What TikTok Is Depends on Where TikTok Is
The popular video app has been celebrated as wholesome — but meme aggregators ripping videos to other platforms are painting a different picture
By Alex West
If you’re looking for a window into contemporary youth culture, there is nothing better than TikTok. The social short-video app’s primary feature is copyright agreements that let users record themselves lip-syncing to popular music, but it also plays host to a rapidly flourishing meme ecosystem. Spend a modicum of time with its videos and you’ll notice recurring motifs: Fortnite dances, T-poses, salutes, kids tying nooses (made of toilet paper) around their necks. But most pervasive is that essential tradition of youth: irony.
If you download TikTok and flip through the creative, lighthearted video clips trending on the app’s own network, you might feel relaxed. It’s just people goofing around and having fun, remixing soundbites and running jokes! TikTok can often seem like an oasis, a retreat from the more toxic sectors of the internet. The New York Times described it as “the only truly pleasant social network in existence.”
But the official app is not really how a lot of people consume TikTok. For many adolescents, TikTok is most often consumed…
