Teens on TikTok

87.3% of Carrollton’s Upper School students have TikTok on their phones, but what is TikTok, and why are teens so obsessed with it? 

It’s hard to talk about life in the twenty-first century without mentioning TikTok. Originally known as Musical.ly, TikTok is a social media platform where users can create, publish, or view short videos on any topic imaginable. With over 689 million users, TikTok is the fastest-growing social media app in the world. 

The app first began rising to fame as Musical.ly in 2017 but rebranded as TikTok on August 2, 2018. At the time, Musical.ly was focused on lip-syncing to music, whereas TikTok has a more dynamic topic range – including dancing, singing, challenges, showing off your makeup skills, and more. With videos being a minute or less, videos shared on TikTok can be funny and lighthearted, or serious and bring awareness to specific topics. Some companies have been using TikTok for their marketing with short videos as sponsored ads and/or by collaborating with influencers/users to create ads.

In October 2018, TikTok was the most downloaded photo and video app on the Apple store globally. Short videos automatically begin playing when you open the app. TikTok divides the videos into a “following” category of videos from users one follows, and a “for you” category featuring videos curated based on likes and dislikes. It is very easy to get lost in a sea of videos and scroll for a long time. 

One of the fun things about TikTok is that anyone can become famous. Often known as the face of TikTok, Charli D’amelio is a seventeen-year-old high-schooler from Connecticut who became famous for her dancing skills. Today, D’amelio has over 124 million followers and almost 10 billion likes. Like Charli, many other teens have become engaged with TikTok and some have even had several of their videos “blow up.” 

Carrollton alumna, Sophia Talamas ‘21, became popular on TikTok for her dancing skills and underwater videos. Known to the TikTok community as “sophiat24,” Talamas has over 16 million followers and almost 350 million likes. 

In the Carrollton Upper School community, TikTok is the most popular and favorite social media platform with most of the community watching videos and creating their own. The TikTok community is a social media platform with something for everyone.