RISE OF TIK TOK
WHAT IS TIKTOK?
There have been numerous social media networks where internet users can have fun and share short videos and create content, but TikTok is ranked to be the fastest growing social media app since the year 2019. However, Tik Tok is a social network app which is downloaded on mobile phones at no charges and facilitates watching videos, creation and sharing of content, as well as sharing short videos mostly with a recording of top hits music internationally.
Tik Tok users can generate or create their videos while dancing, singing, or even talking, and then they can upload it so that other users can watch it and share to other platforms. However, Tik Tok is in the category of mobile apps which are meant for entertainment and leisure purposes, and this is usually facilitated by the creation and sharing of short videos which users feel relaxed to watch because of their high-quality resolution and beautification editors. Additionally, Tik Tok app provides users with an extensive range of patterns and music interfaces which they can use for presenting their content based on the target audience.
Tik Tok is known for promoting music and artists because it allows users to play original music in a short video. However, during the COVID-19 lockdown, most people spent much time on social media sites. Therefore they engage in creating and sharing Tik Tok videos to entertain others, whereas others watch these videos for entertainment purposes. Most internet users prefer Tik Tok because it encompasses simple and easy steps of shooting videos; thus, its operation is simple for new beginners since it is user-oriented. Furthermore, Tik Tok aids browsing and interaction with other user’s content like songs and dancing styles. Therefore such videos are grouped as challenge videos whereby many users try to challenge each other by creating videos of the same song.
WHY IS IT SO POPULAR?
The popularity of the Tik Tok mobile app has risen rapidly during the global pandemic of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak because the government has strictly restricted movements to curb the spread of the virus. Therefore most people are locked down in their homes. However, the nationwide closure has prompted people to spend more time in social media sites searching for entertainment content. Others have taken the opportunity to create hilarious short videos during leisure.
Mostly, music is the only thing which is breaking boredom during the lockdown period. Therefore, the fact that Tik Tok allows users to record music while dancing has lured many people to download the app so that they exploit their dancing styles and expose their loved music hits (Xu et al., 2019). Playing short music videos of international or even country music has attracted most youths to create and share video challenges to show their unique and excellent dancing styles. Again, the simplicity of operating the Tik Tok application while creating and sharing videos has contributed to its popularity because most people can do it quickly, during leisure time.
Tik Tok also provides beautification editing features, and interface changing elements whereby users can select their favourite outlook of their video content, as well as beautify it to fit their preferences. Furthermore, Tik Tok has broadened to accommodate all age groups, including parents, because most of them have strived to fit in the digital world by buying smartphones so that they access popular social media sites. However, the upsurge of Tik Tok use during the self-isolation period has lured many of them to prefer it to other platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. This is because creating and sharing entertainment videos and jokes in these platforms is not as effective as in Tik Tok since they have no beautification and interface changer features. The preference of Tik Tok during the lockdown period is mainly resulting from its suitability to create short video content and ease of editing it and sharing to other people. During this time, people are bored in houses and need to have fun and entertainment. Because different social media sites are not satisfactory, they prefer using the Tik Tok mobile app.
ITS UNIQUE FUN, POSITIVE APPEAL
Tik Tok is categorized as the most unique or distinctive social media mobile app because it incorporates fascinating and superior effects for creation of superb short length videos with soundtracks. These unique features are mainly beautifying filters and interface changing features which help in designing user videos to their utmost preference. Again, Tik Tok is a simple app for use by beginners and therefore is preferred by many youths or teenagers. This is because they can consistently challenge each other by exploiting the dancing styles of their favourite music, or even national and international music hits.
Tik Tok also provides easy steps for creating, editing, and uploading comedic content as compared to other related apps like Snapchat and Instagram (Mackenzie et al., 2020). The appeal description of the Tik Tok app is that they aim at catching and offering the world’s inspiration, acquaintance, and treasurable life instants, through a smartphone. However, during the lockdown period, it facilitates the identification and promotion of talents among teenagers since everybody can create videos or clips to share their craving and creativeness manifestation to the world. However, identifying talents and creative skills of the users promotes their career choices because they are currently spending more time to nurture their abilities during the lockdown. Furthermore, this app helps users to create superb videos and assures utmost sharing of video contents and hence publicizes them successfully, thus building the popularity of local artists.
DANCE TRENDS
Tik Tok is known for publicizing short music videos of people dancing their favourite music hits, mainly nationwide or international music hits so that they give each other a challenge by showing their unique or exceptional dancing styles. However, the outbreak of COVID-19, which led to lockdown, has contributed significantly to the extensive use of Tik Tok, whereby everybody tries to challenge other users by sharing videos while dancing particular hit songs. This encourages people to stay indoors so that they also record their challenge videos to show that they can even dance better than their counterparts. This has contributed to the popularization of the Tik Tok mobile app globally since it is the most engaging social media app which provides different forms of entertainment. There have been several Tik Tok dance trends during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Regegade dance is the leading Tik Tok dance and was developed by @shelauren3. She danced it alongside two other ladies. This is an excellent challenge for youths during the lockdown period since Lauren uses pretty dance moves. However, @jalaiahharmon posted a more complex Regegade dance challenge which overwhelmed @shelauren3’s, and more teenagers are so impressed to learn and practice the dance moves.
