There has been a lot of discussion around TikTok, a big part of the conversation has been around international tensions, national security, acquisition by an american company, and its new competitor, Instagram Reels. So far, there has been less discussion on what TikTok actually is and what it represents. That being said, some have definitely taken an interest in digging deeper. One great example is an article written by Eugene Wei, “TikTok and the Sorting Hat”, if you’re interested in a deeper analysis into TikTok, its history and its fast ascent to the top of the app charts, Eugene’s article is both well written and informative. I won’t go into as much depth as Eugene here, the goal is just to summarize and build on some of his observations.
What actually is TikTok? If you feel like you’re an expert on the subject, feel free to skip ahead. As Eugene describes it:
[TikTok] provides creators on one side with unmatched video creation tools (coupled with potential super-scaled distribution) and viewers on the other side with an endless stream of entertainment that gets more personalized with time.”
How does this play out for users? As a user when you open TikTok the main feed is called the “For You” Page or FYP for short. Like any other feed you can scroll down and you will get shown a variety of short videos ranging from 6 to 60 seconds in length. At first you are shown a broad sampling of content, mostly popular videos that the algorithm knows are high quality. As you interact with each video, whether it is by liking the video, commenting, following the content creator, or even by just how quickly you scroll to the next video, the algorithm very rapidly starts tailoring the content to show you things based on your engagement. As an experiment, when I first downloaded the app I didn’t like, comment, share, or follow any content creators. Just by using how long I watched certain videos and which ones I skipped it quickly started to determine niches I was interested in, even some very small ones, like architecture or philosophy content. Anyone who has used Tiktok will tell you it’s surprising how quickly the algorithm starts to serve you content based on your interests.
For the viewer this means a relatively endless stream of entertaining content. For the creator this means that TikTok will take away the hard work of trying to build or find your audience. As you post videos using their simple but powerful creation tools, it will analyze the videos using the description, hashtags, and even the visual content and begin pushing it to different users. At first it pushes the content to a small group, if that group engages well (combination of likes, comments, shares, and watch duration) it then sends it out to a broader audience.
How to Crack the TikTok Algorithm by Henry Ton
As the content is engaged with, the algorithm refines who sees it and if the content continues to do well it keeps getting distributed. It’s entirely possible for a small account with 0 or no followers to post a video that gets 2M views if the content is engaging enough and the algorithm finds the right audience for it.
Now that we’ve addressed how TikTok works, there is space to discuss what it means and what makes it so different from other platforms. At its core the TikTok algorithm is “trying to figure out what hundreds of millions of viewers around the world are interested in. When you frame TikTok's algorithm that way, its enormous unrealized potential snaps into focus.” (TikTok and the Sorting Hat, Eugene Wei). People mistakenly see TikTok as an app for teens that want to make and watch lipsync or dance videos, but that is just a product of how the algorithm has interacted with its audience so far. As older users join the platform there has been an explosion of new niches like architecture tiktok, design tiktok, farm tiktok...etc.
The algorithm makes it so that new niches can organically appear as different users engage with the platform. My TikTok feed today is so dramatically different from what it was a year ago, and it’s this algorithmic adaptability that drives the true value of TikTok. Eugene astutely asks “How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai manage to run circles around U.S. video apps from YouTube to Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat, becoming the most fertile source for meme origination, mutation, and dissemination in a culture so different from the one in which it was built?”. Not only does the algorithm enable a company to succeed with an audience they don’t understand, it also enables the explosive growth which the app has been seeing. TikTok is a two sided entertainment platform which helps content creators find their audience and vice versa for viewers, in addition, viewers can just as easily be creators.
This flexible boundary between creator and viewer is a growing trend and also an expectation of younger generations. Millennials and even more so, Gen Z, gravitate towards participatory media. 40 Million viewers a month tune into Twitch to watch people play games, they can participate by interacting directly with streamers (via chat) or indirectly via playing the same game. The proximity between creator and consumer has gotten smaller and smaller and TikTok perfectly manifests this trend and desire to be both a creator and consumer.
"They (kids) do not need to be told or motivated to explore or play, for play, like all creative and proto-creative activities is deeply pleasurable in itself" (The Creative Self, Oliver Sacks)
This is a topic for an entirely separate discussion but I think a reaction of the younger generation to the alienation of being surrounded by technology is a deep seated desire to create and express themselves through creating content for their peers. Even Snapchat is a form of communication via small acts of content creation