TikTok — The Freak Flag App Our Divided World Has Been Waiting For.
I love TikTok. Over the last few months, it has absolutely consumed me, becoming my go-to place to lose hours of my time every day, because I know whenever I open the app I’ll see something amazing.
The micro-video sharing platform has been around since 2014, first drawing crowds in Asia and then gathering steam in the States in 2018. Like Vine [RIP], there’s a ‘feature page’ and a selection of hashtag-driven streams, but I skip all that for the newsfeed — it knows me better than anyone, and with no ads currently running on the platform [they’re reportedly in beta testing], I receive only what the platform knows I want - a pure source of entertainment.
Every genre of everything is here — Furries, Vamps, Bronies, E-boys, and E-girls. Weird pop-song singing ‘goths’. ‘Doms’ and their ‘Littles’ — who are continuously laying out the power structure rules of their relationships. There’s also a whole community of people connecting over their Reborn dolls.
In full transparency, I’ve been enjoying the voyeur ride so much I haven’t dedicated enough time to creating content on the platform.
From the highest glance, it’s much the same as Vine — people create and share looping short videos — but the real magic is the platform’s audio-sharing integration. Creators can co-create content based on another user’s audio; or through a split-screen experience via the Duet and Reaction features, lowering the bar for self-expression and making virality CORE to the experience.
The karaoke functionality means users don’t need to come up with ideas for new content, they can simply duet another’s audio and create their own rendition.
Taking out the guesswork of a new post, or in essence, a blank page, sees over 500 million monthly active TikTokers feeling incredibly confident in front of the screen, which makes for some incredible, brutally-raw, and occasionally heartbreaking moments in your newsfeed.
But with the ease of co-creation comes great risk - it’s the perfect platform for harassment.
There are scores of videos making fun of users and many more featuring people seductively dancing and smacking their lips to unsuspecting creators on the platform — this isn’t a space for the meek of heart. And the public has taken note, with the platform repeatedly under fire for their lack of action around bullying and content moderation [India recently had the app removed from both the Apple and Google stores in an effort to protect children from the sharing of pornography on the platform].
Pornography and creepy perves aside, perhaps the risk of putting yourself out there is also what makes TikTok such an incredible platform? I could spend hours telling you about a number of recently-developed couple obsessions — one a young woman and her partner [an older gentleman WHO IS ALSO HER STEPDAD]. Then there are the young ‘Swedish Siblings’ who are also supposedly dating. By all means, they are either happy and in love, or giving the internet what it wants — a good troll. But WOW.
I’ve also fallen down a hole of dining experiences from Asia, with my recent favorite, Suni Mom [the self-identified “Korean Mother of Mukbang”] whose entire channel is dedicated to ASMR dining experiences.
As a former Viner, I was reluctant to embrace a platform that shared so much of the functionality that I loved about Vine. But the more I use TikTok, the more I realize the biggest barrier for Vine may have been the expectation users felt comfortable speaking to an anonymous global community — an audience that in today’s world is increasingly triggered, self-righteous and looking for blood.
The thing that makes TikTok so right in this moment is that it took away the pressure to have something to say, and instead — gave us all a space to share threads of common language and make content together.
This to all of the TikTok users out there — if you’re an actual TikTok user — KEEP SCROLLING.
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— — Now that I have you — Thank you for sharing, thank you for being you, and thank you for your brutal vulnerability. Let your freak flag fly, it’s what the world needs right now.
