TIKTOK IS ON THE CLOCK

By Basil Morales, Staff writer

Chanel Carbonell and her friend Melannie Cruz doing a TikToK video.

TiKTok is a social media app for creating, sharing, and discovering short music and funny videos. As the most entertaining and time-consuming app, some say it  has replaced Vine.  TiKTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing- based company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming.  The app was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android for markets outside of China, and since then, it has gained a lot of fame from people of all ages and races, so it’s a multigenerational and multicultural app.

 

Trendy App

Being number 2 on the App Store chart means that TiKTok is very popular among people and has a lot of famous creators. Sophomore Josue Hernández stated, “I downloaded Tiktok because a lot of my family members were using it, and one day my cousin asked if she could download it on my phone because she was bored and so I let her, and since then I never deleted it.” 

  Sophomore Marian Gonzalez said she downloaded TiKTok, “Because everyone was using it, and I was like, it seems funny so I downloaded it, and it was worth it because it entertains me.”

Junior Dashiell Cordon downloaded TiKTok because she saw her friend on it every day, and he told her to download it. “It was worth the download and the storage I lost on my phone,” she said.

 

TiKTok Impacts

Some people have mixed feelings about TiKTok. Senior Eleana Villalobos thinks it’s a very time-consuming app but it does entertain, and it’s the new Vine of the decade.

According to Jorleni Mejia, a sophomore, “TiKTok is a great app to be on when you’re bored. There’s cool dances you can learn, and a lot of things you end up buying because of what they show you.”

Sophomore Hector Alarcon added, “TiKTok is a very diverse app because you can interact with many people with different backgrounds.”

 

On the other hand, Junior Marcella Moret said, “I really don’t like TiKTok because people use it too much and send me videos they think are funny, but they aren’t. Also people at school use it while walking in the hallway, and they walk so slow and that annoys me so bad.”

 

Favorite TiKToker

With so much content uploaded on TiKTok every hour or even every minute, there’s a lot of videos for people to pick as their favorite. Senior Maria Morales said her favorite is “I’m in the ghetto ratatata ratatata ahhh.”

Sophomore Melanie Castellanos likes the videos that David Dobrik posts because of his sense of humor, and all of his funny friends.” She also has a favorite creator which is @mattiapolobio because his videos are very funny and super cute.

Sophomore Juda Castillo’s favorite video is when they do the renegade dance because it looks interesting and she gets entertained trying to do the dance.

Junior Chanel Carbonell’s favorite creator is @adamrayokay “because he be transforming into Rosa and be making these dumb but funny videos that just make me smile and laugh.”

 

Time-Consuming

Five to ten minutes seems like a normal amount of time to be on an app. But when does it become too much on TiKTok? Sophomore John Sotolongo said that people are addicted to TiKTok because when they get bored of YouTube or Netflix, they go to TiKTok, and since new videos are uploaded every day, the app doesn’t get boring. “I relate to the videos where they make fun of school because I be making fun of school with my friends,” he said.

Freshman Alberto Insua said that TiKTok gets you addicted “Because it can relate to your childhood, and once you start, you just can stop. I never thought I would get addicted myself.”