What is it TikTok: Parents’ about TikTok that makes it so popular? Well, among other things, it makes it easy to record and post short videos of up to 60 seconds (originally only 15) featuring lip-syncing, dancing, or singing along to your favorite artists. It also offers the ability to use face masks (like on Snapchat and Instagram Stories), include multiple effects and augmented reality elements, and slow down or speed up playback. Just enough to elevate any teenager to star status , or at least make them feel that way.
TikTok: heads and tails
Some TikTok: Parents’ people post spectacular choreographies with multiple costume and b2b email list makeup changes in just seconds. Others record hilarious jokes and tutorials on a wide variety of things (including cosmetics). Or short skit-style dramatizations with a clever script.
There are also thousands of videos with the hashtag #anamia and similar ones, which sing odes to what’s new on linkedin for pages in 2020 anorexia and bulimia. Not to mention the videos in which teenagers appear jumping out of moving cars. Or in which they strike provocative poses with a marked sexual undertone, especially the girls, and even the little ones.
The tendency to convey highly sexualized images of minors (or rather, female minors) is just one of the controversies surrounding the platform. In India, the Tamil Nadu Ministry of Communications and Technology even proposed banning it in February 2019, canada email lead claiming that the app is “sexually degrading” and promotes cyberbullying through the comments left on videos. TikTok responded by assuring users that it takes “robust measures to protect users from misuse.”
TikTok is full of challenges that encourage
Participants to record videos with a theme or based on a melody. Some are absurd and even dangerous, but also others encourage participants to share an artistic creation with the hashtags #ArtChallenge and #OneLineChallenge or to reflect on the effects of climate change with #TodosPorElClima, launched in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In #DanceForChange, dances become a virtual petition demanding greater investment in sustainable agriculture: sponsored by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development and several artists, it has generated more than 100 million views. #EduTok promotes educational and motivational content. In #TheRealChallenge, UNICEF and the European Union propose sharing videos to denounce child labor, gender inequality, bullying, and family separation.