As Donald Trump threatens to ban TikTok in the US, the social media app beloved of teenagers has suddenly aroused the interest of an older generation. Many are asking themselves how it got so popular.
These days it’s not uncommon to see a group of young people trying to learn a TikTok dance in the park, or dropping the “OK boomer” meme into a casual conversation.
I’m 25, but when I first came across TikTok three years ago I quickly realised why young people have taken to it so strongly. It offers its users something completely unique: unlike the idealised lifestyle images that are the staple of Instagram or Facebook, TikTok gives users a chance to be authentic, creative, and let their hair down. It doesn’t require high-quality photos or video production skills, as you can see in current trends such as #influencerchallenge, #imtheone and the #makeitstop challenge, which are, above all, simply fun. On TikTok, users don’t have to be anyone other than themselves.
That’s why the company I run set up the Bytehouse – a group of TikTok stars who live together under one roof and create content for more than 18m fans.
While it’s difficult for anyone to “go viral” with 8,000 followers on Instagram – there is a clear line between who is and isn’t an influencer – people can get millions of views on their content on TikTok regardless of their follower count. If you create a great piece of content that is native to TikTok and is supported by the platform’s algorithm, you can go from having 100 views on your video to 100,000. Users genuinely seem to enjoy wondering “is this one going to go viral or not?”
By using viral music, meme-like content, and mirroring/reacting to pop culture, young people use TikTok to keep up with the world around them. This is also why it can be so addictive and why it breeds a “Fomo” (Fear of missing out) culture. Everyone wants to be in the know about everything: politics, TV, petty celebrity gossip, world news. TikTok’s embrace of political content, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, created a sense of solidarity and garnered support for the protests going on across the world.
In fact, lockdown itself has seen a huge spike in TikTok usage. People became obsessed at one point with making the viral Dalgona coffee, which gained more than 400m views.
Though TikTok faces a potential ban because of security fears over its Chinese ownership, there is no real difference in data collection between TikTok and Linkedin. Trump has issued executive orders that would ban TikTok and WeChat in the US unless they find new owners in 45 days, having previously suggested that Microsoft should buy TikTok. Most incredibly, he has said the US treasury should get a commission from the sale. This confirms my initial suspicions of the reason behind the proposed ban: greed and a healthy dollop of xenophobia
Without doubt, if it happened there would be winners. There have already been massive spikes in user numbers for competing apps such as Triller, another short-form video app, and I’m pretty sure this will continue. Another to gain would be YouTube, a platform that has long embraced creators.
Yet a ban on TikTok would still be a huge loss. Many careers have been launched from it, with creators being signed for Netflix shows and cooking shows. If it were to be banned we would be losing a world of creativity and opportunities.
Needless to say, TikTok’s young users would be affected the most by the loss. TikTok has proved more than just a social app for these teens and it would mean stripping away a lot more than a dance or challenge for them. It would mean saying goodbye to the communities they have built.
I believe that TikTok, with its new chief executive, Kevin Mayer, signed from Disney, is well on its way to quashing any fears about being a “Chinese app” – it’s just a shame that one can never quite predict what the man in the White House will do.
• Timothy Armoo is chief executive of Fanbytes, a Gen Z agency
• This article was amended on 13 August 2020 to remove an incorrect reference to Facebook and data collection
