10. Wildcard
The Rise of TikTok
Videos have always been a way that I have entertained myself, from Barbie DVDs as a kid, to social media and Disney Plus today. Even my social media video habits have evolved over the last few months. For a long time, Facebook videos were my one and only source of video entertainment on my phone. I watched everything from Tasty food videos to Every Blank Ever.Then, I found TikTok. At the beginning of last semester, one of my suitemates downloaded TikTok and she talked about it a lot. My sister downloaded it at the beginning of February, and I listened to her talk about and laugh at the videos for about a week. At that point, I was intrigued. So I downloaded it. And it was the worst/best decision of my video watching experience. I will spend hours on TikTok, whether or not I have homework or need to sleep.
— Cowbelly (@CowbellyTV) January 26, 2020
While I could say the word “renegade” around a group of college kids and get an immediate reaction, older generations have no idea what I am talking about. Sometimes I don’t know what other teens are talking about, because TikTok has such varied content. It can be a really confusing app for those that did not grow up as immersed in social media as Gen Z. So, today, I am going to explain what TikTok is and why it is so popular.
@bennydyl My ears ##fyp ##comedy ##foryou ##accordion ##quarantine ##music
♬ original sound - bennydyl
@thisisolivia22 When you ask your mom to film a tik tok you end up cleaning the living room... the kitchen... and the fridge... @jenpaige1 ##fyp ##quarantine ##xycba
♬ original sound - lyrics
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a short-form video app that has become popular among high school and college students. Essentially, it is a social entertainment app, and it has created a new kind of social network. Users create videos that cover an enormous range of categories, from lip synching, to someone talking about a crazy thing that happened to them. (Business Insider) There is a 'For You' page with content that has been tailored, well, for you, by artificial intelligence. My For You page consists of funny, weird content, while my sister has a lot of art and sewing videos that make up her page.
@aesthetic_john1234 ##fyp ##funny ##freddymercury ##bohemianrhapsody ##rubberchicken
♬ original sound - aesthetic_john1234
The History of TikTok:
TikTok actually has an interesting history. It was created by the Chinese app development company ByteDance. The first iteration of the app was released in China as Douyin in 2016. As Douyin gained popularity, ByteDance decided to expand out into other Asian countries, like Thailand and Japan. After they expanded, the app was renamed and given the moniker we know today: TikTok. TikTok swept across Asia and Europe, getting more and more popular. The app didn’t actually make an immediate jump to the United States. Musical.ly, another short-form video app, was popular in the United States before Douyin was a thing. ByteDance decided to buy Musical.ly in 2017, but they kept the two apps separate for a year before merging them in 2018, and creating the app we know today. In 2019, TikTok became the number 1 free non-gaming iOS app in the United States, and in 2020, TikTok reached 800 million monthly active users. (Business Insider, Brandastic)How Does it Work?
TikTok is actually really easy to use, and it has a lot of fun features to create and share content. Most of the videos are ten to fifteen seconds long, but there are a few that go up to a minute, and they play on a loop. There are lots of filters and add-ons for the videos, so you can film, edit, and post from one app. The most prominent part of the app for me, is the For You page, which displays popular content similar to things I have liked, kind of like the Twitter news feed.
@christines_snaps I’m in over my head lmao ##plantparent ##FYP ##chaoticpets ##differentbreed ##BestThingSince ##xyzcba
♬ original sound - christines_snaps
The For You page on TikTok is really cool. The genius “behind-the-scenes" is actually artificial intelligence that tracks what you have liked to give you similar content. When a video is uploaded, TikTok shows it to a select number of users in between popular trending videos. This is why you go from a video with 450k likes to one with 3. With this method, the user is less likely to get bored. The algorithm then measures how much of the video is watched, as well as how many likes, comments, and shares it gets. A video’s “sweet spot” to get popular is getting 1 like for every 10 views. Doing so will trigger the algorithm to show the video to more people. The more likes with the “test group,” the more people it gets shown to who will like it to send to the next set of users. (Ranieri)
Advertising on my TikTok has ramped up in the last couple of months. When I first downloaded the app, there were very few ads that I remember. Now, I see them a lot while I scroll through my For You page. The ads work similarly to YouTube, where they play before a video, and you can skip after a few seconds. Most of the time, the ads are only 10-15 seconds, to keep in the same lane as the rest of the app’s content. There are three types of ads on TikTok: brand takeover ads, in-feed native video ads, and branded hashtag challenges. The brand takeover ads are full screen ads that are shown as soon as the app is opened. In-feed native video ads are full screen ads that pop up between videos of user content. Branded hashtag challenges are themes that businesses come up with and are accompanied by a promoted hashtag. The goal of these challenges is to get users to create videos around the theme to share. (Brandtastic) The ads I see the most often are from Bumble and Truth, which make sense as I am a college student. Bumble is primarily young demographics and Truth is a teen anti-smoking and vaping campaign.
