Help identify this bug?

need something for scale. But tbh, I won't know anyway.

Almost looks like a skinny tick, assuming its pretty small, but i doubt it's a tick as they have more round bottoms.

Not a termite. Those are brown or like an off white for the subterranean ones.

I cropped your pic, zoomed in, and set the location to southern, LA and iNaturalist came up with this:





It is the same shape, and springtails (which it is a species of) would make sense with you saying they are tiny and it is a bunch of them. They hatch out in large numbers.

It’s a springtail.
They’ve been all over my wooden deck until recently with the heat and dry spell.

Springtails are everywhere, especially if you have any houseplants. Those in houseplants are so small you'll never see them unless you just go looking for them carefully. They're one insect that can get in your home and are 100% just an annoyance. Outside, they're decomposers on a level with earthworms.