TikTok vs. Tolstoy
Leo Getting Dopamine Hits
“Why do we have to make stories?” a boy asks, scissors dangling in his hand. “Why can’t we just film something random—like dropping the camera out the window—and have someone catch it? That would get a million views.”
The room perks up. Someone else adds, “Or an AI cat video.”
“Or prank videos,” another suggests, already laughing at the idea. “Like sneaking up and dumping slime on someone’s head. That’s way easier than cutting out all these little pieces.”
Joe leans against a table, smiling as the suggestions pile up. “Those are good ideas,” he says. “But let me ask you, if you drop a camera and someone catches it, what’s the story?”
The room pauses. A girl shrugs. “It’s funny?”
“Sure,” Joe nods. “Funny for a second. But then what?”
“Do it again,” a boy says.
“Exactly,” Joe says. “You’d have to keep doing it, over and over. Because it doesn’t build into anything. Same with cats falling off counters, or pranks, or explosions. They give you a jolt, and then they’re done. It’s like a joke. Quick laugh, move on.”
He has their attention.
And what if you go see a movie like Avengers' Endgame and in the first minute Thanos snaps his fingers and everybody disitegrates into dust. The end
One of the kids, still trimming a paper figure, raises an eyebrow. “But stories take forever. You have to plan them, cut out all the parts, move them frame by frame. That’s harder.”
“That’s true,” Joe says. “But here’s the difference: they connect. A story makes you feel something, and it pulls you in. Random clips and jokes make you laugh, but stories make you care.”
“Jokes hit quick. Stories hold on.”
“But TikTok is more entertaining,” a girl says, sliding her cutout across the paper background. “I can scroll for two hours and not get bored.”
Joe nods. “Sure. TikToks are like jokes: fast, punchy, designed for a quick hit. Some are really clever, and you remember them like you remember a good one-liner. Some are just about the creator "posing" for the world. It's all about them. All attitude. Selfish.
But a story is different. A story is generous. A story enriches. It grows. You feel something, you see yourself in it, and you carry it with you.”
A boy in the back crosses his arms. “But what if I don’t want to feel something? What if I just want the laugh?”
“Fair,” Joe says. “We all need laughs. But if all you ever do is chase quick hits, it’s like eating candy all the time. Sweet, sure, but it wears out fast. Stories are meals. They stick to your bones. They fill you up in ways that last.”
“Highlights are dessert. Stories are the meal.”
“But influencers get rich off the jokes,” one girl argues. “Millions of followers. Millions of dollars.”
“True,” Joe says. “Stories are different. Stories don’t just make you laugh, they make you belong.”
The scissors slow. The kids think about it.
"Like Leo's Stories", Joe chides.
"Leo DiCaprio?" asks an animator.
"No, Leo Tolstoy." Joe offers. "Leo wrote one of the longest books in history and it's been made into movies a half a dozen times. One I saw was something like 6 or 7 hours."
'Like Game of Thrones?" asks another.
"Yes, kinda like the OPPOSITE of a Tiktok video." Joe laughs. "It took me about a year to read his longest book, but it was so worth it."
He gestures around the room.
“Your turtle movie wouldn’t matter if the mom just appeared in the hole in the ice, no lead-up of how she got there or why.
Your bowling ball movie would be flat if it only showed the pins falling, no drama of all the gutter balls.
Your diaper movie wouldn’t be funny if you skipped the texting humor and just showed it getting hit by a car.
Your rocket movie wouldn’t land if the boy was just lost in space with no setup of stealing the rocket.
The setup and the conflict are what make the ending matter. Without them, it’s just a punchline.”
Joe pauses, then shifts gears.
“Do you all know about the Star Wars section of Disney World?"
Nobody had been yet, but they had all heard about it.
"I had a business meeting in Orlando a few years ago. They took us over to ride Rise of the Resistance. Youtube it! It's quite a thing." he scribbles it on the white board.
"Disney is great at folding a story around their rides. This one's is about how you’re recruited by the Resistance, captured by the Empire, herded into a room of stormtroopers, given a mission by Rey, escape prison, and finally end up in a gigantic galactic space battle.
The day we went, the ride broke down. When it restarted, the staff waved everyone straight into the ride vehicles, passing up all the set up: no reading all the displays and artifacts in the rebellion's cave maze, no secret plans from Rey, no stormtroopers, no capture. no prison. Just plonked us in the ride vehicle and we did the final battle and escape."
He pauses.
“It was fun, But over in a flash. No buildup. No anticipation. No idea why we should care. It was like starting a movie in the middle. No first act, no setup, no context. Major disappointment. My mind wasn't in it.”
The class leans in. They get it.
“No setup, no payoff.”
Joe smiles. “Much of the media out there is just the main hill on a rollercoaster. Over and over. Fun, yes, but if all you ever have is tummy tickles non-stop, even the thrill gets dull." Joe pats his yawning mouth with a palm.
"Stories give you the climb, the view from the top, the twists, the surprise ending. That’s why we’re here—to learn how to build the whole ride.”
The room is quieter now, just the snip of scissors and the click of cameras capturing another frame as they listen.
Joe presses on.
“Animating Kids isn’t just about making paper movies,” Joe says. “It’s about learning a secret language. Humans have been whispering it since forever—cave paintings lit by fire, doodles in margins, even PowerPoint slides your parents groan through. We’ve always used pictures to tell stories. Now we’ve added motion and sound. Same language, just louder.”
He picks up a cutout and wiggles it. “These scraps? They’re letters. Move them one frame at a time—you’re spelling. A little more—you’ve got words. Enough of them—you’ve written a sentence. Soon, a whole story. Instead of a keyboard with text, you’re writing with moving pictures. In a world swimming with movies, YouTube, TikTok, and ads the trick is: don’t just eat what’s handed to you. Learn to cook.”
The kids glance at their projects differently now. A turtle. A bowling ball. A diaper. A rocket. They don’t look like scraps anymore. They look like language.
"Look, through all of it, the rhythm is the same: setup, conflict, resolution. Beginning, middle, end. You want to hook your audience and take them on a meaningful ride. Not like the one I went on at Disneyland.”
He paces.
"A wide shot. A close-up. A cut. A reveal. Every choice changes meaning. Once you learn how to make those choices, you start seeing how they’re made for you in every piece of media you consume. You'll know what they are trying to do. That’s power. That’s literacy.”
He stops. “Jokes are fine. TikToks are fine. But if that’s all you can make, you’re stuck with the quick hit. Learning storytelling gives you the bigger canvas. It’s how you connect, how you inspire, and with animation it's how you make something totally unique with your own visual voice.”
The class breathes it in.
Joe pipes up. "Knock knock.
–Who's there?
Your Pose.
–Your pose who?
Your pose to be animating, get back to work!"
Groans.
The scissors start snipping again, the cameras click forward, and the turtle, the bowling ball, the diaper, and the rocket all move into existence one frame at a time.
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