The Origins
Tik Tok was created by 39-year-old Zhang Yiming, a Chinese internet entrepreneur and the founder of ByteDance. Originally a dancing app created in 2016, in the first iterations Gen Z-ers would post 10 second videos to popular sounds. But in the six years since, TikTok has exploded into a digital phenomenon.
The Evolution
Growing exponentially since its inception, with over 800 million monthly active users according to Ryan Donovan from Hootsuite, the question of ‘Why’ has been brought up over and over again. Why is TikTok taking over? With the rise of COVID, when many people were in lockdown for months, a lot of them gravitated towards using the internet and more specifically using TikTok. In comparison to platforms like Instagram, TikTok feels more user inclusive with commenting and stitching features where you can add onto someone else’s video with your own. Through its own evolution, TikTok has revolutionized social media. The shorter videos, some being only a few seconds long, have satisfied our society’s itch to scroll. In general, the attention span we have now has shortened, and TikTok gives us that gratification of enjoying the full length of a video, then scrolling onto the next one as the cycle continues.
Is it better?
A major wave of current event topics has made its way to TikTok. For younger generations like Gen Z who are able and ready to vote, but don’t necessarily want to watch the news, seeing real time videos of political and current event topics come across their page can be informative and empowering. Younger generations are becoming more involved in our society, in politics, and activism because of the rise of social media and the proliferation of apps like TikTok.
Another aspect of TikTok that makes it stand out, and maybe makes it better than other social media platforms, is the ease of editing and creating videos. Features like adding text, voice overs, moving around clips, and inserting music, make it very user friendly to edit a video. When editing you can do anything you want to cater to your preferred niche or be creative and have fun with it.
Overall, the topic of social media makes some feel uneasy, while it provides careers for others. Brands are becoming more inclined to use social media for ads, and more likely to pay influencers to promote them there. As TikTok grows, we will see a rise in sponsored influencer content there as we’ve seen them on apps like Instagram. TikTok is taking over the social media world in a lot of ways, mainly because it makes it so easy to reach anywhere from hundreds to millions of people with just a 10 second clip or 3-minute video.
About Megan Valco
Megan Valco is an Account Assistant at Haute In Texas. Currently attending UTSA, she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Digital Communications. Her hobbies include enjoying day trips to Fredericksburg and the beach, painting and finding new thrift stores to shop. After graduating, her aspirations have no limit as she plans to continue working in the PR and Marketing world, as well as, traveling and living across the U.S. and abroad.
