By Liran Friedman, head of Creative and Digital at Artlist
TikTok is built different.
I mean that in both senses of the phrase. The way TikTok’s algorithm is designed, built and implemented is rather unique to the app, or at least it was before its myriad of copycats sprung up. But I also mean that TikTok is “built different” in the way the kids on TikTok use the term, which is to say it is in a league of its own, however absurd or wild or funny or patently ridiculous.
Unlike any other social platform in the world, TikTok’s advanced algorithm creates a fully personalized experience on every front – one that is hyper-responsive in countless different directions. It allows both creators and users to find their preferable spaces in TikTok's ecosystem. It’s the new frontier of content democratization.
A brief history of being online
Content democratization is not new. It’s woven into the very fabric of the internet since its humble beginnings. Democratized video content happened with the 2005 launch of YouTube. Anyone could make a video, and they uploaded them by the millions. In what we now consider the early eras of YouTube, vlogging, low production values, and totally unmediated creative energy reigned. It was easy to get started with a simple camera and a good idea. The platform encouraged it, as homemade video after homemade video went supersonic. It felt mad and frighteningly “authentic,” something no one would necessarily accuse YouTube of now.
And then came Vine.
You can’t talk about TikTok without talking about Vine because you don’t get to TikTok without Vine. The makers of Vine envisioned the app as a social platform among family and friends, a way to share little videos from daily life. When it took off as a content creation platform, they were taken by complete surprise. The comedic sensibility and creative potential of TikTok was pioneered here, as was the infinite and seamless scroll baked into the UX. Vine not only democratized video creation; it transformed it with a solely mobile interface. No camera equipment was required, only your phone -- a welcome shift as YouTube’s production values skyrocketed.
But Vine ultimately failed because it did not reward the creators who made it. These creators understandably abandoned it for platforms where they could make money. TikTok has been careful not to make the same mistake, and the coinciding monetization opportunities for successful creators – both niche and mainstream – have made all the difference.
TikTok has effectively done the impossible on two fronts. For one, it’s become a multinational social giant at a moment when the existing social media giants seemed all but impenetrable. For another, it has upended the superstar model within internet creation. YouTube’s democratizing impulse flatlined when it went all-in on its biggest creators. By 2016, the top 3% of channels were commanding 90% of viewer traffic. And only a fraction of that 3% was actually making a living off their videos.
TikTok is no less video-centric than YouTube, but it took a different approach to its creators. And it’s changing the game.
The TikTok ‘it’ factor
TikTok breeds monetization opportunities for both niche and mainstream creators. This, in combination with very specific UX and design choices, makes it lightning in a bottle. Creators on TikTok benefit financially on a platform that – unlike nearly every other social media platform – is organized so the creators a given user follows is only a fraction of the main feed
It sounds like an oxymoron: TikTok’s algorithm is ever-expanding, yet always needling itself closer to the most accurate content desired by an individual user. TikTok Home feed is an endless supply of new content from accounts a user follows and, more importantly, accounts they don’t.
TikTok’s emphasis on discovery and its decentralized feel go hand-in-hand. As a platform, TikTok is what we refer to as sticky. You never log into TikTok, watch one video, and log off. The interface is dominated by the scroll, and the UX is effortless. You never decide what to watch on TikTok the way you decide on Netflix or even Instagram’s Explore page. A TikTok is simply waiting for you the moment you open the app. It’s always going forward, never routing you back to something you’ve seen before, forever personalizing its algorithm to your choices.
But TikTok doesn’t just want you to watch. TikTok wants you to make TikToks. It feels like YouTube used to feel: all you need is a good idea and a phone camera. And like YouTube before it, it mints stars of its own. These stars set trends, land brand partnerships and build audiences – all without the blessing of traditional entertainment establishment players.
TikTok is upending content creation because it makes finding an audience, however niche, easy and possible. Simple, straightforward, amateur content is welcomed, so long as it is also funny, informative, authentic, or otherwise appealing. It’s anything-goes format is endlessly adaptable, which is to say there’s a -Tok subcommunity for everything: BookTok, WitchTok, MoneyTok, FashionTok, you name it.
