The internet is an amazing place where new ideas and new forms of media are being created every day to help increase the world wide web’s credibility in becoming the wave for people consuming content and TikTok is one of those big steps.
If you haven’t already heard of TikTok then I don’t even understand how you survived quarantine over this past year, TikTok is a newer social media and video creation / sharing platform that houses many different niche communities such as comedy, dance, craft and many more. It’s user interface and its way of showing only shorter forms of content has made TikTok into a media entity that is unstoppable. TikTok gets some of its inspiration from a previous platform called “Vine” which ended up being shut down in 2016 with incorporating a scrolling feature that lets you endlessly consume content for hours upon hours with even knowing it.
TikTok over this past year has really placed itself into the mainstream media by creating some of these new age celebrities with its platform such as Addison Rae and the D’amelio family. YouTube as a platform was beginning to turn influencers into celebrities but TikTok’s blow up eventually solidified online creators as figures in the Hollywood industry.
The online world is forever evolving and changing and media sites such as YouTube and TikTok are a big part of that. Media corresponds almost directly with what is trendy and popular to do at that moment in time. It has become human nature to become bored of the same repetitive content so creators on these platforms have adapted to learn to change and update their content consistently so that the audiences don’t get bored and wonder off somewhere else, this can be summed down to a term called “Attention Economy”. Attention economy is defined as a resource that cannot be bought by money but paid by the consumers attention and the goal of every website that has some form of advertising is to keep you on that website and they integrate many different ways of doing that. For example, on YouTube your videos are more likely to get sent out to more people if you have a higher “watch time” on your videos than other creators and if your more advertiser friendly then your content is more likely to go on the trending tab and obtain more views.
TikTok does a phenomenal job and keeping viewers’ attention, not only is their platform suggesting 20 second – 2 minute long videos (but actually you’re more likely to get on the For You Page if the video is shorter, little inside trade secret for you TikTokers out there), their For You Page consistently showing videos you’d enjoy but also with their constant scrolling interface the attention of these viewers are forever locked on the TikTok app.
Online Content relies heavily on the Long Tail effect, your content sells (gets views) when you are promoting a popular product (chiming in on current trends) and you see this with YouTube and their trending tab constantly promoting people who follow current trends and same with TikTok and it is showing what’s trending in the hashtag section of its app.
The big question is how we even got here in the first place, well it all starts back in the 1840’s when the Telegraph was invented to send messages over longer distances and in a quicker fashion compared to what was available at that time, Teodor Mitew states, “… the telegraph dramatically alter the course of reality… For the first time, we could communicate information free from constraints of time…”.
Ted couldn’t be more right here, the growth in technology from just 2010 to what it is now in 2021 is expediential let alone what it is compared to the 1840’s. The evolution of the internet is also a very fascinating topic. In the beginning it was used for research and contact other people with access to the World Wide Web, now you’re not even allowed to open a bank account with having some form of electronic mail available for the bank to contact you.
To conclude, the world of technology and the internet has evolved at an insane level and there’s no stopping it anytime soon. Users of the internet consume, create, and share so much media that I predict it will become the new medium and “traditional” media such as TV and Hollywood will become obsolete due to the accessibility people will have to their favourite creators, artists, etc.
TikTok looks to be at the forefront of all that as well with many celebrities such as The Rock, Jason Derulo, Selena Gomez jumping onto the TikTok band wagon to keep their online presence alive and thriving.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy#:~:text=Attention%20economics%20is%20an%20approach,only%20so%20much%20of%20it -Attention Economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWnwmCG-Am8&t=2864s _- Teodor Mitew
James Mackay - Portfolio 