Why is TikTok Popular?
There’s no doubt about it. TikTok has exploded in popularity over the last few months, mainly because of the coronavirus, though it was popular before that. TikTok is a place where users can create videos about almost anything. People can post videos of themselves looking at plants with a specific music set to it, they do viral dances, and a lot of people post videos of their dogs. It is different than other social media apps like Instagram or Twitter. With Instagram, people feel like they need to look or be perfect. With Twitter, you have to be outspoken. But with TikTok, you can just be weird. (The Guardian)♬ original sound - pinapplepancake
For anyone that is older than 24, the content just seems random. The other day I saw a video of someone dragging asparagus on a string to the theme song of Veggie Tales. To people older than Gen Z, that probably makes no sense, or it just might not seem that funny. But to the people in the demographic, it can get millions of views and likes. That is because TikTok represents the "meme culture of Gen Z." (The Guardian) We grew up with this stuff, and a lot of us are experiencing the same things – college, high school, first jobs. Even though we are spread out across the country and the world, we have a similar background – we grew up with technology and we grew up around this stuff. It’s like how a large group of people can understand one specific action, like getting Mexican food after church. It just becomes the thing you do, and no one really remembers how it got to be so popular.
@childishflanbino Make sure to always have a map ##distancedance ##smallgestures ##DecadesofHair ##fyp ##foryou ##foryoupage
♬ original sound - childishflanbino
Since the pandemic began and countries started stay-at-home orders, TikTok has become a safe haven from all the bad news flying at us. TikTok is a great app for being stuck at home, because it was "designed to be addictive" (The Guardian), and it is a time waster. Clare Blackwood, a 32-year-old actor, comedian, and writer from Toronto, said “the second quarantine is over, I am deleting it. It is an addictive, time-sucking monstrosity that I like far too much for my own good.” (LA Times) And maybe that is another reason high school and college students are the main demographic – most of us have a lot more free time than adults with full time jobs. Sorcha Mackenzie is a 28-year-old artist from Melbourne, Australia. She spends a lot of time by herself running an art gallery in a more secluded part of the city. She said TikTok “offers a salve to isolation.” (The Guardian) Also weighing in on TikTok during the coronavirus, was Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Radesky said the reason there has been an increase after the lockdowns is because “when we are faced with really dark times, we turn to culture to cope or find meaning or to laugh and reconnect." (CNN)
@tylerjarry When you tell your mom you are coming back home for the weekend ##fyp ##dads ##comedy ##tylerjarry ##foryou
♬ original sound - tylerjarry
During the quarantines, TikTok has seen an increase in use from older demographics, as well as families. It has become a way we “bridge the generational divide.” (CNN) Parents and grandparents do not really know how to use TikTok. While writing this blog, I have given both my parents an in-depth explanation of the app. I have shown my mom some of the videos that she thinks are really funny. Once, I attempted to show my dad a video, and he was caught up on the type of deer was in the video, and he didn’t really understand the context of the joke. But now, families are coming together to create videos and bond over the app. It is starting a conversation between teens and their parents about what they like and why they like it.
@toppodiatry Which one are you? ##youngandold ##typing ##howto ##wordsperminute ##technology ##work ##toppodiatry ##ageisjustanumber
♬ original sound - hazrit19
TikTok has become an essential social app to anyone trying to get through the quarantine, but I think it will last past the lock downs and stay-at-home orders, especially for the Gen Z demographic. I was using it before quarantine, and I know I will be using it in the future. It has become a place that I go when I need a laugh, and I think other people understand that feeling. TikTok has the wonderful ability of being able to host content about almost anything. While entertainment is the main focus right now, there is an increase in educational and business-oriented content. (Brandtastic) I do expect that some other social media will come around, because that’s how technology works. Our parents didn’t grow up with a cell phone, we have had one since middle school, and the younger kids know how to use an iPhone. My almost 2-year-old niece called my mom one afternoon and no one knows how she did it. She also loves Snapchat filters. I have no doubt that their generation will have their own social media “thing,” but for now, I am going to enjoy binge watching TikTok at 1:00 in the morning and sending them to my friends.
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