TikTok Ticks the Right Boxes

Iamp8217m aware that when it comes to stuff like this amp8211 apps that seem to hit the world like a quick and sudden wave amp8211 there are usually two camps the people who ride that wave right away and the people who dodge that mother like itamp8217s a tsunami headed towards their beach house I was in the latter category Iamp8217m not that old of a guy but to me TikTok was for kids I literally said the words quotMy son is 12 and he uses TikTok I think Iamp8217m goodquot That sentiment only lasted for so long however because after a certain point it the app became impossible to avoid It was Snapchat all over again Suddenly people in my immediate age group were vibin39 with each other over references I was no longer aware of because they were no longer referencing movies and TV shows They were referencing TikToks as the 15to60second videos posted on TikTok are called It was like everyone had these inside jokes that I wasnamp8217t privy to The FOMO was real guysOnce I got on there I began to see its appeal The thing it does best is fill time Just open that sucker up and bang a constant barrage of fresh content and interaction A feed of fullpage videos appears and with a single swipe up or down one has the instant ability to find something completely new a video recipe for homemade marshmallows a viral dance challenge a makeup tutorial whatever Itamp8217s all thereIt makes sense when you really look at it because the need for this kind of simple shortform content is all around us These days we are constantly in socially distant lines or waiting for a contactless deliveries or looking for a distraction from whatever thing life is making you do through Zoom The content provided by TikTok has the ability to fill any amount of time because most of it is fleeting Eventually all those seconds add up and you realize youamp8217ve been TikToking for hoursAll this TikTok talk has me ready to highlight a couple of my favorites First up is a young woman named amp8230 well I donamp8217t know her name but her TikTok handle is Yoleendadong and her name is probably Leena She does duets with videos she finds on the Internet mainly other TikToks where she reacts to them while joking in a hilarious voice A duet is a video that splits the screen with another video that already exists like another user39s TikTok allowing the user to react to or with the original video Honestly Iamp8217m not even sure if sheamp8217s doing a voice or if thatamp8217s just her but either way her clips are goldNext up is Jilliansurfs She does these very cool transition videos 100 on her phone that truly impress every time I see them The dedication and forethought it must take to plan and then execute these things gets more and more impressive with every video and Jillian even takes the time to break down how she did some of her best stuff tooLastly thereamp8217s a dude named Matthewking and literally all he does is dance The same dance Over and over The catch is he takes very specific requests like quot100 asleep 100 dance 0 emotionquot or quotdo the dance but film it from the ceilingquot or quotdo it in reversequot No matter what the request the results are always dopeQuibi famously failed in its attempt to similarly take up time albeit with pricier programming The goal was for it to become an essential streaming service that offered showsmovies in 5to10 minute quotchaptersquot that like TikTok were in vertical phone screen format The difference in the two is the size of the time blocks the individual apps were trying to fill Quibiamp8217s blocks of content were meant to make it feel like a miniNetflix or a YouTube that solely featured shortform content but that amount of time was meant to be experienced on the go in trains on buses at the subway station in the back of Ubers etc Because of the pandemic all those forms of travel took a major hit and while the world definitely kept on spinning itamp8217s been doing so just slow enough to keep a lot of people out of situations in which Quibi might have thrived Factor in the emergence of TikTok and its existence as an amorphous mix of AIcurated algorithmically distributed timefilling media and it gets a little easier to see how the coronavirus more or less sealed Quibiamp8217s already questionable fateAt the end of day social media platforms streaming services and the like come and go but the more important point is how their respective presences continue to affect both the media industry and the larger world of general content creation Thereamp8217s a reason that certain things are harder to ignore than others TikTok is one of those things Itamp8217s become so popular that even social media conglomerates like Facebook have adopted their own versions of it which is exactly what the 39Gram39s newest installation quotReelsquot is For realsClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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TikTok Ticks the Right Boxes

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Ainsley Andrade

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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TikTok Ticks the Right Boxes

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