Secondly, @yodelinghaley created a Tik Tok video of the “Say So” song by Doja Cat, and it has been trending since it is sweet and she uses dance moves like body roll and the punch very excellently. The challenge has been tried by other Tik Tok users like Haley Sharpe, among others. Thirdly, @sofiawylie posted a Tik Tok dance challenge called the “Cannibal” dance which is very precious but has a lot of moves such that one needs a slow-motion tutorial to master them. However, during this lockdown period, many Tik Tok users have tried to exploit their abilities to challenge the everyday trending dances.
CELEB INFLUENCE
During the quarantine and lockdown, directives are meant to avoid crowds and gatherings because social distancing is not well observed. Therefore, because most celebrities rely on concerts on shows, clubs, and restaurants which are not accessible currently, they end up joining social media sites to connect with their fans. However, most of them have joined Tik Tok whereby they create short videos of their hit songs, to entertain their fans by showing their dance moves to maintain their popularity. Additionally, celebrities have joined Tik Tok to post dance or performance challenges to their fans since most people are dominated on the internet, particularly on Tik Tok. When such dance video challenges go viral, the celebrities gain more popularity because Tik Tok connects all nations in the globe.
Another critical factor which has attracted more celebrities to join Tik Tok is that it allows sharing videos to other social media networks like Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram. Therefore they can reach as many people as possible, including those who are not on Tik Tok. Again, Tik Tok has audio-visual, interface changer and beautification filters which are essential in editing videos to the required outlook and resolution. Fundamentally, Tik Tok allows celebrities, particularly comedians, to create satisfactory content due to its distinctive features and share it to their fans easily.
ITS UNIQUE ALGORITHM – FAME
The Tik Tok algorithm determines if a video will go viral or not because it uses machine learning in the evaluation of the quality of each video uploaded. When the video is of high quality enough, it is publicized as much as possible. Still, low quality videos are not, because Tik Tok aims to maintain high-quality content so that they hold their users for a long time. The algorithm works as follows. Firstly, after uploading a video, it is first shown to a small number of users so that the user is not bored. Then, the algorithm measures the number of users who have watched the video, and the number of likes, shares, comments, and downloads (Zhou, 2019). When the video achieves a ratio of one like for every ten views, the algorithm shows the video to many people. However, this has inspired more users during the lockdown period to engage in creating videos. When they achieve the required quality, their videos go viral, and in this way, more users have become celebrities based on their video contents on Tik Tok.
MEETS CURRENT MARKET NEEDS
The triumph of the Tik Tok mobile app is attributed to its features of creating original content whereby users can play original music while creating short videos. Therefore, it is ranked as a reliable platform because it publicizes original content without piracy cases. However, it serves market needs, and requirements and its success will last for a long time even after the end of the lockdown because it promotes original and high-quality video content to the appropriate users.
Furthermore, the algorithm mounted in the Tik Tok app software filters out poor and immoral content thus improving users’ trust in the platform, and they prefer it in future ((Liqian, 2018). Additionally, the unique features and simplicity of operating the Tik Tok app appeals users and encourages them to use it in future because it has overwhelmed other related social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram. Comedy clips and music videos created on Tik Tok are ethical and suitable for all age groups since it only shows high quality and useful content to the public. This has led to an improvement of the app’s integrity and reliability, and therefore it will remain preferable after lockdown period when people will resume their usual daily activities.
CONCLUSION
Tik Tok is known for creating high quality and right content like short-video clips for entertainment purposes. Therefore its popularity may last for a long time because it filters the content before publicizing it. However, it is classified as an excellent platform for promoting cultural ethics because it has an algorithm for filtering out immoral content which is unsuitable for the society. It also encourages identification and nurturing of talents and creativity skills because it requires simple steps to operate. Tik Tok is continually reforming its algorithm and features to ensure that it entirely meets user requirements and preferences.
Advancing Tik Tok software and establishing new features aims at maintaining user appeal for a long time. The morality of Tik Tok has attracted many organizations that prefer using it as a marketing and advertising tool since it has a virtuous cultural image in the community worldwide. Thus, Tik Tok has immense power over all other social media sites and will remain reliable for future purposes.
References list
Liqian, H., 2018. Study on the perceived popularity of TikTok.http://dspace.bu.ac.th/jspui/handle/123456789/3649
Mackenzie, S.A. and Nichols, D., 2020. Finding ‘Places to Be Bad’ in Social Media: The Case of TikTok. In Urban Australia and Post-Punk (pp. 285-298). Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-32-9702-9_22
Xu, L., Yan, X. and Zhang, Z., 2019. Research on the Causes of the “Tik Tok” App Becoming Popular and the Existing Problems. Journal of Advanced Management Science Vol, 7(2).http://www.joams.com/uploadfile/2019/0613/20190613034911476.pdf
Zhou, Q., 2019. Understanding User Behaviors of Creative Practice on Short Video Sharing Platforms–A Case Study of TikTok and Bilibili (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati).https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:ucin155421202112545