Out of the ashes of 2020 rose TikTok, a new type of social media paving the way in internet culture, education, and activism. TikTok is a video-based social media app with an unusual authenticity and growing cultural influence – presenting a rare chance for positive social impact through transformation of the social media space.
TikTok has been available for download worldwide since 2018, but saw a massive increase in users this year. The app’s Q1 downloads for 2020 set the record for the most downloads of any app in a single quarter at 315 million, and almost 120 million of its over 2 billion total downloads happened in April 2020 alone. In the midst of COVID-19 quarantines and mass mobilizations against the status quo, TikTok’s innovative and unique design is at the frontier of a new wave of social media, which is transforming the way we interact with each other and consume digital content.
New App, New Structure
So what makes TikTok so special? The structure of TikTok ensures that the content a user sees is less dependent on who they follow compared to other social media. The central feature of TikTok is its “For You” page, an explore page which is constantly providing new videos from creators the user does not necessarily follow and often has not interacted with. Though the Instagram explore page performs a similar function, it is more periphery to app usage, dominated by popular accounts, and more dependent on the user’s previous activity than the ‘For You’ page. Similarly, Twitter users are only exposed to new content if introduced to it by those they follow or if it is popular enough to trend.
Though TikTok tailors the ‘For You’ page to the individual user’s preferences by prioritizing content and creators the user has engaged with previously, the sheer quantity of videos it provides necessitates featuring new topics and obscure creators on every ‘For You’ page to keep up with demand. This regularly exposes users to new content which is not based on their previously identified interests, follows, or searches, and it is this aspect of the ‘For You’ page which makes TikTok a powerful tool for fostering exposure to different points of view and new information.
This structure makes TikTok a more grassroots platform – the app promotes all creators, not just the famous, by giving them all chances on the ‘For You’ page. Going viral on TikTok is significantly easier than on other platforms, because advertising or an existing follower base are not needed to get exposure. As a result, TikTok amplifies a variety of unique perspectives – just this April, some incarcerated people posting from prison went viral on the app. Despite privilege and fame still being extremely visible on TikTok, they are significantly less dominant than on current social media titans and their predecessors.
TikTok Culture is the Real Youth Culture
TikTok has retained much of its early culture, when it was simply teens having fun. All videos are filmed with cell phone cameras, and even the most famous TikTokers will film in dirty bathrooms with poor lighting. The minimal expectation of superficial film quality (unlike Youtube or Instagram) gives TikTok the communicational advantages of video while retaining the focus on content over aesthetics (like Twitter) to create a form of social media closer to real life than competitors. On TikTok, imperfections and authenticity are to be desired, with popular trends ranging from bad camera angles to autotuned Russian cereal commercials.
TikTok’s authenticity is a breath of fresh air. Most corporations, politicians, news organizations, and even celebrities have been late discovering it and have a minimal presence on the app. No candidate for the 2020 presidential election attempted to campaign on TikTok, and the app has committed to combating election misinformation from all sources (unlike competitors). Some politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have created accounts, but their activity is negligible. In fact, the most followed politician on the app is Minnesota State Senator Matt Little.
TikTok’s advertising policies and sponsorship culture help to preserve this grassroots quality. Advertisements are rarely integrated into the platform by being placed in a user’s feed, like on Instagram or Twitter, and any ads which are placed cannot be political. The bulk of advertising on TikTok is done by the creators themselves, creating a higher standard of accountability by relying on an individual’s reputation. Through sponsorships, the benefits of advertising are distributed to creators rather than to the tech platform.
TikTok has taken this progressive advertising policy one step further by introducing a financial alternative to sponsorships, the Creator Fund. By creating this multi-billion dollar program which distributes funds to creators based on the number of views they accrue, TikTok has removed the creator dependency on sponsorships and enabled creative freedom unencumbered by corporate interests for its successful creators. These actions on the administrative side of TikTok have minimized corporate interference in content and created more responsible advertising – a stark contrast to Facebook’s continued refusal to hold its advertisers accountable.
Overcoming Executive Obstacles
TikTok is not simply a place for dances and frivolous trends. It is a growing space for political activism, education, and commentary. A recent TikTok movement in June caused the Trump 2020 campaign to overestimate the number of attendees for a rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, deceived by number inflation at the hands of TikTokers. The instance demonstrates the political power TikTok holds, but also how little it is on politicians’ radars.
TikTok has many laudable traits, but the app is not without opposition. India made plans to ban TikTok early this July, and the Trump administration followed shortly afterwards. TikTok is under attack from all sides, being scapegoated as either a shallow time waster or a ploy by the Chinese government to mine data from American citizens. The latter claim has been largely disproven and deemed a xenophobic dog whistle rather than a concern of substance.
The double standard placed on foreign tech companies is not due to a newfound concern by the American government for their citizens’ privacy – it is motivated by the threat non-American companies pose to American tech dominance globally. In a blatant instance of American exceptionalism and hegemony, Trump stated that he will not ban TikTok if it is bought by a domestic company. Considering that TikTok is a grassroots platform for free speech with privacy threats no more severe than Facebook’s but advertising policies leagues beyond, it becomes clear that Trump’s posturing around the concerns of TikTok are nothing more than political games. TikTok has proven that it is a force to be reckoned with – not because it is seeking to undermine American democracy, but because it is empowering people to mobilize and communicate digitally better than ever before.
TikTok is not just another fad – it is filling a void in the online world that has been growing over the past decade, for an authentic, communal, and adaptive social media. As an evolved and improved platform, it has the momentum to shift social norms and digital hierarchies. TikTok is an innovative product which is already changing the world, and attempting to stifle it would be to ignore reality and miss out on all the good it can bring.
The future is now, and the future is TikTok.
Image Credit: Pexels // Kon Karampelas
