How TikTok conquered the world
The “For You” page simply starts showing you a never-ending stream of TikToks. The more it learns about you, the more the feed becomes streamlined towards not what you say you would like to watch, but what you actually watch (though you can still search for your interests, or follow people whose content you enjoy).
Its machine-learning algorithm gathers data about your tastes every second you watch, pause or scroll, tailoring your feed accordingly. In this sense, says The New York Times, “TikTok is more machine than man”.
What are TikTok videos like?
TikTok started with dancing and lip-syncing – music has always been central – but its content has ballooned to cover just about any subject you can imagine. Videos of beauty and styling tutorials are popular, as are cooking videos and, of course, videos of cute animals and babies. A video of “Mia the cat” successfully navigating a path laid over upturned paper cups, set to the Mission: Impossible theme tune, has been viewed almost 200 million times.
However, the hashtags used to mark and filter content range from #fishtok (content about fishing, 16 billion views), to #cleantok (57 billion), #farmtok (8 billion) and #medievaltiktok (4 billion). #booktok (92 billion) – videos of people enjoying or talking about books – supposedly boosted the publishing industry to one of its best years ever in 2021.
How do people make videos?
TikTok makes it very easy to create them, with a toolkit of camera effects, editing tools, augmented-reality filters and, crucially, a massive library of audio clips. These range from snippets of popular songs that have sparked dance trends to audio from TV and films. Users also use the “green screen” feature to, for instance, commentate on another video as a “response”, or create a “duet” by adding themselves alongside another video.
The app provides extensive prompts and ideas for your content. You can participate in dare-like challenges, copy a dance, or make fun of anybody else doing the same. Popular content creators make money through advertising deals, creator payouts from TikTok, and by receiving TikTok “coins” – the network’s virtual currency – from fans. In the three months to October, “TikTokers” spent $900m inside the app.
TikTok content has ballooned to cover just about any subject you can imagine
Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Who is watching TikTok?
Two-thirds of US teens use the app, and one in six say they are on it “almost constantly”. The average American TikTok viewer spends 80 minutes a day on it; that’s more than users spend on Facebook and Instagram combined. In the UK, Ofcom says that TikTok reaches 66% of 15-24-year-olds, and that adult users, on average, spend almost an hour on TikTok each day. It is also, along with Instagram and YouTube, one of the UK’s most popular news sources for teens.
Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/society/958696/how-tiktok-conquered-the-world