Have you heard anyone talking about TikTok lately? The social media app has been in the news due to the US Government passing a law to ban the app on January 19. President Biden signed the law and TikTok fought the ban all the way to the Supreme Court. All of the Justices upheld the law so the social media platform was set to go down.
On Saturday, January 18 rumors started flying that TikTok was going to go offline at anytime. TikTokers from all over the country got on the app to say goodbye and film their last videos. Many high profile influencers went live on the platform and waited for it to go down.
It was interesting to view people crying and pouring their hearts out the shutdown. Several million people were going to lost their only form of income.
Around 10:30pm Oklahoma time the app did finally go offline. It was a little odd thinking that there were millions of Americans staring at their blank screens. Everyone went to bed wondering what the future would be and if President Trump could save the app.
From what I read just about everyone checked the app first thing when they woke up. TikTok was not working in the morning but within about 12 hours the app began to work again.
There were lots of glitches but the app was back. The news that went out was that President Trump had promised not to enforce fines if the app was turned back on. Although the app was working it was still considered banned. It remained unavailable in the app stores.
I started wondering why so many people cared about the app and why so many other people thought it was foolish to even be on the app. After lots of doom scrolling on all of the main social media apps it became clear to me the the TikTok algorithm was far superior to any other app.
I also started to realize what the secret sauce was that sucked people into spending so much time on the app. I wondered how I could explain explain my thoughts in the way of an analogy. Something finally popped into my head and that’s what this blog post and podcast episode are about.
Imagine living in a town with several big buildings in the downtown area. One building is called TV, another is Newspaper, one is Radio and the last one is Internet. As a young person you used to spend time in the first three buildings, They all had different rooms you could spend time in and that’s where you spent your leisure time.
As time went by you eventually stopped entering those first set of building and began spending most of your time in the Internet building. The first time you went in you could see a long hallway with rooms on each side.
The first room you had ever gone into was the MySpace room which was now locked so you stopped visiting that room. You moved on and began entering the other rooms. Below is my description of what could be found in each room. These rooms are my analogy for the different social media apps.
The Facebook room is the one you started spending the most time in. You could find family, friends and your high school classmates sitting around eating and sharing photos. People talk about the weather. The room is fairly quiet. There are quotes on display everywhere.
Every time you go back into the room it’s the same family members, friends and classmates eating the same things showing you the same photos. If someone comments on an old picture everyone has to see all of the old photos again. You rarely meet anyone new and there are lots of imposters pretending like they are your friends.
The vibe is Happy Days meets Groundhog Day. It’s a little boring and repetitive.
As you move down the hallway to enter the Instagram room. You see several of your friends and family but there are also many businesses trying to sell you things. They share lots of photos.
In another part of the room there are strangers showing you videos of people doing goofy and dangerous things. There are lots of videos of activities and disasters. You notice that videos of people talking to you have TikTok logos on them.
Scantily clad girls are always try to get your attention when you walk in. You rarely meet anyone new and there’s very little communication.
The vibe is Candid Camera meets Girl’s Gone Wild. There’s lots of action but no conversation.
YouTube
YouTube is the next room you decide to enter. You walk in and don’t see anyone you know. It looks like a library. There are lots of videos on display some with clickbait titles. If you want to learn something you can look up a video of someone showing you how to do it.
There’s another part of the room with random people doing activities and showing you how talented they are. There are also lots of people performing pranks. You notice that many videos of people talking have a TikTok logo on them.
The vibe is The Learning Channel meets Jackass. It’s informative but you never meet anyone.
The next room you enter is the Twitter room. You find an angry crowd with everyone yelling at each other, cussing and blocking each other. The room is divided into people on one side or the other. 50% of the people are sharing videos trying to prove a conspiracy theory. Most of the videos are clipped and only show small part of a news story.
In the back of the room there are people talking about sports. Celebrities walk by and tell you their political views.
You’re a fly on the wall and very few people know you’re in the room and very few people try to talk to you. If you’re not famous or controversial you get ignored.
The vibe is Fox News and CNBC meets ESPN. It’s a great place to troll and find a conspiracy.
TikTok
Each time you would enter the building you would notice that there was music and laughter coming from the end of the hall in the last room. At some point you finally make the decision to walk all of the way down and enter the last room.
The sign on the door says TikTok. You open the door and people are singing and dancing everywhere. It looks like there’s a party going on. People walk up to you and start telling you stories. One person asks you if you like cats and you say yes so she tells you all about her cat. Ten other people walk up and start talking about their cats.
A guy walks up to you crying uncontrollably. You ask him what’s wrong and he says that his entire family has died and if he were to die nobody would know he ever existed. He just wants someone to know that he was here. Hundreds of people run up and tell him that they see him and acknowledge that he is alive.
A guy named Chandler takes you into a nursing home every day so he can talk to his grandma who is very old and has dementia. They sing songs and talk until she finally recognizes who he is.
The room is full of people each one with a unique story. The stories are interesting and the people seem like they are talking directly to you and encouraging you. Most of the people seem very authentic. You immediately feel like you’re part of many different groups and many stories.
Many of the stories grab your heart. You watch one lady going through cancer giving you daily updates. You walk in one day and she’s not there but her daughter is. Her daughter tells you that she has passed and you feel like you’ve lost a real friend although you’ve never even spoken to that person.
There are stories after stories. You also run into people that work in the room just entertaining you. Some people sell items from the store in the corner. Several people volunteer to teach you how to make money as well. You feel like you’re part of a vibrant community.
The vibe is Friends meets The Truman Show. It’s a great place to connect and share stories.
After thinking about all of those analogies my conclusion is:
The secret sauce of TikTok is human connection and storytelling. Is as simple as that.
UPDATE: A quick update since TikTok went offline for several hours.
The only thing faster than TikTok coming back online were the conspiracy theorists and their fake videos. A few TikTokers tried to increase their following by claiming that there really was not a ban but rather a conspiracy between President Trump and the Chinese Government. They claimed the app went down so users data could be transferred to Meta servers because Meta supposedly had bought the app.
They claimed there was a new algorithm and it was owned by Meta because US Congressman had been buying stock in Meta. Many users complained that things were not working properly and that their FYP pages were giving them different results.
The truth is that Meta did not buy TikTok and the app is still in trouble of being banned in 75 days if a buyer is not found. The most likely reason that FYP pages were different was due to users caches being deleted during the outage and needing to be regenerated.
Due to the downtime, the Trump involvement, the false Meta claims and the FYP changes many users started talking about leaving the app and moving to other platforms. Five days after the outage of TikTok new users are still unable to find the app in the major app stores.
All of this has shifted the focus of the friendly content to more of a content filled with political and conspiracy topics. The hope is that things will settle down and a buyer will be found for the current version of the app.
PODCAST
VIDEO
Leave a Comment