I’m on TikTok a lot. Like, a lot a lot. It’s basically my chill zone between work, cooking experiments, and doomscrolling with snacks 😌📱

I don’t play mobile games. I don’t watch weird stuff. I don’t even interact with anything spicy. My feed is coding clips, food creators going feral over garlic, home cooking, and random pet accounts doing side quests 🐶🐱

And honestly, my feed reflects that. It’s clean. Calm. Almost wholesome.

But then the ads show up.

And suddenly it’s like, bro, what app am I even on right now.

Most gaming ads I get are straight up inappropriate. Oversexualized characters. Suggestive visuals. Cheap shock value that feels desperate, not clever. It’s not even subtle.

What really messes with me is how often this happens. It’s not a one off glitch. It keeps coming back, like a bad song you didn’t save but Spotify still thinks you love.

And the targeting? That’s the worst part.

These ads clearly aim at kids and teens. Bright colours. Cartoonish art styles. Fake gameplay clips that scream “safe and fun”. Meanwhile the actual content inside the ad is doing the absolute most 😬

The game ratings do not match what’s being shown. At all. That alone feels cooked.

Kids scroll fast. They don’t have mental ad blockers installed yet. If I’m seeing this stuff on a clean feed, kids are definitely seeing it too. No question.

That’s where it stops being just annoying and starts feeling wrong.

I keep asking myself a few things, and none of them have good answers.

  • Is it even legal to show suggestive ads to minors?
  • Why are platforms approving ads that would get creators banned instantly?
  • Why is responsibility always dumped on parents while platforms happily collect ad money?

TikTok is strict with creators. One tiny slip up, one word out of line, one misunderstood clip, boom, flagged or removed. We all know that pain 😭

But ads get a free pass?

If a creator posted the same content as some of these gaming ads, it would be taken down in seconds. No appeal. No mercy. That double standard is loud.

Ads should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. They’re paid content. They’re pushed into feeds. They’re unavoidable.

Right now, ad review feels like a checkbox process. Tick it, approve it, move on. That’s not good enough, mate. Not in 2026. Not when kids are glued to their screens and platforms know it.

Protecting younger users should not be optional. It should be built in. Baked into the system. Non negotiable.

A clean feed should mean clean ads too. Simple as that.

Until platforms take this seriously, it just feels like profit first, safety later. And honestly, that’s not it, chief 🤦‍♂️