Even if you've never heard of the app, it's worth getting to know the app that has over 1.5 billion all-time downloads and captured global attention.
I think the best way to understand TikTok is to look at the context of its predecessors, Musically and Vine. As Vine came first it can be credited with popularising short videos, (short videos which were ‘easier’ than the long videos of Youtube). The issue with Vine was the majority of its users were consumers because to make a ‘good’ vine was ‘hard’ as a result there was only a small number of creators. Musically changed this because the lip-syncing feature made it easier to make videos thus leading to the pool of creators as well as consumers being massive.
TikTok is the same principle of both the previous app but taken to the next level. It’s easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts, it provides for you. You can select from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments from TV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participate in a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things. Compared to Vine TikTok is far more casual in the quality of videos it accepts, because the bar is low, the stakes are low which means many more people are willing to become content creators.
This makes TikTok more inclusive than any of the previous apps, although it has a small variety of users in terms of age, 66% of all of its users are under the age of 30-years-old, with 60% of the app's monthly users being between 16 and 24 as of Oct 2019. This is understandable because the demand for a platform where people can view and make quick, often low quality yet entertaining videos only comes from young people.
At the end of the day, we must remember, at its core TikTok is like all social media, it gives people a rush. Someone viewed it. Someone liked it. Someone shared it. You get a sudden rush of happiness with each one which hooks you onto doing more. The only question left to ask, is how long will this addictive app last?
