As I edit what started as a book about YouTube into a book about online video more broadly, I join many others in trying to figure out TikTok. Given that the videos max out at one minute, you can watch a lot of them in a few hours. It’s worth noting that I cannot watch them natively: given that TikTok is heavily app-centric (there is a web version, but it’s a secondary channel compared to smartphone/tablet installs), I don’t trust the company with my personal and behavioral data. Just this week CNBC quoted former employees that ByteDance (the Chinese parent company) and the US TikTok operation worked very closely, sharing user data back and forth. I don’t have a “burner” smartphone to load the app onto, so can’t experience the addictiveness of the For You Page, the machine-learning-powered customization algorithm.
That said, what does one find in clips that run 15-60 seconds apiece? Fast cuts are the norm, as are clever visual effects: creating videos in the app gives the author access to a substantial palette of dissolves, filters, and other tools. Some other video apps even advise creators to edit in TikTok before uploading elsewhere. Catchy music (or music that is thought to be catchy for the target audience, which is rarely people like me) is often a potent part of the experience, which I noticed quickly. Even among “best of” complications, stereotypes abounded: pets and babies are cute, old people are clueless, boldly fluids and sounds are thought to be funny. For some reason, shots of people singing or dancing on escalators draw huge viewership. Men often perform in drag (consisting of wearing a towel or cloth napkin as a shawl): racial and gender stereotypes are a common theme from many angles. There’s still a lot of lip-synching and dancing, which were the original focus of the service.
Genuinely original content does percolate up. Rube Goldberg machines can be impressive and fit the medium perfectly. How-to videos can teach something interesting and useful in 60 seconds, including home-made bath bombs and drinking glasses made from empty wine bottles.Gender reveals (some that thankfully involve no pyrotechnics) show up, as do letter-openings: one Black person was captured as she got the DNA results that gave her an ancestral homeland as opposed to the centuries-old name of a slaveowner. One woman crocheted plastic shopping bags and shipping materials into blankets for the homeless.
These appear to be the exception. Millions of people apparently like to puppeteer their pets into dance-along videos. Teenage topics predominate: the dumb things teachers say and do, makeup tips or complaints, drunken antics that look less hilarious in the morning. Pranks and pratfalls show up a lot, as do dad jokes and moms who are good sports and/or wanting into their children’s world. Much of it was frighteningly stupid and often cringe-worthy.
Where did this wave of content come from? TikTok’s timing was perfect, launching as it did in 2017 just as Twitter’s Vine service was shutting down after four years. What then was Vine? Like TikTok, Vine insisted on short videos: six seconds apiece. The fit with Twitter (which bought rather than built the service) makes logical sense, with one exception: six seconds makes it impossible to affix ads to the short-form efforts. Absent a revenue stream for the service and monetization for the creators, Vine never overcame poor economics.
What Vine did do, however, was teach both creators and viewers a new visual and experiential vocabulary. It was called a generation’s inside joke, and many prominent Vine personalities went on to replicate their success on YouTube, Instagram, and elsewhere. This vocabulary was seized upon, and built upon, by TikTok creators who studied what had worked in a six-second world. For all the questions about TikTok’s data practices, the fact that Snapchat, Vine, nor TikTok was owned by the Zuckerberg empire made them popular among those who entered their teen years after Facebook had reached the over-45 demographic: sharing your latest stunts or jokes with your aunt or grandmother lacked any semblance of a “cool” factor.
What could people do with those six seconds? Again, much of the environment has to be viewed through the lens of a 13-20-year-old. Very few of the people seemed to live in a 40-hour work world; schools, malls, parks, cars, and apartments are familiar settings. Pop songs are familiar soundtracks, although the action could be anything from a cartoon to a puppeteered animal to someone lip-synching in an incongruous location or context. One key was facial expression: something visually stunning followed by a shot of raised eyebrows, sidelong glances, or millennial ennui fit the medium well. As on YouTube, pranks gone wrong and deliberate pratfalls show up often. Road signs and display advertising with letters covered over can easily fill six seconds.
Why does this matter? At 6 or 60 seconds, short-form videos are perfect time-fillers while waiting on hold, in line, or at a bus stop. Memes, a key currency for this demographic, can travel extremely quickly in such an environment. For the creators, the time limitations and editing suites heighten certain forms of talent: just as black-and-white still photography or iambic pentameter force artists to master a delimited medium, short-form video exposes those who can set up and deliver a joke, or create a visual impression, or set a mood with no time for throat-clearing. At the same time, the big money for creators still lies on YouTube, from what I’m told and have read: I’ve seen TikTok used as a lead stream to drive traffic to the youTube page of the same creator.
Look at the last 20 years: AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace, Facebook (Farmville), Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. Every new crop of adolescents needs to find its method of rebellion and differentiation, so as the TikTok demographic ages, and kids outgrow Roblox, expect to see some new form of app-powered expression within the next 2 or 3 years. Both Facebook and Google are launching TikTok copycats. Some candidate components: environmental sustainability, post-Covid shared nostalgia and PTSD, maybe a Disney effort that takes hold. I can’t see a subscription model succeeding with people who lack credit cards, so ads will have to pay for it in the short term. Maybe there will be a geospatial layer (remember Pokemon Go?), and I guarantee it will be snarky. That’s one constant among people this age and I can’t imagine it changing any time soon.
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