Cameron Earl

Prof. Sipes

English 1101

September 23, 2020

Tik Tok: A review

Today I am going to evaluate the shining star of 2020: Tik Tok. Tik Tok is a social

media application available to smartphone users that allows them to show the world

pretty much anything. The app is used to display anything from dances to political

views, to comedy sketches, to cooking tutorials. The application pretty much allows you

to express yourself creatively in any way you seem fit. The feed consists of short videos

less than a minute long that you can share, like, and comment on. There are no limits

on what you can post (as long as it falls within their guidelines of course). I believe that

Tik Tok is a great app that people of all ages should download because of its ability to

let people express themselves, the ability to enact change and influence, and its ability

to promote music.

Tik Tok is a great platform to express yourself on. A prime example would be

dancing. Throughout 2020, hundreds of talented people have risen to fame due to

videos of them dancing to different songs in whichever way they find fit. One of the most

notable is Charli D' Amelio, who has accumulated over 87 million followers just in the

last 11 months on the app. Charli is a 16-year-old experienced dancer that is now

making around $25,000 a post. She posts primarily short videos of her dancing to new

or popular songs. Another way Tik Tok allows users to express themselves is through

tutorial and demonstration videos. Talented cooks have made a name for themselves
on Tik Tok through making cooking tutorial videos on how to make anything from lava

cake to lasagna. People will also post intriguing science videos of them doing different

experiments with things such as lasers, chemical reactions, batteries, etc.

Tik Tok is very powerful when it comes to influencing people. Some may say that

the platform is bad for society due to the negativity displayed at times throughout the

app. However, I would argue that there are going to be some bad apples in everything

in life, especially social media, and you can't judge a platform entirely by some haters.

The app has influenced people to do many positive and fun things such as give

generous tips at restaurants, participate in challenges, do things with a significant other,

and so on. The app does a pretty good job of keeping videos displaying illegal or

inappropriate acts off of Tik Tok due to it being more centered towards positive content.

It has also had a huge play on politics this year due to it being an election year. With

privacy being a concern due to its Chinese owner, it has been on the verge of being

banned in the United States a few times in the last 2 months by President Donald

Trump, however, thankfully it was just recently bought out by Oracle and Walmart. This

isn't it's only involvement with politics though. After the death of George Floyd in May,

Tik Tok has been a platform for expressing the need for political reform and addressing

the problems with racism in the United States. At times, people do get a little carried

away with their political views and do more harm than good with the content they create.

However, at the end of the day, Tik Tok has done a great job of bringing people

together through common interests and hobbies, rather than the other way around. It

has influenced the worlds of music, photography, news, comedy, fashion, cars, and

more.
 Lastly, Tik Tok has done wonders when it comes to promoting growing artists

and new music. In a very large portion of the videos on Tik Tok, a song is being played

in the background. People desire specific songs for the different moods they are in or

what they are trying to express, which has gotten many people to explore new artists

and new music, rather than staying with the stuff they've heard many times before. A

perfect example of an artist that has risen to the top with the help of Tik Tok is Arizona

Zerves. His song "Roxanne” blew up on Tik Tok through it being used on famous

creator's videos such as Addison Rae Easterling and Charli D' Amelio. This song

jump-started his career. In December, the song had been out for a while and only had

around 200,000 listens. It started to be used on Tik Tok, and now it has over 890 million

listens, making it a smash hit across the country. Another artist it has done wonders for

is DaBaby. Through songs of his such as "Rockstar” being played constantly on Tik

Tok, he went from only a few million listeners a month, to now being one of the biggest

artists in the world on Spotify and Apple Music. Tik Tok has also been an opportunity for

people to promote their new songs or albums, through creating videos in which they

discuss how they went about making their song and how important it is to them that it

receives plays and listens.

I believe that Tik Tok is a great app that people of all ages should download

because of its ability to let people express themselves, the ability to enact change and

influence, and its ability to promote music. It has positively impacted many people's lives

by promoting the creative things they enjoy. It has allowed small artists and producers

to promote their careers in a way that no other platform has been able to do before. At

the end of the day, Tik Tok is a great platform that I recommend to everyone, especially
creative people trying to get their name out there. It allows people to be entertained,

informed, intrigued, and so on. Tik Tok has over 2 billion downloads to date; go out and

make it more!