Understanding TikTok
Understanding TikTok
Understanding TikTok
TikTok didn’t spring up out of nowhere. Its predecessor, Musical.ly was launched in 2014 and in November 2017 it was acquired for reportedly up to $1 Billion USD by Beijing-based tech company, ByteDance. Musical.ly however, went into decline and in August 2018 it was absorbed by Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of the app which was also owned by ByteDance. This is what then became TikTok. Since then it has amassed
For most of the last year I lived in peace ignoring TikTok. However, in this last year, the app exploded in popularity and annoyed me at every chance possible. It’s a cultural phenomenon that I have struggled to get onboard with. It was mid-way through 2018 when YouTube started recommending me TikTok related videos. I had spent the last two years mourning the loss of the app Vine and reliving it through compilations, so the recommendation interested me, but TikTok compilations were cringy. Bad dancing, lip-synching and teenage boys with braces did not interest me. However, my dislike really materialised after watching Youtuber Cody Ko’s video 'TikTok is trolling me' in October 2018, in which he discussed how TikTok copyright claimed his video, stole his content then used his face in advertisements purely because he made fun of the app. Around the same time the app came under fire for having a serious lack of cybersecurity and were struggling with issues surrounding child exploitation. All of this bad news made the app incredibly unappealing. Nevertheless, now I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on the cool new thing and it’s time that I get onboard.
Opening the TikTok App
over 500 million monthly active global users, putting it ahead of both Twitter and Snapchat. TikTok is all the rage as proven by its invasion at YouTube convention VidCon. The American instalment of the event that took place in July this year in Anaheim saw a number of TikTok panels and stars. In its ten-year history, VidCon has been almost exclusively YouTube based, so its inclusion of TikTok shows a shift in online video away from the domination of YouTube. Similarly, the Australian VidCon in September welcomed TikTok. This is where I became interested. I needed to understand what the craze was all about, but also discover if TikTok was a worthwhile way to create online video. To do this I needed to invest myself in the app, hear from TikTok creators and see the fans to fully understand TikTok.
Downloading the app was the first step into the madness. At first it was confusing; I didn’t know what I was seeing. Once the initial shock wore off it became fairly straightforward and the addictive quality of swiping through the ‘For You’ page set in. The next challenge was to make a TikTok which was more difficult than I had anticipated. Not that turning on your phone and filming yourself is difficult but finding something that’s genuinely entertaining to do is hard. Learning the ins and outs of the in-app video editing is also a process in itself. It turns out that TikToks can be pretty laborious to make, with one 10 second video taking me half an hour to make. My first TikTok was less than impressive but gained an impressive five likes. There was a rush of adrenaline that ran over me for every like or comment that came through and I wanted more. Going into VidCon I planned a few ideas of what I wanted to do. I saved some songs, tried some dances and was ready for the weekend.
My first taste of TikTok at VidCon occurred as I walked through the doors of the Convention Centre and right into the middle of a teenager standing back from his phone, dancing. I immediately recognised it as a TikTok dance and hurried through, knowing I had just ruined his take. I admired his complete lack of shame as he
My First TikTok
danced alone in a space full of teenagers watching. As I walked through the convention space, I witnessed many more TikToks in production. Some were young kids just needing something to fill the time while waiting in line, others were colourfully dressed twenty something year- old’s who donned creator badges and looked like they meant business.The Meet the Stars of TikTok panel was bright and early on the Saturday morning. I don’t think any of the kids in the audience had woken up yet as there was an almost dead silence as the four TikTok stars walked onto stage. The audience was young. Almost all the kids looked under the age of thirteen and were accompanied by their mandatory chaperone.
There was an awkwardness and amateurishness to the panel. It was overwhelmingly unenergetic - a stark contrast to the fun upbeat nature of the app. It wasn’t helped by the moderator who introduced herself by plugging her own app and then referred to TikTok as Musical.ly twice. The all Australian panel of stars - Mia Rodriguez (17 years old), Ricky Chainz (31 years old), Mariam Star (13 years old) and Caleb Finn (24 years old) collectively have over 12 million followers on platform. Interestingly, both Mia and Caleb gained the majority of their millions within the last six months. The question that stood out for me the most was towards the end. “What’s next?” It was a straightforward question, but its answers spoke a lot to the nature of success on the platform. Both Mia and Caleb want to expand out of TikTok, Mia with music and Caleb with Twitch streaming and modelling. On the other hand, Mariam and Ricky said they’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. For Mariam I believe this is mostly due to her age, she is still very young. Meanwhile Ricky, in his thirties, was able to quit his job as a Manager at Harvey Norman to do TikTok full time. Their responses created a blurry idea for me of if TikTok is a sustainable a career for creators.
