TikTok won’t stop Zelda-splaining

polygon.com:

At first, they were a perfect pair.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom appeared on my Nintendo Switch on May 12, and in a flash, the game filled my TikTok feed. I couldn’t escape Hyrule — and I loved it. I felt like part of a community.

After I solved a complex problem by just building a really, really long bridge, I was tickled to see how many other people had had the exact same idea. Amateur engineers cobbled together complicated contraptions and war machines that I had no aspirations to make, but I was happy to watch. And speedrunners did what speedrunners do best: They broke the game.

Ever so gradually, the tenor of my feed changed. It was still Zelda all the time, but now, the videos wanted to help me out. At first, I got recommendations: “Need money? Try duplicating diamonds!” Then came the demands: “You have to stop what you’re doing in Tears of the Kingdom and get the best shield in the game RIGHT NOW!”

Unlimited money? The best items? How could I resist! Warned that a patch would wipe the opportunity to dupe diamonds, I spent a couple of hours in the game’s first week jumping off a stairwell, fussing with my inventory, and dropping precious stones on the ground to perform a bit of alchemy. Over and over and over. In exchange, I had no fun and got a bunch of gems that, it turns out, I don’t really need. I also acquired a shield that’s so powerful, I’m afraid to use it.

I must have not been alone, because TikTok immediately offered solutions to problems it had created, showing me where to buy expensive clothes, and how, with a bit of patience, a certain enemy could repair my weapons. For a day or two, I continued following these tips, but it sapped my joy. Playing Tears of the Kingdom had turned into