The explosion of TikTok

Trends, dances, cuisine, curious facts, fashion, funny videos, information: the TikTok is a universe of content, in which we can find everything and more. The most famous social network of the moment is an entertainment machine, which has the power to make and unmake careers. In this article, you will find out more about the platform and the why its success.

TikTok is a social network that consists of sharing short videos, normally 15 seconds, but a maximum of 3 minutes. The platform, which was already widely known, saw a explosion in its number of active users during the pandemic. In 2020, according to data from Sensor Tower, the social network has gained more than 750 million active users, which represented a 85% growth compared to the previous year and which caused the total number of active users to exceed the billion.

Since then, TikTok has become a rage, consecutively being the most downloaded app in the world in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and by the end of 2021, there were already more than three billion downloads. There are several reasons why the platform has become so popular. First of all, TikTok is extremely easy to use, allowing the user to create and share videos in a few minutes - an aspect that has been increasingly worked on by the company, which launched in 2020 the CapCut, a “brother” of TikTok, focusing on video editing. On the other hand, the platform ends up becoming quite addictive, due to the quick and easy-to-watch content, with a multitude of videos on different topics.

TikTok has revolutionized the social media industry. In addition to abandoning the traditional text and image format From its competitors, the social network also has a different way of presenting content. While, on Instagram or Facebook, you need to follow friends and celebrities to see their content, on TikTok you just have to enter the application to come across the For You Page (“For You”), an updated feed with new and diverse content, specially selected and custom shape for the user. 

Its innovation has made it increasingly common for other social networks to copy TikTok, with the introduction of tools that are the same or similar to those on the platform, as is the case with TikTok. Instagram Reels, of the YouTube Shorts or even from the “For You” page, Twitter. 

Another aspect that made TikTok so relevant was its viral strand. There is a huge amount of content on the platform that ends up being shared on other social networks, but, more than that, on TikTok it is possible to be propelled to stardom with just one video successful on the platform. Currently, the success of a song can be easily measured by your performance on social media and new artists are discovered and shot to fame with just one viral song. An example of this is Gayle, an American singer who, despite having no previous relevance in the music scene, became known worldwide due to the success of her song “ABCDEFU” on TikTok.

Despite its success, TikTok is a platform that causes some controversy, especially in the United States of America. In 2020, when its number of users exploded, the US government, then led by Donald Trump, expressed concerns about national security in relation to the platform, as it was owned by ByteDance, a private Chinese company. Although there is no evidence of any kind, and even though TikTok does not operate in China, the North American executive feared that the company was share your users' data with the Chinese government.

In August of that same year, the United States government issued an executive order that banned TikTok in the country, unless ByteDance sold control of the platform to a national company. This order would eventually be suspended in October 2020, after a federal judge blocked it. At the time, the company had already agreed to sell a majority stake in TikTok to Oracle and Walmart.

Recently, at the beginning of this year, the Biden administration rekindled the flames of this controversy, with the same demands as the previous government. This led to the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, had to give explanations about the social network before Congress of the United States. The platform's ban on North American soil is unpopular among the population, given that almost half of the country (approximately 150 million people) uses the social network and it has been an essential platform for promoting small businesses.