People who have discovered Tiktok during the quarantine tell us what has hooked them

After two weeks at home, in late March, Nora Ruiz wanted to try something new to do to entertain herself beyond reading, playing sports and cooking. A friend had told her about TikTok and she chose to download it. "Boredom is very bad," says this 25-year-old flight stewardess student. Ruiz is one of those people who discovered this social network during confinement. The TikTok app has been among the 10 most downloaded in Spain since March 22, both on the App Store and on Google Play. Since then, Nora Ruiz says that this platform "has almost become a newspaper" where she uploads videos every day.

@ la.norix

And the ring for when? ## jlosuperbowlchallenge ## parati

"I thought it could be fun when they told me about challenges," says Ruiz. These days he has imitated Jennifer López's dance in the final of the Super Bowl with the #jlosuperbowlchallenge and has even included her mother in a video dancing the #ohanachallenge. He also spends time watching what others do and says that it is usual for profiles like those of Paula Collantes or Claudia García.

Ruiz is in the most common age range of the platform: as a company spokesperson explained to us a few months ago, 60% of its users are between 16 and 25 years old. But during these days it has reached other users with more free time than usual. As we already discussed in this article, TikTok has only been surpassed in downloads by apps like Zoom, Google Duo or Hangouts, which favor videoconferencing and teleworking. In an analysis of how the application's audience has been expanded, Ferran Lalueza, professor of Information and Communication Sciences Studies at the Open University of Catalonia, explains: "The use of this application has increased because the confinement It has made many people look for new ways to entertain themselves and because it has given us many hours of intergenerational coexistence that have caused many adults to discover TikTok thanks to their children. " 

Teresa Cortés, 55, from Madrid, discovered TikTok thanks to her seven-year-old niece. "He showed me the videos he was making and told me that with that he would spend his dead hours laughing," he says. So Cortés decided to try it and see if the app made confinement moments more enjoyable. "I don't make videos nor do I ever plan to do them, I'm basically there to laugh and gossip," he says. Among the videos that amuse him the most are those of either Paco León or the Betis player Joaquín, who have also opened their accounts during confinement.

Jesús Corsino had already tried it months ago, but then he did not connect with this social network. This 40-year-old dealer has been reconciled to TikTok during quarantine. “I wanted to put aside monotonous things. I saw that videos were shared that seemed funny to me and I decided to access it ”, he explains. Since mid-April making videos has become one of her main hobbies: changing faces with her cat, parodying sounds in which she simulates singing (something very popular on the platform that is known as lip syncs ), doing a proposed dance challenge by Paz Padilla ... Humor is one of the most popular themes, according to TikTok data since March the hashtag # ComediaEnEspañol has reached 54 million views.

@jesuscorsinoalcantara

my cat knows how to sing

"There are sound effects, mask effects ... It's a lot of fun. And in general simple to use, although it is true that it is a very different graphic environment than other social networks ”, comments Corsino about the application. According to data from the Google Trends tool, which studies the most searched terms on the net, it can be clearly seen how searches related to TikTok have increased in these days of confinement. The searches “how to make videos on TikTok” and “how to use TikTok” have also grown. From Verne we wanted to deepen the profile of new users, but TikTok has not given us more data.

A screenshot of Google Trends showing the rise in searches on the term "How to make videos on TikTok".

Francisco Callado, a 32-year-old from Cádiz, is also one of those who have given the social network a second chance and have ended up reconciled with it. “I downloaded it a year ago and I didn't understand anything. It has not been until now when I have created a user. What has hooked him is "everything related to singing and dancing." In the videos he publishes, we can see him playing the piano and guitar and he confesses that he uses much more TikTok than other networks in which he has been more time-consuming, such as Facebook. .

New idols

When Alex Stockard downloaded TikTok in March to combat the boredom moments locked up at home, he did not imagine that there were more than 12,000 people who would be interested in what he had to tell. "A roommate recommended it to me because I like to do crazy things and sing, although it was also a way to see what people in quarantine were doing," he explains. This 25-year-old American based in Madrid began using it exploring some of the most popular options on the platform, such as dances or lip syncs . However, it was as a result of a video in which he parodied how his way of speaking had become Spanish when he gained more followers. "Sometimes they didn't seem like such good ideas, but nonetheless they were the most successful," he laughs.

@ stockystock5

Living in Spain ## parati ## Spain

Since then, she has chosen to focus her videos on content related to accent and cultural differences: from a parody on how we pronounce WiFi to why giris wear flip flops with socks. "I studied Hispanic Philology, I went to exchange to Seville and Costa Rica and finally decided to come to Spain to live in 2017. One of the things that most surprises me about the language is the direct way you have to ask for things," he says. Although Stockard knows that interest is now marked by the very special situation in which we find ourselves, when everything happens, he plans to space his videos more: “Now it's okay because I have more free time, but later I want to make life outside of social networks and don't consume me. "

A fleeting interest

Other people who have experimented with TikTok these days have found that this application is not for them. The Asturian Emma Menéndez, 25, got to make “2 or 3 videos every day in the dead moments of the first days” and now she does practically none. “I hardly use it anymore. It was more the boom from the beginning, for doing something different ”, he explains. Rocío Barrantes, of the same age, has also chosen to stop using it, although for other reasons. "I started to read that TikTok was removing videos of people who, according to them, were ugly, fat or with some kind of disability, and I have been parking it."

Fran Vico, a 29-year-old Catalan and a student of a master's degree for teachers, explored TikTok at first useful to establish connections with his future students. "I downloaded it because I thought I had to find out what the kids were doing." Its use, he explains, seemed "addictive, you go from video to video and in the end you are watching bullshit all day." But the hook did not last long: after an addictive first day, he only went back in four more times and chose to desrystallize it. “I already knew what it was about and I wasn't interested. I have enough with Instagram ”, says Vico.

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