera to watch the viewer’s eyes” doesn’t actually trouble them.

A Beacon history student explained, “Congressional leaders want to come off as professional, so they thought the better option was to act foolishly. I would rather someone see my Grey’s Anatomy videos than be publicly humiliated, so it’s a good thing I’m not a part of Congress!” Congress must be pretending to enact all this legislation and instead spend all their time looking through each other’s videos. They, like us, lay in bed for hours scrolling aimlessly as a screen name “user680232” acts as a disguise. When they found out about the TikTok hearing, they had to do their best to pretend like they cared that the privacy of Americans on the app may be compromised. A phone call was retrieved where a Republican Senator also known as anonymuspug78 told her friend, “I don’t know what to say when he testifies… there is no way I am allowing it to get banned.”