TikTok is not just for kids: how quarantine triggered the humor of Mexico on this network

The Mexican actress Erika Buenfil (Monterrey, Nuevo León, 1963) belongs to the baby boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964), but she is a celebrity who has broken the age barrier. Buenfil has gained 4 million subscribers last month on TikTok, the preferred social network for those under 30. "Two years ago we had very young people and 'kids', but today we have the income of older people," Arturo Martínez, head of operations for TikTok in Mexico , tells Verne .

Since the start of the health contingency for the covid-19, the Chinese social network ceased to be exclusive to the centennial generation (born after 1997), with the union of users from other generations as millennials (born between 1982 and 1996). ), gene X (from 1964 to 1981) and boomers . The youngest are still the majority on TikTok, but their participation has decreased as older people have joined. 60% of the more than 1,000 million users are between 16 and 25 years old, according to the leader of the network in Mexico. “Now that we are in this moment of contingency, we see people who want to entertain themselves along with their families. Mothers, fathers and even grannies unite with the youngest, "says Martínez.

@sazonandoconlabue

Clothes!!! ## julionalvarez ## parati. ☔️ 😂😳

Humor as a measure of entertainment in the face of the pandemic is one of the main successes of the network. According to network analysis firm Wallaroo, TikTok went from having 680 million users at the end of 2018 to just over 1 billion in early April 2020. The network indicates that it has a presence in 150 countries in 75 languages. "The reason why TikTok is growing in number of users and usage time per month is because we are a space where you can express your creativity, your ideas and where you can joke around," says Martínez.

Ease of use is one of the most attractive points of this network: it allows you to record short videos -up to one minute- and edit them adding sound tracks and effects. "One of the things that give TikTok magic is the challenges: week after week we are trying to understand what the users create."

The Esperancita Challenge is one of the challenges that has most attracted the attention of Mexican users. It began in March 2020, a few days after the Mexican government's call to stay home. It is about a girl doing a lip sync (or audio synchronization) challenge as a Mexican soap opera. While TikTok accumulates 92,000 views, a version on Twitter reaches more than 3.5 million views. 

Close your tiktok accounts this girl has already won

HAHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/rM4DILCyTr

The challenge was picked up by hundreds of TikTok accounts, including parodies from media like The Washington Post.

Today's second @washingtonpost quarantine TikTok features my evil twin brother plotting against me once again https://t.co/cg4yC3GtJU pic.twitter.com/Krfr4PQXIt

What a beautiful time you are mopping Esperanza ## Esperanza Challenge ## Quelindatevestrapiando Esperanzita ## Quelindatevez

- Esperancita sucked. 😁🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/ooJ0bhLMKZ

Humor to face the pandemic

The covid-19 pandemic, while humorous, is a very serious matter for TikTok. "We take care of disseminating important messages to prevent infection and promote people to stay at home," says the leader of this social network in Mexico. For this reason, they have created an alliance with the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) to accompany the healthy distance journey. One of the videos of this campaign has been played more than 2 million times, just on the TikTok platform.

@imssmx

The ## sanadistancia stops the chain of contagion of ## covid19. 🦠 ## prevention ## coronavirus ## health ## mexico ## imss ## foryou ## fyp

The ## sanadistancia stops the chain of contagion of ## covid19. 🦠 ## prevention ## coronavirus ## health ## mexico ## imss ## foryou ## fyp

"We help IMSS to verify your account to have credibility and trust, in addition to ensuring that its content has the correct scope and distribution," says Martínez. Not only is it a video that explains the correct technique of hand washing, but it uses the same language of the social network

@imssmx

With a ## HelloIt's Enough do not do it by hand, kiss or hug. 🦠 ## coronavirus ## covid19 ## diseases ## virus ## information ## fyp ## parati ## imss

For Martínez, the important thing about using TikTok is daring to create videos. "More and more people are creating content not just for humor, but for makeup, cooking and others," he says. "We believe that in this time of staying at home they can explore and entertain themselves with the network, that they exploit their creativity and explore with us", he concludes.

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