As a social network, TikTok relies on sharing and commenting on short video clips that are spiced up with various filters.
Within a few years, the Chinese app gained over two billion users worldwide.
Beijing - The triumphant advance of TikTok began with video clips of clumsy teenagers who sang and danced songs of their favorite stars in poor lip-sync.
Today the social network is one of the most used apps worldwide and even makes the American competition look old.
TikTok: The beginnings of the app
TikTok was introduced to the Chinese market in Beijing by the tech company ByteDance in September 2016, initially under the name A.me and renamed Douyin three months later. ByteDance itself was only founded in 2012 by Internet billionaire Zhang Yiming, who wanted to use it to market his new news portal Toutiao. The new Douyin app for sharing video clips was actually launched as a by-product without much notice, but immediately became a hit with millions of downloads among young people.
The great success in China encouraged ByteDance to buy the app musical.ly, which was also developed in China, for one billion US dollars.
At that time, it already had 140 million users all over the world and two company offices in Shanghai and Los Angeles.
Musical.ly's core product was the ability to record funny little video clips that were shared mainly by young people.
With the purchase by ByteDance, musical.ly became TikTok worldwide, while in China the already established name Douyin was retained.
The headquarters are in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles.
TikTok: The way to a global social network
Soon after its release, TikTok spread rapidly around the world.
In February 2019, the one billion downloads mark was broken, and there are now over two billion.
Even if undoubtedly not all are active, TikTok (without its Chinese counterpart Douyin) had around 800 million active users worldwide in July 2020.
Of course, it didn't stop with private video clips in which teenagers perform dances and songs.
Soon, celebrities and commercial companies poured into the new social network, which also spawned its own stars.
The current biggest stars at TikTok
The American dancer Charli D'Amelio was the first TikTok user to break the barrier of 100 million followers.
The stars with the most followers at the moment are:
place |
Surname |
Followers (in millions) |
country |
1 |
Charli D'Amelio |
109.8 |
United States |
2 |
Addison Rae |
77.8 |
United States |
3 |
Bella Poarch |
58.6 |
United States |
4th |
Zach King |
57.6 |
United States |
5 |
Spencer Polanco Knight |
51.8 |
United States |
6th |
TikTok |
51.7 |
United States |
7th |
Loren Gray |
51.6 |
United States |
8th |
Dixie D'Amelio |
50.2 |
United States |
9 |
Will Smith |
48.9 |
United States |
10 |
Michael Le |
46.0 |
United States |
The 17-year-old Bhutanese-Indian influencer Riyaz Alye is the first non-American to take 11th place with 44 million followers.
In 13th place is the Mexican singer Kimberly Loaiza (38.4 million) and in 16th place the Turkish chef Burak Özdemir (35.7 million).
The incredibly successful Korean band BTS currently only manages 24th place with 29.9 million followers on TikTok.
TikTok: Popular Features
The originally most popular feature of TikTok was the ability to record your own video clips. To do this, users select a song and a video background. The users then film themselves with the smartphone camera while they sing and dance lip-synchronic to the songs. Finally, the clips can be alienated or spruced up with filters. There are countless songs from different genres to choose from. If you dare to, you can sing along to the background track yourself.
Every user can watch the latest videos of other users who are being followed in the “Following” stream.
In the stream “For you” you can see further suggestions that TikTok selects with the help of algorithms based on individual user preferences.
It is also possible to like clips and share them with other users of the app.
The “react” function is popular: users film their own reaction to a video, which friends then see at the same time as the actual clip.
With the "Duet" function it is possible to record duets with another person.
Users who have gathered at least 1,000 followers and who are at least 16 years old can use an additional "live" function and use it to broadcast live streams.
Gifts at TikTok
Users aged 18 and over can buy, send and receive virtual gifts via the app.
It works like this:
The user first buys virtual coins from TikTok.
The minimum amount is 1.09 euros and provides 65 coins.
The coins are used to buy virtual gifts at TikTok.
For example, a panda costs 5 coins, a Rainbow Puke 100 coins.
Below the recipient's video is the "Give a gift" option.
Everyone who follows the video can see who gave gifts of what value.
The recipient's account turns the gifts into diamonds.
Diamonds can then be converted back into real money and paid out via PayPal or another payment service provider.
There is also an almost endless selection of challenges in which users have to dance to official music videos in short clips and prove their own moves:
The Celeb Lookalike Challenge was about reinforcing an already existing visual similarity with stars and presenting oneself as a doppelganger in the video.
The stand-up challenge was a challenge for athletes: one person lies face down on the floor, the other stands on their back.
Accompanied by a soundtrack, the person lying down gradually stands up while the other person has to stand on top of them.
If everything goes well, she will end up standing on the shoulders of the person who is now standing upright.
In the level-up challenge, on the other hand, pets should be encouraged to step over various barriers, such as a series of toilet paper rolls, without knocking them over.
The Cleansnap Challenge ensured environmental protection and cleanliness: Here, littered public places such as parks and stretches of beach were cleaned in record time.
TikTok in education
As a social network, TikTok has advantages and disadvantages.
For example, the #EduTok program launched in 2019 can be rated as positive.
Originally developed for the Indian market, it experienced a rapid breakthrough in the school sector around the world due to the corona pandemic and the closure of schools.
Teachers and mentors film short videos in which they cover topics in a wide variety of school subjects.
The modern, accessible processing appeals to young people all over the world.
Numerous #edutok accounts have also been created in Germany.
TikTok in the criticism
At first glance, the colorful app for songs and dances seems harmless and youth-friendly. But TikTok has often been criticized for deficiencies in data protection and protection of minors. Since the end of April 2020, only people over the age of 16 have been allowed to send and receive private messages. This is to protect minors from cybercriminals trying to approach them.
Censorship measures by the Chinese government also cause trouble on a regular basis. Videos of the protests in Hong Kong against the government in Beijing have been censored. But not only China is exerting subtle pressure via the social network. In Turkey, for example, any criticism of President Erdogan is censored. In many other countries, content is deleted because of “profanity” or “immorality”. TikTok is also heavily criticized for deleting LGBT-friendly content, and not only in countries where homosexuality is still a criminal offense.
Meanwhile, in the US, TikTok is suspected of spying for China. Former President Donald Trump wanted to ban TikTok before the end of his term in office. But the TikTok parent company ByteDance filed a lawsuit against it in a court in California and was won.