Anyone can contribute to a trend or start a new one. The built-in shortness of the videos, combined with how easy they are to produce, has made creators into the main attraction, more so than any one TikTok a creator happens to produce. And these content creators, particularly those doing something very specific who might have never broken through on YouTube, are finding audiences ready and waiting on TikTok. They’re also being courted by legacy brands and major corporations for partnerships and sponsorships. It’s an absolute game changer.
And then there’s the memes. Memes on TikTok don’t necessarily trickle down from the biggest creators. Instead, they bubble up. Memes are often tied to the use of a specific song, sound effect, sound byte from other TikToks, movies and television. Clever creators use sounds for comedic effect not in addition to the narrative but as an integral part of it: dads doing dad things to the Home Depot jingle, for instance. Clips of songs are spliced together and remixed; lyrics are edited in and out. Once a song is used, it can be elaborated on endlessly.
TikTok’s UX-assisted encouragement to post is incredibly thought out. You can respond to comments within videos, and the comment will float on screen during said response videos. TikTok’s built-in layering and stitch capabilities encourage user after user to hop on and join. This is how sea shanties go viral.
Gen Z is pushing content democratization forward
TikTok is not just replicating the democratizing impulse of early YouTube, although like YouTube before it, it has implemented a massive paradigm shift for digital creators and consumers. It’s a major social media app and it’s mining data for targeted ads. Its algorithms don’t exist solely to zero-in on a given user’s taste. But it’s different, and it’s certainly part of that initial internet lineage.
The fragmented, decentralized and viral-friendly nature of TikTok is extremely pedestrian and accessible – a huge positive that has created a new creative paradigm. Everyone can participate, genuinely. TikTok’s format allows creators to make great content quickly, particularly since there’s already the expectation that content will be short and sweet. And the creators themselves are the main attraction. By the same token, no one creator holds a monopoly since everyone is watching multiple TikToks from multiple creators every time they open the app. It’s changing everything.
TikTok’s democratizing impulse animates the app. The high amount of videos users watch during one app session (thanks in large part to how short the average TikTok is) and the decentralized feel and ever-expanding amount of new videos on the feed -- all this makes visibility for small and niche creators feel possible again. Combined with TikTok’s emphasis and encouragement of user participation and creation, it’s a content democratization bonanza. And it’s changing the nature of digital creativity.
It’s also worth mentioning that TikTok is no longer the wild west of content production that it was a year or so ago. The days when you could go viral easily and quickly are coming to their natural and inevitable end. The competition for followers and views has accelerated in tandem with the huge increase in creators making accounts and publishing content on the platform. This is something of an experiment in the making: we’ll soon be able to see if TikTok’s democratizing power can withstand the platform growing increasingly populated and, by extension, increasingly professional. The jury is still out.
The future remains to be seen. As for the past and the present? That’s an interesting dynamic unto itself. Gen Z wasn’t online for the initial heyday of video content democratization, but somehow their social media platform of choice hankers back to those early, anything-goes days. Like Vine and Snapchat before it, young people were on TikTok first, and they determined its tone, humor and sensibilities. Older people and companies came later. Whether this means TikTok will continue its massive growth or new platforms will emerge and take over is uncertain, but content creation will no doubt continue to evolve. Thanks to TikTok, at least for the meantime, it might just be democratic again.
About the author:
Liran Friedman is the head of Creative and Digital at Arlist. He previously worked as a freelance video creator, a filmmaking teacher, and co-founded Friedman Brothers Creative & Video in 2012. He has written, directed, filmed, and produced hundreds of commercial videos for clients around the world. He joined Artlist in 2017 and has served as Head of Creative and Digital since 2019, focusing on leading the strategy for content creation related to performance marketing, branding, visual design, social presence, and video content. He lives in Israel.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.