
TikTok famous: How the app is turning teenagers into celebrities - laurex
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/10/2/20891915/tiktok-famous-teenagers-haley-sharpe-yodeling-karen
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spamizbad
The fact that this app came out of China and not Silicon Valley, when it was
halfway there with Vine before killing it, seriously makes me question the
long-term sustainability of social/media apps from SV in the future. The era
that gave us Youtube and Facebook is likely coming to a close.

~~~
momokoko
What I feel is more interesting, is that TikTok did it with aggressive
traditional Google and Facebook ads. This is directly at odds with the SV
playbook for social media apps which relies mostly on viral and network
effects boosted by growth hacks built directly into the product.

~~~
hi5eyes
>TikTok did it with aggressive traditional Google and Facebook ads

weird everyone my age (20s) and younger know of tiktok through twitter/youtube

never new tiktok had ads on fb, weird for them to target boomers

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TeMPOraL
FB and _boomers_?

Only makes me reinforce my belief that generation classifications are mostly
bullshit.

~~~
malvosenior
Boomers are the only people I see using FB. Maybe a few millennials who are
trapped so deep in social media addiction that they use it to supplement the
23 hours a day they spend on Instagram.

~~~
jorvi
I'd say it's a gradient.

40+: Pretty much only Facebook

30-40: mainly Facebook, slight uptick in Instagram use

20-30: mix of Facebook and Instagram, some Snapchat

12-20: mix of Instagram and Snapchat, some very slight Facebook use

If you count WhatsApp as social media: universal with 90%+ penetration among
all age groups

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shriphani
I met a Punjabi gentleman in his 50s watching Tik Tok. Turns out there's a
vibrant comedy scene in the Punjabi language on Tik Tok. It is huge in the
South Asian community and is attracts a large variety of eyeballs.

~~~
jankyxenon
Can confirm. Source: am Punjabi; wonderful stuff, pretty much the only social
media I consume.

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ktln2
... and making these "celebrities" kowtow to Chinese censors.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-
how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing) [2]
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/26/20883993/tiktok-
censorshi...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/26/20883993/tiktok-censorship-
china-bytedance-politics)

~~~
deepVoid
Or kowtow to American censors [1][2]. [1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[2][https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/9jjpph/re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/9jjpph/reddit_censorship_is_slowly_killing_the_site/)

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par
TikTok is definitely ushering in the next wave of social. Admittedly I'm old
and therefore I am not on it, but I still find a lot of the videos that get
re-posted pretty consumable and entertaining.

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zwieback
I wonder how sustainable an app that mostly targets preteens and high
schoolers is, though. I realize everyone thinks of the next wave of consumers
but will they continue using TikTok? It sounds like a big part of the appeal
is that each next wave wants something other than what that the older boring
people are using.

~~~
dvt
In short, very sustainable[1]. Look at Snap. Growing pains, sure, but it's
undeniable that it became a social media staple.

[1] Not TikTok though, see my other comment.

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dvt
TikTok has been aggressively advertising on Snap and Insta for years now. It's
very obviously a non-sustainable business model. The whole _point_ of viral
growth is that you don't need advertising. I'm sure there's going to be a
massively profitable "MySpace for gen-Z or Vine 2.0" coming out soon (does
anyone want to build it?), but TikTok ain't it.

~~~
debt
Maybe unsustainable in the traditional sense, but if they can negotiate
contracts with the talent on their platform, that may be a different avenue
for profitability.

I mean look at the success of Lil Nas X. Highly successful TikTok talent.

~~~
dvt
I'd argue that Lil Nas X had success in _spite_ of TikTok, not because of it.
His single was amazing -- just fantastic content all around. 180+ million hits
on YouTube doesn't lie. He would've blown up regardless of platform.

~~~
friendlybus
Music video seems to have a massive increase in view numbers over any other
kind of video category. I question how valid the view numbers are! There must
be a lot of computers/tv's left on playing music in burger kings or airports.

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philshem
I realized many of my comments are relevant, recent New Yorker articles. So,
to stay consistent:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/how-tiktok-
hol...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/how-tiktok-holds-our-
attention)

------
GhettoMaestro
TikTok is fun because it is not political (yet).

The few political TikToks I have seen get destroyed in the comments.

~~~
tomashertus
TikTok banned political advertising[1]! Definitely the right move given their
targeted audience and shows the company's focus on keeping in that way.

1) [https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/03/tiktok-explains-its-ban-
on...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/03/tiktok-explains-its-ban-on-political-
advertising/)

~~~
GhettoMaestro
Wow that’s very interesting. Thank you for linking that.

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ralphc
Non-sustainable business model or no, it is _the_ thing right now. I found
this snippet interesting from the article "When an elderly woman went missing,
these four 'junior detectives' sprang into action and saved the day"

"Logan said the group of friends were excited and happy to have found the
woman safe.

"We had a party in my tree house eating goldfish and watching TikToks to
celebrate," said Makenna."

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dba7dba
How much was vox paid for this pr piece, I wonder?

Also I wonder how much bloomberg is paid for posting news related videos using
tiktok.

It is a new type of marketing I guess.

~~~
stevewodil
Tik Tok is incredible at marketing. We've never seen anything quite at this
level. Originally they were posting videos all over Reddit but eventually
those submissions got blocked. They also paid a bunch of meme channels on
YouTube to start posting Tik Tok compilation videos, which reach millions of
views.

~~~
meowface
Do you know anything about the legality of TikTok paying "influencers" to
upload copies of user-created content, without TikTok or the influencers
paying the users anything (as in the YouTube compilation example)? I would
have figured users own the copyright to their content, other than the music in
it, and that something like that could be considered copyright infringement if
their entire clip is being uploaded and monetized by someone else without any
consent or compensation. (TikTok videos are short, so compilations are
composed of a large number of full videos, rather than snippets of videos.)

I also believe those YouTubers are often making additional money from the
compilation videos with sponsorships and affiliate links, in addition to what
TikTok pays them.

Is it just a matter of TikTok hoping most small-time creators will see it as
free publicity and/or figuring they probably don't have any legal knowledge or
resources, or even awareness their content is being monetized by others? Or
have the users signed away all revenue-earning potential due to the music
licensing, or something?

If the latter's the case, it seems unfair that random YouTubers can monetize
the content a TikTok user created while the user gets nothing from it, and
while the user can't even monetize their own content themselves.

~~~
grenoire
I would not be surprised if the ToS permitted their behaviour. "Any content
you give us, we can use freely in- and outside the platform" kind of deal is
going to go past people easily. I think we would have seen people chasing
Tiktok already if this wasn't the case.

