The Rise of TikTok: From Chinese Social Media to Global Success – A Lesson in Contemporary Content

O TikTok emerged in 2016. In China, it started as a social media for short snippets of music. From 500 million users in 2018, it doubled to one billion the following year. The Senegalese naturalized Italian Khaby Lame (born in 2000) is an example of success. Without saying anything, he shows his amazement at the complications of the world and how everything could be easier. Charismatic, he has more than 160 million followers and contracts with several companies. He got rich.

There is an ongoing trend. In the past, epic poetry gave way to the shorter novel. The speed and dilution of the contemporary focus indicate that the most synthetic reaches more people. Viewed in traffic or in an elevator, videos lasting just a few seconds can provide a more palatable start and end experience than a long film. TikTok also shreds scenes from old series. The experience should fit into a short Uber ride. Access is random, fast and should satisfy the thirst for novelty, satisfy the brain’s dopamine addiction and combat boredom. Happiness hormones work with doses of humor and creativity, but only last a few minutes at most.

Browsing TikTok videos is a lesson in the contemporary world. Some content is simple jokes; others ride the wave of political polarization; there is curious information and even certain more elaborate cultural initiatives. If, in the beginning, dance videos dominated, that is not the current trend. It caters to anxious users, able to move on at any drop in speed or interest. Everything must be very fast.

If you are a teacher or parent, I recommend you watch videos there. The problem is that the algorithm will indicate content that you like, in a few minutes, but not what your child or student sees. Every show will be a little rigged. It would be good to ask the young man to reveal, on his cell phone, what appears as a video. This will be a solid example of what enlarges that person’s pupil.

I’ll give an example. One day, at an airport on the planet, I saw a video on TikTok with the following structure: a WhatsApp conversation with a scene of friction. It was a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law arguing who would sit in the front seat next to their husband/son. A classic clash between the duo that already animated Molière: the husband’s mother and his wife. I was interested: it seemed like a new type of soap opera, narrated on WhatsApp, with simple resources and a traditional moral. It was a very short form of television drama reduced to two minutes. I found very interesting. They seemed like false narratives, produced to create hatred towards mothers-in-law, as there are more TikTok users who are daughters-in-law. Mothers-in-law (older) would be on Facebook, where they are probably heroes.

My cell phone understood the message and I started to be inundated with “WhatsApp conversations” on TikTok. Video versions with actors even appeared. Basic moral: what’s mine is mine (don’t invade my pool, farm or use my clothes); my family is my wife/husband and my children (no sisters-in-law); lazy neighbors are abominable; a woman must take care of her house; men must be faithful, etc. A serial with traces of conservatism that provokes anger in the reader/viewer. Short moral excerpts, with petit-bourgeois tragedies, in the best Vaudeville theater style: fast entertainment, with family confusion, lots of humor and music.

See how the so-called cultural circularity works. In the Vaudeville theater, which was successful at the beginning of the 20th century in the USA, a very expressive comedian emerged: Buster Keaton (1895-1966). The nickname “buster” had good appeal (meaning guy, smart guy or even idiot). From the popular stage, he went to silent cinema as a great actor and director. The film A General (1926) became a classic of humor in cinema. Orson Welles considered it one of the greatest films ever made in history. Cinema incorporated popular theater. In the same way, there is a dialogue between the quick improvisation of stand-up and TikTok. The most successful artists in improv comedies, with quick jokes, celebrate their successes on the network. Being successful in theaters with humor is born and fuels TikTok.

I saw, in February 2024, a Macbeth of almost three hours in São Paulo, without a break. Ah, time and the brain… When Shakespeare performed his plays, the inclusion of certain “vulgarities” (like the doorman scene in the aforementioned work) made some people turn up their noses. The “popular” Shakespearean tone caused heavy criticism even in the Enlightenment, by Voltaire, for example. At all times, someone laments the terrible moment of current art and compares it with the good productions of other times. I’m not comparing Shakespeare and TikTok. I think about the change of time and cerebral pleasure. The same old questions arise: a Japanese “haiku” has seventeen poetic syllables. The divine Comedy, by Dante, has 14,233 verses. We are the generation that can still compare these different forms. What is your hope for the future?