It prompted me to question how it’s even possible to make a living off the app? Making money through TikTok is difficult. Even for its most popular creators, TikTok doesn’t give incentives to create. Money made through the app by creators is made through livestreaming, sponsorships, merchandise or by directing fans to other platforms such as YouTube where money is easier to make. TikTok fame means nothing and having a large number of followers doesn’t matter unless you can bring in sponsorship, which due to the fun-loving nature of the app, runs the risk of alienating followers as they may deem you inauthentic. In an interview with FFWD, TikToker Isabella Avila stated: “I think what holds me back from a lot of financial opportunities is my fear of disconnecting from my audience…I don’t want them to feel like I lost that sense of relatability.” Similar to the likes of YouTube and Instagram, major companies are beginning to see the opportunities with TikTok except, unlike the other platforms, advertising is harder to notice. One of the most successful ways of advertising is from music labels paying creators to use a certain song. The song then may become part of a trend and then the record label gets massive exposure as other users share the song.
VidCon's TikTok Promotion (@rybkatwins, 2019)
Furthermore, creators rarely state that they are being paid. On both Instagram and YouTube there has been a big push for creators to be transparent with their paid promotions, with both platforms adding features to make it clear if a post is sponsored. On TikTok however, it is rare that you will ever come across a post with a #ad, despite the fact that it is illegal in many countries to make ads unidentifiable. A lot of what I have seen on TikTok has appeared to be unsponsored with the exception of mid-roll ads, including one for VidCon, but I am concerned that there is a lot that goes undisclosed.
In the Creators Lounge I watched a group of TikTokers carefully choreograph and execute a number of dances and trends. The professionals made it look easy. When it came to producing my own, I learnt that being spontaneous was the method I liked best. Following trends is important when you want to gain views or popularity, or as Mariam Star put it “If you don't do the trends, you're not really trendy,” but it is hardly entertaining seeing the same thing repeated over and over again. However, my first success came with one TikTok which followed a trend. Of course my most successful video was the one I had posted unfinished. Within the first 40 minutes it had gained 600 views and then slowly gained another hundred throughout the rest of the day, before settling off at its current standing of about 750. Its success prompted a lot of questions for me. What was so special about that one video? Is that what people wanted to see? Or is it just the work of the algorithm, showing that success on the app really was purely down to luck?
Over the VidCon weekend I heard the words TikTok enough that it has almost completely lost any meaning to me. But what I was still left thinking was, why people are so drawn to it? Through my investigation it seems on the most part that people don’t like TikTok for its lip-synching videos or weird dances, but loved it for the ridiculousness of it all.
My most popular TikTok
Amongst the cringe inducing content there is a whole other side of surrealist comedy and content making fun of the trends and everything that TikTok is known for. Almost all the people I spoke to agreed they didn’t like the dance memes or the awkward e-boys, but they were there for the absurdist and chaotic personality of the platform. Even amongst the younger users there is a love for the freedom, whether that is to create or to simply enjoy. So much of the appeal of TikTok is in its authenticity. The content is unpolished and silly and never takes itself too seriously. In a time when social media sometimes makes it feel as though the world is ending, TikTok grants freedom and provides a place to forget everything. That is what I think is most powerful about TikTok. More and more we are starting to see its ability to influence. Importantly in 2019, students used TikTok to address climate change and to help promote the youth lead Climate Strike which took place in Melbourne the same Friday as VidCon started. It’s a significant moment for the platform and demonstrates its potential to be bigger than the current most popular video platform YouTube. As it stands right now TikTok is a source of entertainment, but it’s fun to imagine a future where TikTok is a political game changer, where instead of Trump Twitter rants, political discourse takes place in the form of a fifteen second dance to a Justin Bieber song.
My investigation into TikTok didn’t give me much clarity, instead I’ve been left with more questions than I started with. I’ve gained a better understanding of what it is and why people use it; it’s something you can get lost in, have fun with and it tests your creativity without judgement, however, I question the sustainability of the platform. It’s entertaining to use, and its algorithm is addictive, but I struggle believe it has the power to be as influential as YouTube has and continues to be. Users go to TikTok to escape, not to be challenged. Furthermore, I am critical from a creator’s perspective. Will creators stay on the platform if their content isn’t profitable? And is it feasible that the fun will last forever? At the moment it feels fleeting, like everyone is being swept up in the fun and aren’t thinking of longevity. However, regardless of my doubts about its future, I still had fun. Both creators and fans are drawn to the freedom and authenticity that the platform provides so although I don’t really understand it, it’s not going away anytime soon.
