#2Words: Rabbit Hole

Searching for Rabbit Hole in a dictionary may give you results like – a rabbit’s burrow. This you can understand as a heather-covered hillside full of rabbit holes.

At the same time, a rabbit hole is used to refer to bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situations or environments, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.

What does the two-word phrase ‘Rabbit Hole’ mean

Well, its definition can be a complexly bizarre or difficult state or situation conceived of as a hole into which one falls or descends.

Modern day office jobs are often referred to as loss of self, becoming a servant to job and to the work.

Is time-sucking TikTok actually a Rabbit Hole

Recently, an ad company sent a newsletter to its subscribers, quoting a leaked document from TikTok’s engineering office in Beijing.

The said document talked of the algorithm used by TikTok, the video-focused social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

In its newsletter, the ad company called TikTok a time suck. In calling it such, the ad company said, “You open it for a second and next thing you know, you’re down a rabbit hole watching anime makeup tutorials, cute dogs learning how to speak with buttons, and Chinese street style. Well, there’s science (and psychology) to it all.”

It said TikTok’s algorithm considers how often you engage in live streaming and what your points of interest are. “With all that data at hand, TikTok tries to keep you hungry for more, coming back at the slightest onset of boredom.”

Extremely engrossing and time-consuming

It may thus be summarised that a rabbit hole is a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troublingly) surreal state or situation.

Literally, a rabbit hole is what the animal digs for its home. The earliest written record of the phrase dates back to the 17th century. But the figurative rabbit hole begins with Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In its opening chapter, “Down the Rabbit-Hole,” Alice follows the White Rabbit into his burrow, which transports her to the strange, surreal, and nonsensical world of Wonderland.

Beware! Today, you can fall down the rabbit hole of government bureaucracy, healthcare, obtaining a particular card or licence or admissions.

Thanks to the internet, you may also go into online rabbit holes which are often spectacularly well-crafted addictive stories or conspiracy theories.