The Trending World of TikTok

Are you experiencing the so-called “FOMO” pertaining to fear of missing out?Do you feel
that anxiety that a trending event maybe happening and you’re completely unaware?Be at ease
because we are your ferryman that will guide you to the ocean of the trending world.Current
trends,personalities,lifestyle we have it all!So hop on to the boat of trends and popularity.

You may be asking why is someone dancing in the middle of nowhere holding their
phones and making funny faces? Why are my classmates practicing a creative choreography
then later on performing it on camera?

This is maybe because you have been living under a rock for you to be completely
unaware of the trending social media platform.It has taken not only the Philippines but also the
entire world by a storm,the creative and fun app TikTok.

TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second
videos,on any topic.From creative mashups,dance choreography,short comedy clips and many
entertainment forms flooding all over this new and trending app.

TikTok is often referred to as a “lip-syncing” app, which makes it sound like it’s some
online karaoke experience.While it’s true that TikTok is home to some standard lip-syncing, it’s
actually better known for its act-out memes backed by music and other sound clips, which get
endlessly reproduced and remixed among its young users.

The norms in this platform is maybe one of the reasons that it is taking a rapid rise in
popularity.When one makes a short comedy clip or dance choreography backed up with some
music, suddenly gets discovered.Then instantly turning to a trend, which is imitated by other
users and can also improve or make their own rendition of this trend.

Where did TikTok come from?How did it cause a global scale widespread new trends and
forms of entertainment? How did TikTok become the app it is loved and famed for today? To
trace the history of this incredibly popular short-video sharing app, it's important to note that
TikTok didn't start as TikTok.TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company that runs
several popular social networking apps.

In 2016, ByteDance launched a short-video app in China called Douyin. Short-form

video creation was nothing new for China's market, but Douyin's popularity skyrocketed. Within
a year, Douyin had 100 million users and 1 billion video views each day.

A year later, Douyin expanded outside of China and spread globally under a new name,
TikTok. The platform quickly rose to top of the charts in asia.But as TikTok started to gain
attention globally, another short-video app was already dashing in the United States, Musical.ly.
Its focus was 15-second lip-syncing music videos.

The app hit the No. 1 spot in the App Store in the summer of 2015, and never left the
charts.Then, in November 2017, ByteDance purchased Musical.ly in a deal valued at $1 billion.
A little under a year later, in August 2018, ByteDance announced it was shutting down
Musical.ly and merging it into TikTok. All Musical.ly profiles were automatically moved over to
the TikTok platform.

Combining musical.ly and TikTok is a natural fit given the shared mission of both
experiences ,to create a community where everyone can be a creator.After this merger the app
instantly went skyhigh on its success attracting and gaining popularity everyday.

So why should you be on TikTok?What could you achieve in this app?Can you be famous
and start a career using this social platform app? One of TikTok's benefits is its music centric
setup.TikTok has become a launchpad outside of the traditional industry for aspiring artists who
could see their songs go viral for uses in dances and challenges on the app.

Example of this is the singer/songwriter Lil Nas X, whose song "Old Town Road" first
gained momentum on TikTok.Where the song was used for countless videos and memes ahead
of its ascent to the top of the Billboard charts.

Another reason is because the TikTok app serves as “training wheels” for future
influencers and content creators.TikTok provides a framework that makes it easier for people to
create,especially if they don’t know what else to do.

TikTok became the newest platform to turn regular users into viral sensations and
successful influencers.The living proof of this is the most popular star on TikTok ,Loren Gray
who has an amazing 38.1 million followers.

To maintain its current popularity, TikTok will have to keep innovating and finding new
ways to engage their user base. They will also have to make the platform more marketing-
friendly for brands in order to establish the app as a social network that is going to stay.

In a nutshell, TikTok is a fun, entertaining, and addictive app which has seen a surge in
popularity in the last few months. TheTik Tok app also has the potential to become the next big
marketing and social networking platform.

However, how the app creators leverage this potential and maintain the current popularity
of the app, has yet to be seen. So what are you waiting for, get your phones and download this
amazing app already and who knows maybe you are the next TikTok star that would set the
newest trend known around the world.