Since I have been partying with some young girls lately some in their early twenties, I am kind of getting the hang of the most famous app currently among the generation Z that is teens between the age group of 13 to 24 years. These teens and young adolescents have gotten hooked to the latest social media buzz app called Tik Tok which has its origins, ye you guessed it China. It seems that the Coronavirus is not the only especially they have, the reds have taken over the internet and the world of AI. The Chinese equivalent to Facebook is a company called Byte Dance which is valued at 75 billion dollars and is very well funded by the top VC funds including Soft Bank. Soft Bytes is the creator of Tik Tok the brand name of a short format video-sharing app, with lots of functionality and editing tools that lets its users interact with each other and showcase their special talents top the world at large. The app has video editing and uses short length video’s 15 sec to 60 sec, the user can use it as a lip-syncing app and choreograph dance sequences or just do a some bakwaas Bollywood Shayari. It lets you use filters to use old Hindi songs as background music. Users can watch each other’s videos on a long horizontal video format which is more user friendly. Your fans can respond by sending emoji’s or stickers to you, people can like and comment on the performance you gave in your video’s.
There are hours of trending video’s to watch for, Tik Tok has created stars and celebrity out of normal folks on the street like me and you. These youths in small cities and rural towns have found a cheap but effective voice to showcase their art and talent through Tik Tok, mind you they get instant validation through likes and love from their fans, this encourages them to make more content. Yes, Tik Tok is a platform that generates user-generated content, which is created through its unique video editing interface full of innovative tools to create more wacky and quirky videos. The sheer up security and craziness of the app are it’s the biggest USP. You can lip-sync old Bollywood dialogues, write text, tint and merge different videos together with a montage feel too. The sky is the limit, people have gone crazy on the app and it has more than. 500 million active users a month with more than 1.5 billion downloads. Tik Tok has taken away a large market share from Instagram IGTV and Instagram stories and left face book far behind in the teen and youth segment.
The app is pure freedom and creativity in the hands of the users and what’s more with AI integration the app also diluters to you all the content and videos that you would like naturally by tracking your views and content tastes. AI is the edge of the app and that why it has left IGTV and WeChat behind. The application Music=ly that was a lip-sync music-based video app was bought over for 1 billion dollars by Byte Dance.
The company now focuses on social media app and is at the cutting edge of AI tools. But since it originates from China it is yet to merge with popular American culture. Being Chinese people see it as a state-owned app, which is not free. The US department of justice is looking into the internal affairs of the company, and especially how it collects and stores user data that is generated through its app.
Meanwhile, the app has unearthed many new stars and unknown faces who have found fame through their content video. A whole subculture of young new age internet and special media influencers has come to the fronts. Brands are now targeting them to promote their products and get a market share of their followers. You-tubers like Arshifa Khan, actress Ashika Bhatia and Jannat Zubair have found fame and following through this video and talent sharing platform. Generation Z as they are called is the youths who are used to getting information off the net in seconds at zero cost. They are the ones most active on this chief’s app, which has grown massively around the world in the last two years. It’s easy to use interface and short video format with crazy special effects add to its appeal. I saw a video with a grandmom sharing her cancer story through her innovative and fun video’s, where she is singing and even joking to her followers about her fight with cancer, while she lip-syncs her favorite songs
The app hosts viral video contests and uses extensive hashtags to link and promote its videos’ amongst it’s swiftly rising user base. How do they make money? Simple advertising and influencer programs. It partners the world’s top fashion, gaming, and apparel ads that are targeting Generation Z. So much so that it is giving Mark Zuckerberg sleepless nights, he has been speaking against the rise of Chinese apps in recent times and sees Tik Tok and the AI revolution taking place in China as a direct threat to US-based technology companies.
Tik Tok meanwhile has opened a swanky office in the US and spread its footprints around the globe, making sure that epos keep using it to find unique ways of promoting their talent. It’s creative power unleashed through the hands of the masses, and that’s the very reason for its explosive popularity and mass appeal across cultures and geographic boundaries. Till then we hail the generation of the Tik Tok Teens hooked on to this wonderful app from China.
