Tik Tok’s Great American Takeover

by Karishma Patadia

Tik Tok. No, not that one song by Kesha from 2010. Tik Tok, the app that was launched in 2018 with the intent to create short, 60-second clips that offers an endless amount of features for personalized videos. With this app, people can slow down or speed up their videos, add effects, and record and stitch together multiple clips.

The app that started short-form videos was Vine. Many people became famous on this app because users shared easily digestible, six-second looping video clips. Founded in June 2012 and officially launched on January 24, 2013, it lasted for about four years and was taken down on January 17, 2017.

Later that year, a similar app called Musical.ly was launched. ByteDance, a seven-year-old company based in Beijing, obtained the app in November 2017 for $800 million to $1 billion.

Musical.ly was an app where people can make homemade karaoke videos. Originally, ByteDance said that they would not merge the two. However, less than a year later, on August 2, 2018, Tik Tok was born. According to the New York Times, the result has since become one of the world’s fastest-growing apps and a global cultural phenomenon.

It is mainly popular among Gen Z, people who were born between 1996 to 2010. Through these short videos, young teenagers are creating and sharing content including memes, dances, weird comedy, and lip-syncing. In doing so, the platform has made normal teenagers famous for their humor, singing, dancing, and acting. Nowadays, it is a popular goal for high schoolers to become “TikTok famous”.

Recently, Tik Tok has been under the microscope of the American government due to allegations toward the company about their decisions being influenced by the Chinese government. At the beginning of November, the U.S. government opened up a national security review of the company to investigate potential censorship on the platform and how user data is stored and secured. However, Tik Tok has been denying any allegations of censorship, saying that they do not censor political content nor are they controlled by China.

Just this previous week, Tik Tok took down a video by Feroza Aziz, a 17-year-old girl, who criticized China’s massive imprisonment of Uighur Muslims. She posted the short video on November 26, and she captioned it, “Why won’t anyone talk about this??? #fyp #foryoupage #foryou #4u #muslim” The ban was later reversed and Aziz was able to access her account. However, this did not go unseen or unheard to the public. When questioned by Aziz, Tik Tok said that this was because of the human moderation error that is integrated into the algorithm.

Due to this incident, users are questioning Tik Tok’s motives. Many people believe that Tik Tok is controlled by the Chinese government and that there is political censorship, such as removing videos that include videos of the protests in Hong Kong, LGBTQ+ people, and anything that may offend the Chinese government.

Anjali Chakra recently experienced a similar situation as Aziz. Chakra is a bi woman of color and posted a video of her partner and her on November 30, dancing to the “Bibbiti-Bobbiti-Boo” song from Disney’s Cinderella. They appeared in their pajamas and then the music changed to a trap song. Chakra and her partner jumped and landed in South Asian clothes and danced again.

“I didn’t have a whole lot of clarity on why the video was taken down when it was — TikTok just said it “violates community guidelines” and redirected me to a webpage where the guidelines are listed out, and I had the option to submit an appeal on their decision,” Chakra said.

Chakra and her partner thought that this would be a fun video to make because quick-transition “glow up” videos are a trend on the platform. They were dancing how they would in a nightclub in the U.S. They are one of few female South Asian queer couples that are highly visible online, so they direct their content to represent Desi LGBTQ+ folks. Although this isn’t their only primary intention with everything they share, Chakra felt attacked by Tik Tok taking their video down and began to share the news with her followers.

Chakra realized her video was taken down on December 5. After realizing, she researched similar situations and came across an article on Slate where writer Elena Botella explains how TikTok has admitted to suppressing content from disabled, fat, and LGBTQ creators. Tik Tok’s reasoning was that they wanted to limit bullying on the platform.

“I have personally seen tons of videos similar to mine, and I’ve also seen straight couples dancing in lewd or suggestive ways, and they don’t get pulled down, so it’s hard to believe it wasn’t because we’re a queer couple,” Chakra said.

Aside from Tik Tok monitoring and removing videos on their platform in order to control what viewers see, the app can be very addictive. Teens who go onto the platform to pass time often spend hours on the app watching endless videos without realizing it. This can also lead to the FOMO(fear of missing out) phenomenon, because kids are constantly watching what their friends are doing and wish to be a part of it.

Praveeta Garcia, mother of 11-year-old Alani Garcia, sees the phenomenon in her daughter. Garcia believes that Tik Tok is another form of social media where kids are posting. She noticed that sometimes her daughter will watch Tik Tok videos first thing in the morning to see what she missed. “I’ll notice that if there’s an event and if she’s not invited or if somebody has a sleepover and if they do it and if she sees it, then she feels left out,” Praveeta said.

“Personally, I think that it’s addicting and it takes up a lot of time. It can also be addicting to the point where people end up knowing what people are doing,” Praveeta said.

On the other hand, young children believe Tik Tok is a fun social media platform because it is a way to laugh and be entertained by the dancing, singing, and memes. Alani, has had Tik Tok for a year now and has two accounts, one on her iPad and one on her iPhone. She roughly has about 38 followers on each account. “Some of my favorite things I like are funny video people make, or like memes, or some of the dances are fun to do with friends,” Alani said.

Although Alani admits that the app can be addicting, she personally does not think she is. “I’d have to say that I spend about an hour watching it during the weekday. On the weekend I’d watch it for maybe two hours,” Alani said. “I watch it mostly in the morning. Actually taking the videos I maybe take it two times a week with friends.”