Okay, Zoomer.
Between the latest TikTok dance and #DogsOfTikTok, Gen Z responds to current events with their same firebrand humor.
Story by John “Elias” Olson | Photos by Christa Yaranon
Ask any college student if they’ve heard of TikTok, chances are they fall into one of three camps. Maybe they downloaded it as a joke — and now they can’t put it down. Maybe, they’ve seen one of the countless reposts of popular TikToks to Twitter. Or most tragically, perhaps they’re still in denial about the death of Vine.
Rachel Walsh, a fourth-year marketing student at Western Washington University, falls into that first camp; she now has 42,300 followers.
“My friend Thomas and I were in this group chat where we shared memes back and forth,” Walsh said. “I downloaded the app after the fifth TikTok that got sent — the next thing I knew five hours had passed.”
Thomas Dunn, a fourth-year political science major and Walsh’s friend, had a similar introduction to the viral app. TikTok showed him a slate of popular creators and trending hashtags and eventually, the app’s algorithm caught on to what he liked. It quickly became a habit to check ‘What’s new today,’ Dunn said.
TikTok, a social media platform from China, follows a style similar to the late Vine, letting users record short videos of themselves with voice filters and enough pre-recorded samples for all future viral dance trends.
“A lot of the content is just straight-up cringey, and I think the biggest barrier to entry is the humor,” Walsh said. “A lot of people think it’s stupid, but you just have to spend time learning the type of humor and what’s expected.”
While Walsh calls the humor “cringey” — second-hand embarrassment you can’t help grimacing at — she says it’s only really noticeable if you don’t identify with the community it was made for. Theater kids, the comedy community and dance community all call TikTok home, Walsh said. But the thing most of them have in common? They’re all a part of Gen Z.
“I went through the five stages of grief before I came to terms with being Gen Z,” Walsh said. “I was born in 1998 and grew up identifying with Millenials. I eventually had to realize that I was at the start of a new generation.”
Gen Z — or Zoomers — are people born between 1996 and 2010. Currently, they’re estimated to make up 82 million US consumers. But for TikTok, Zoomers are the primary user base, making up almost half of their 500 million users.
“I went through the five stages of grief before I came to terms with being Gen Z,” Walsh said. “I was born in 1998 and grew up identifying with Millenials. I eventually had to realize that I was at the start of a new generation.”
Members of Gen Z have become the new Millennials in terms of receiving guff about their generation from anyone over the age of 30 (see “Okay, Boomer” from the NY Times). According to Pew Research, this might be because Gen Z and Millenials share many of the same progressive views and concerns about the state of the world. But there are still significant distinctions.
“The biggest difference I see between Gen Z and Millennials is, again, our sense of humor,” Walsh said. “We make light of situations, more so than Millenials. We also tend to jump on new technology faster — like TikTok.”
Stephanie Gomez, an assistant professor of media studies at Western, agrees. She believes that this new sense of humor is created by the current landscape of social media. Furthermore, Gomez says that Zoomers tend to be more open with their emotions and mental health and that can make their coping mechanisms appear very different from previous generations.
“I think of shows like South Park and Family Guy — taking really horrifying or scary topics and taking it to the absurd,” Gomez said. “Now with social media, we’re the producers and consumers of content. If you mix in the shock value that TV shows Gen Z grew up with and add some nihilism, you get Gen Z humor.”
“It’s like, I’m not going to pay my student loans if the world is going to end soon,” Dunn said.
According to Dunn, Gen Z is truly nihilistic and carefree. But at the same time, he says, Gen Z is often more caring and empathetic toward topics of race, gender and LGBTQ+ rights.
As such, most TikToks you’ll find reflect this mindset in 60-second-or-less reactions.
“It’s like, I’m not going to pay my student loans if the world is going to end soon.”
For example, after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani authorized by President Donald Trump, fear erupted about a potential war between the U.S. and Iran. Hashtags like “#WWIII” accompanied TikTok videos of young women making jokes about avoiding the draft by sticking to ‘traditional values’ of women as homemakers.
“When TikToks go viral, it’s usually because they’re relatable,” Dunn said. “People will also comment and engage more if there’s an element of shock value, too.”
Recently, TikTok users also made light of the Trump impeachment trial. Queer TikTok users made “Who’s cabin are you in?” videos about the potential for “Mike Pence Summer Camps” if President Trump was removed from office. This is likely in reference to allegations of Pence’s financial support of institutions to “help people ‘change their sexual behavior.’”
Gomez doesn’t think it’s an accident that Gen Z parodies, satirizes and deals with the scary stuff through hyperbole. According to her, it’s only natural that they form a community where reacting to the world is a sort of coping mechanism.
Some on Twitter have accused TikTok users of being insensitive. But Gomez pushes back, citing critical media theory, which maintains that shock value is the only way to change something.
“Essentially, people have to be shocked out of their complacency to recognize something is as bad as it is,” Gomez said. “When nothing makes sense and everything is burning around you, the only solution is to shock people just enough to wake them up.”
To her, people criticizing Gen Z for their value humor isn’t helpful. Maybe the question isn’t why Gen Z is doing this, but why not? To creators like Walsh, there’s a fine line to be toed when making these kinds of reactionary TikToks.
“I don’t think it’ll ever be totally okay to make light of incredibly grave situations, even though I still watch and like them,” Walsh said. “I mainly resonate with the humor, but don’t fully know how to justify it.”
“When nothing makes sense and everything is burning around you, the only solution is to shock people just enough to wake them up.”
She also recognizes that there’s a pressure to follow and capitalize on trends to go viral — which might be a reason why #WWIII or impeachment videos make it to viral status. For her, the challenge of succeeding on TikTok has been finding her niche.
“I mostly followed trends and copied them,” she said. “Eventually I learned that the easiest way was to just be myself — my videos mostly talk about my own experience, and it’ll resonate with people who can relate to me.”
This drive to go viral makes sense, Gomez says. Using current events just makes it more relatable and thus, easier.
TikTok still ranks highly in the Top 10 apps on both iOS and the Google Play Store four years after its release. It’s also been incredibly successful as an advertising platform, making it one of the tech world’s best returns on investment for advertising. Dunn, who’s gone viral more than once, doesn’t share the same optimism.
“I think TikToks will lose that new car smell,” Dunn said. “Because it seems a lot easier for TikToks to go viral and users to get lots of followers, I don’t think most people are going to remember the people they follow if the app dies.”
To Gomez, it’s hard to tell where mass media is headed next simply because the jumps between technologies keep getting shorter — from film and radio to TV and the internet, and now social media. But she also has a more hopeful outlook compared to her Gen Z students.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for Gen Z; they’re so much more aware and empathetic,” Gomez said. “People have always clutched their pearls when new technology comes out. To an extent, it can change culture for the worse, but in many ways, it opens up new opportunities — TikTok simply represents an outlet and place to find community for Gen Z.”
